Hydro Thunder Hurricane Review

By Simon Parkin Published 26 July, 2010

Buoyant.

Version tested: Xbox 360

If Limbo, last week's inaugural Summer of Arcade release, aspired to the art house aesthete's choice - Braid through a glass, darkly - Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a hyperactive celebration of balls-out, dumbass, American videogame-ness. 25-foot racing boats, whose engines roar in Texan accents, roll and bounce through white water rapids. They gobble down speed boost capsules like froth-mouthed junkies under a maelstrom of distorted keyboards and six-foot snare drum clacks.

Delicacy and finesse be damned, screams developer Vector Unit into the wind and spray: videogames are about domination and high-speed spectacle; they're about shaving a few seconds from the times of every last name on your Enemies List; about finding the odd secret bonus and, every three laps or so, making your jaw hang slack as a giant f**king sea serpent explodes out of the water and sends your boat ricocheting off into a rock face.

Videogames should exaggerate physics in search of perfecting the chemistry of play, the game argues. Spin out on a corner and you need only stab the back button for a rolling reset: combo the endorphins without pause for thought. If Limbo's deadly waters represented a cloying quicksand to oblivion, Hydro's undulating waves are ramps to the stars.

As such, ponderousness is, quite literally, for losers. Hydro. Thunder. Hurricane. A three-hit combo of elemental nouns, each threatening to whack you from your sofa into a squall of testosterone.

More on Hydro Thunder Hurricane

And why not? Microsoft's decision to juxtapose Limbo with an uncomplicated speedboat racer in their scheduling demonstrates not only the publisher's understanding that it takes all types to make a medium, but also exemplifies the full range of approaches their service has the capacity to house. Moreover, while Hydro Thunder Hurricane's brash brand of interactivity has a different timbre, underneath the theme and colouring, the two titles sit together quite comfortably.

Both games demand trail and error, the former in feeling out its immovable solutions, the latter in feeling out the optimum routes to facilitate the fastest possible lap times. Both games demand lightning quick reactions for success. Both games offer neat twists on age-old tropes.

That said, there's no denying Hydro Thunder Hurricane's wholly orthodox framework. A sequel to the Dreamcast launch title with which it shares two thirds of a name, the intervening years have done little to shift the series' structural approach to a racing game.

There are four different types of event in which to compete, each accessed from the main menu screen. Races pit you against 15 competitors in a watery dash to the finishing line. You're free to bump into your rivals, but your efforts are best spent taking racing lines to pick up the next speed boost capsule or hunting out the shortcuts that thread through each of the game's eight tracks.

Ring Master, the second event type, goes some way to helping you discover these shortcuts, each event shepherding you through a course by picking out a route using giant rings through which your boat must pass. Miss a ring and you incur a time penalty, with the size of the rings diminishing as you rise through the boat classes, thereby scaling the difficulty. Gauntlet has you playing through each stage against the clock, the only difference being that the waterways are booby-trapped with exploding barrels that force a checkpoint restart if struck.

Finally, a set of Championships bundle together different events plucked from the other three types into structured competitions. You earn credits for placing in the top three positions of any race, the money going towards auto-unlocking new events and boats across the entire game. While the game gives the illusion of non-linearity in its approach, in reality the staggered credit thresholds required to unlock each new event enable the developer to pick out a very specific line for players through the experience.

The racing itself is breakneck and enjoyable, drawing inspiration in terms of feel and style from Nintendo's Wave Race series. Set-piece explosions in the water cause huge waves to interrupt the flow of a race in interesting, dynamic ways, forcing you to constantly respond to the shifting 'ground' upon which you race, as well as what your rivals are doing at any one point.

The placement of nitro canisters is arranged in such a way to encourage you to find routes through a course that allow near-continuous speed-boosting, and the Boost Jump button, that catapults you into the air at a cost of some of your boost gauge, allows for more dynamic course design than would otherwise have been possible. Boat classes emphasize either speed or handling, and are different enough from one another to encourage thought when matching a vessel to a level.

