How can one of the MegaDrive's worst racing games be one of its cleverest? In search of yet more racing game pain and suffering, I discover that the only pain I'm going to encounter with Hard Drivin' for the MegaDrive is quite how many diagrams I need to draw to explain it to you. Maybe it's time to upgrade to something a little newer than Deluxe Paint 2 Enhanced.

See what makes Hard Drivin' interesting is that, on the face of it, Sega's 16bit wonder can't do polygons at all. We know this. It's why Virtua Racing needs that fancy extra chip in the cartridge. So how is Hard Drivin' doing this all on a standard console? And why would the original developers and indeed players not really have worried about that famous frame rate?

Skip to the end of polygon drawing:

0:00 Lazy Generic Angry Game Reviews
0:27 The real intro
1:53 Turns out there are stupid questions
3:02 PC graphics cards: NOT for games
4:39 People will want access to the stupid inserts, right?
5:27 Console graphics: FOR games
7:03 Let's talk about sprites
8:15 How do '80s driving games work?
11:53 The Polygon
13:05 Let's talk vintage frame rates
14:09 The Polygon at the arcade
14:37 We finally get to the point... almost
15:05 Challenge Timberwolf: Hard Drivin' Championship Lap
20:37 A review of Hard Drivin' of sorts
21:26 How does it work, if you're not on a MegaDrive?
22:20 OK, but what if you ARE on a MegaDrive?
22:46 Timberwolf manages to avoid the point again...
23:00 ...or maybe not
24:12 Yes, I did just explain how Hard Drivin' works
25:48 How to double buffer without two buffers
27:06 Time to mention that £70 cartridge
28:02 How did Virtua Racing work?
29:10 15fps. It's the law.
29:51 Is it time for an iconoclastic verdict already?
30:33 It's been 31 minutes, let's give up and rent games

Music from original games and by DivKid / Nico Staf

1. Rich In The 80s DivKid
2. Fast and Run Nico Staf

Games Featured:

Hard Drivin' (MegaDrive)
Outrun (Arcade)
ZZT (PC)
Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero/Whatever Turtles (NES)
Car & Driver (PC)
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (PC)
Formula One Grand Prix (PC)
Formula One Grand Prix (Amiga)
Hard Drivin' (Arcade)
Test Drive 2: The Duel (MegaDrive)
Virtua Racing (MegaDrive)

Comments are prereviewed to avoid spam. I aim to publish all comments, including dissent, but overly pedantic or negative ones may be moderated. Hearing about different experiences and what things were like in other countries adds a lot to the video! Please try to do so in a positive way while remembering that if I had to explain every minor international difference the video would be 3 hours long and boring, rather than 31 minutes long and boring. Failing that, at least make me laugh.

Bonus fact: F1GP has one of the strangest frame rate options of any game, where you select the number of frames per second of simulated time, and if your PC isn't fast enough then one second of simulated time will take longer than one second of real time. It's a genuine problem for recording and sharing hotlaps, where this slowdown makes things easier.

#megadrive #harddrivin #polygons