Hard Drivin'

The player drives a sports car in a first-person perspective, navigating one to two laps around a stunt track for their best time while avoiding hazards such as vehicles and obstacles. If the player scores in the top 10 during certain modes, they race alongside the computer-controlled Phantom Photon car. A manual transmission mode includes a clutch pedal and the possibility of stalling the car, along with a haptic vibrating steering wheel. The track is a closed race track that splits into two conjoined circuits: a "speed" track, and a "stunt" track, the latter of which features a vertical loop and an open drawbridge. The track also features traffic vehicles driving at regular speed that will crash the player's car upon collision.

The player's driving progress is tracked by invisible waypoints, denoted by flags on the course map when the game ends due to time running out. Passing the waypoint halfway through the track grants the player extra time.

Development of the 3D computer graphics arcade hardware that was eventually used for Hard Drivin' began in the mid-1980s, several years before the game was released. At the time, Atari Games was owned by Namco, and the two companies began working on a 3D arcade system. After Atari and Namco separated, each company developed its own arcade system in the late 1980s, based on the same prototype. Atari used an earlier version of the hardware for Hard Drivin', and Namco developed a more advanced version of the hardware called the Namco System 21, used for Winning Run (1988).

The development of Hard Drivin' began in 1988. Atari originally intended a 1988 release, but according to one of Atari's engineers and designers, it was delayed due to the dispute from its vice president claiming nobody would buy an arcade cabinet for US$10,000 (equivalent to $27,000 in 2025) after The Last Starfighter arcade game was canceled for that reason a few years earlier. Weeks of research concluded that this price was acceptable.

Atari sold 3,318 Hard Drivin' arcade cabinets. In Japan, Game Machine listed Hard Drivin' in its June 1, 1989, issue as the second most successful upright/cockpit arcade cabinet of the month. It became Japan's sixth highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1990. On Hong Kong's Bondeal charts, it topped the dedicated arcade cabinet chart in November 1989. The Spectrum version rose to number 2 in the UK sales charts, behind Gazza's Superstar Soccer.

Nick Kelly of Commodore User reviewed the arcade version and said: "Hard Drivin' is exactly what its name suggests — difficult. You won't master this quickly, and if you aren't used to driving a car it's going to be very tough for you indeed. But Atari can be proud of themselves for producing a coin-op which really does put you in the driving seat, and that is undeniably a major first".

In 2004, Hard Drivin' was released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox as part of the Midway Arcade Treasures 2 collection.

An arcade system sequel named Race Drivin' was released in 1990, while a sequel, released in 1991 for the Atari ST, Amiga, and MS-DOS computer systems, was named Hard Drivin' II - Drive Harder. Two further sequels, Hard Drivin's Airborne (1993) and Street Drivin' (1993) were unreleased.