Game Reviews

Hydro Thunder, released back in 1999 in arcades and on the SEGA Dreamcast, is a title probably many of you haven’t played or even heard of for that matter. For those of you who do know of it, well, you will know that it was pretty good powerboat arcade racer. Admittedly, this isn’t a “genre” packed full of quality titles (or many titles at all) but, hey, the point is it was a good game. Fast forward to the present day and we finally have a “sequel”. The game is called Hydro Thunder Hurricane and it is being released exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade as part of Microsoft’s “Summer of Arcade” promotion. Almost 11 years on from the original does this “sequel” manage to storm its way to the top or does it get lost in a hurricane? Read on for the full review.

A few seconds after loading up Hydro Thunder Hurricane and hearing the “announcer” shout out the title, you are made aware of the games arcade roots. Other than the aforementioned “announcer”, you also have the “cheesy” music and the easy to navigate menus, something which is almost an unofficial trademark of arcade based titles. The arcade style also crosses over to the visuals, both during actual gameplay and outside it. For the most part, the game uses bright colours (mostly primary ones) to create a welcoming, arcade feel. The in-game visuals are impressive for an XBLA title, the water in particular looks great. The boats themselves are nicely modelled but their textures could of done with some extra work. You can read the text or see the graphics on them fine in the selection menu but in-game they look rather blurred. Apart from that though, everything else has a clean, crisp look to it. Even the courses look great, each one having its own distinct personality thanks to some great visual touches. On some courses there is so much going on (planes flying by, explosions or police boats “chasing” you) yet it doesn’t seem to effect the gameplay at all, everything moves along without even a hint of slowdown.

At first glance Hydro Thunder Hurricane doesn’t seem to offer much in terms of gameplay but once you start playing the game, you realise that is not the case. The main “goal” in the game is to earn credits so you can unlock more content. The catch is though, credits are only earned if you finish in the top three. At first this can only be done on the novice level due to the boats at your disposal but once you earn enough credits to unlock the pro and expert boats the game opens up big time. Using the pro and expert boats not only earns you more credits for a top three finish but events become a lot harder too, especially the expert ones.