Level types are pulled from videogame cliché: Monster Island a dash through a cat's cradle of Amazonian tributaries and ruins, while Paris Sewers and Area 51 provide obvious, if effective, counterpoints later in the experience. The bold, colourful aesthetic lacks Wave Race's warmth and, despite the high-contrast sheen, the game lacks real personality and character.

Despite this, Hydro Thunder Hurricane hits the keynotes required of any modern arcade racer, with a re-emphasis on secrets and shortcuts that the genre has perhaps lost in recent times. The two multiplayer modes - a straight race between eight players online, and Rubber Ducky, in which two teams try to nose their rubber duck past a threshold before their opponents - provide a good balance of competition and playfulness.

Indeed, this is a good summary of the wider experience, which asks players to experiment with the tools pressed into their hands, while keeping reminders of your friend's times and scores on screen at all times to focus the mind toward rivalry. The absence of personality and flourish perhaps comes from a general lack of nuance or innovation. But therein lies a reminder that the dumb arcade racer is a cornerstone of the videogame medium. While there's scant cultural prestige to be found in that fact, neither should there be any shame.

7 / 10

Hydro Thunder Hurricane launches on Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, 28th July, for 1200 Microsoft Points (£10.20 / €14.40).

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About Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is an author and journalist on video games. A regular contributor to Eurogamer since 2005, his work has also appeared in Edge, The Telegraph, Gamasutra and Boing Boing.

Read more articles from Simon by visiting the Simon Parkin archive page.

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Comments (45) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dizzy #1 2 years ago

    A 7 for Hydro thunder? Heresy!

    Anyway... consider it bought. One of the best racers ever IMHO.

  • muttler #2 2 years ago

    So is it similar to the (very good) Dreamcast game then? Hmm, don't know if I like the negative comments about arcade-type racing games near the end of the article. Great vid, I want to get this, but I'll need a demo before I drop 1200 ms points.

  • fknetwork #3 2 years ago

    3.... 2.... 1.... GO GO GO!

  • muttler #4 2 years ago

    @ Dizzy- I dont think it's a remake, but a sequel. Although some of the bits in the vid did ring a bell...

  • cianchristopher #5 2 years ago

    Summer of Arcade is absolutely great! It's a fantastic way of maintaining high interest levels throughout the July/August drought.

    If Sony are serious about challenging MS in the online space, they need to get the PSN into shape with big events like this and a more streamlined interface (that means demos for all games, and Steam-style sales on all titles).

  • Syrette #6 2 years ago

    1200 points is putting me right off this.

    Really don't see how they can justify the price.

    On the other hand, I did get 400 points free via that Red Dead promotion...

  • stevetuck #7 2 years ago

    Looks rubbish to be honest

  • Syrette #8 2 years ago

    "Summer of Arcade is absolutely great!"

    No, it's just an excuse to release titles with too high a pricepoint. Because they're part of an 'event' that you can get rebates from if you buy a certain amount from them.

  • Dizzy #9 2 years ago

    "@ Dizzy- I dont think it's a remake, but a sequel. Although some of the bits in the vid did ring a bell... "

    Yeah but it still looks 100% Hydro Thunder. In the arcade i loved it and on the DC I thought it was sublime. Can't wait to dig into multiplayer. Few racers play so well naturally (like Daytona) without a killer learning curve. For me this is the essence of an Arcade racer. Loved the (over the top) water effect as well.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/10 @ 17:21

  • chrisjm #10 2 years ago

    looks like rapid racer.. will deff try this.

  • snick #11 2 years ago

    Bleht, having dusted off wipeout 2097 the other day this looks ponderous. I really, really would like an HD version of 2097 (on 360 pls (I do however realise this will sadly never happen)), all wipeouts since have had weird handling (not played any of the PS3 versions btw, they might be just fine but I don't fancy forking out the required sums to test them out)

  • Bagpuss #12 2 years ago

    Damn the torpedos............Mis-behave..............

