Hydro Thunder Hurricane

The first time I came across Hydro Thunder was in one of those Amusement for Adults places, you know, the sort that has loads of arcade machines, hoops to shoot, alleys to bowl and alcohol to consume. It was in Bellevue in Washington State at a work ‘do’ and some corporate partner had hired the place for the entire evening, meaning that all us attending got free goes on everything in there all night. I’d wandered around for a bit, tried the HumVee racing games and picked up the odd beer or two, when I spotted a pair of linked systems with Hydro Thunder splashed (no pun intended) over the cabinets. Being the curious soul I am, I wandered over and took a seat. Two hours later I decided that I should probably move on… my beer was warm, too.

Imagine then my delight as there, on XBLA, as part of the Summer of Arcade was Hydro Thunder Hurricane! It was like my birthday had come slightly early!

There are differences between the full-on arcade game and the XBLA version but I’ll come to those in a minute. The game itself is about trashing hugely, and increasingly powerful speedboats around a number of racecourses. There are three (actually four but I’ll come back to the fourth) game modes in which you can play: Race – a simple head to head between you and fifteen other drivers,  Ring Master – in which you have to navigate the courses through sets of rings and beat the clock in the process and Gauntlet – a simple speed run through courses strewn with exploding barrels.

At the start you’ll have a limited choice of boats available to you i.e. you’ll have the choice of one! Using this averagely specced up craft you can start racing and as you race you win points and the value of your points kitty will unlock both new tracks and new boats in which to race them. I found the initial boat “Vector” to be a pretty good craft in the Novice class and actually did all of my racing in that class in the same boat. The races handicap you by putting you at the back of a strung out starting pack – 16th out of 16 – and you have to really get to know the tracks, the shortcuts where the boost power-ups are and how to handle your boat of choice in order to make up those places. As a quick note of caution you may find yourself frustrated that things aren’t quite working out for you, have no fear as practice does indeed help and you get points for each event you do, every time, so you can unlock new tracks and boats simply by doing one event over and over again if you like. I didn’t but I did go back to earlier ones where I’d only scored Silver or Bronze place and found it SO much easier to get a Gold later on!

A little about the power-ups now. In the full arcade game, the courses were liberally scattered with crates you could run in to and collect power-ups for your boat – faster engines, handling improvements, that sort of thing. In the XBLA version these are missing and all you have are Boost power-ups which provide your boat with some extra speed and the ability to “Boost jump” which is needed to take advantage of some of the shortcuts. The power-ups are always in the same place so after a while you get to plan your racing lines to clip these little beauties so you’ll always have a supply on tap. It’s especially important to get the red X4 ones! I initially missed having the other power-ups but after a while I forgot all about them.

Now then, there is one final mode of play, Championship. In Championship competitions you take part in a series of events which cover all of the other disciplines. The first, entitled “Milk Run” is two events, a Race and a Ring Master. The Novice Championship has 3 events and there are ten Championships in total to get through. My advice here is make sure you know your boats as the one you start a championship with is the one you’ll use all of the way through!

One you’ve mastered the single player mode you can take your skill online for multiplayer fun and find out just how… well rubbish, in my case, you are!