    ...Aghh, the memories of Dreamcast come flooding back...:))

  • retr0gamer #13 2 years ago

    Review reads like a 9. Bad points seem to be that the course are cliche but it's an arcade racer. I'll be picking this up looks excellent and haven't played a great arcade racer since F-Zero GX.

  • Quixz #14 2 years ago

    Oh i see 8/10, Wonderful!!1!1..

  • ozzzy189 #15 2 years ago

    Looks shite. 1200 for this ? Maybe i'm being harsh and it's not really my bag, but i 'm not remotely interested in this after watching that video.

  • Jay-ITFC #16 2 years ago

    I've been playing this since last week and it really isn't worth 1200 points (10 quid). It's okay but MS has got its price point all wrong on Summer Of Arcade.

  • BlinxHDD #17 2 years ago

    Solid 60fps?

  • Sharzam #18 2 years ago

    I had this on the N64, no idea when that was thourgh.

    Was a great game and i was going to buy this based purely on nostalgia however at 1200points i have to think about it. I dedcided just before summer of arcade i wouldnt buy any games unless they were brillant and an actual bargain. For example i bought shadow complex last year and only just recently completed it and bought BC:Re-Armed which i have yet to actually make head way at all.

    Simply because i get wrapped up in the whole 'well you get points back so must be a bargain' but thats a false economy if werent going to buy straight away and wait for sale like the recent one.

  • muttler #19 2 years ago

    Dizzy- "Yeah but it still looks 100% Hydro Thunder."

    I completely agree, but the review hardly makes any comparisons of this game to Hydro Thunder DC, instead it made (unfavourable) comparisons of the visual style and handling to Wave Race... possibly why he's only given it a 7 (Nintendo bias over Sega, and a lack of any major enthusiasm for great arcade style racers), and leads me to wonder if he ever played the DC game.

    All of which is probably good news as it means once again they've got the wrong person to do the review, and the game is infact a high 8 or a 9! But I'll wait for more reviews and opinions.

  • lucky_jim #20 2 years ago

    This year's Summer of Arcade is absolutely shit compared to the last two. Limbo is genius, this looks alright, the rest is crap. Also, past SoAs haven't meant an automatic 1200msp price point like this year's (wasn't 'Splosion Man 800msp?).

    Limbo was always gonna be a must-buy for me, and I'll get this if I enjoy the demo enough, but the new Lara Croft cash-in? Monday Night Combat? A bastardised Castlevania which seemingly misses the point of the series? What a disappointment. I'd like to be proved wrong on those, but compared to the last two years it's rubbish.

  • Syrette #21 2 years ago

    Have you played Lara Croft or Monday Night Combat, Jim? Or the new Castlevania for that matter?

  • metalangel #22 2 years ago

    There'll have to be something very wrong with the demo to put me off this. I can stretch to one 1200msp game a year...

  • beastmaster #23 2 years ago

    To me it seems like to non SoA games will be excellent. Deathspank, Comic Jumper, Hydrophobia, Bulletstorm, Super Meat Boy etc.

    Although I'm really looking forward to Lara.

  • lucky_jim #24 2 years ago

    Obviously not, hence why I said "I'd like to be proved wrong on those" (it's right there, in the last sentence). But I follow XBLA releases very closely and I've seen nothing to get me too excited, certainly not for a tenner a pop.

    Sometimes a game can surprise you, but more often than not, if a game looks disappointing after several months of previews, videos and other write-ups, you can get a good handle on its quality without having played it yourself. I'm surprised that someone who's been here as long as you have needs to have that explained to them ;-)

    edit- that's to fan btw. I agree with Beastmaster about the non-SoA releases, I'm really looking forward to Super Meat Boy and Comic Jumper.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/10 @ 20:13

  • Syrette #25 2 years ago

    You sound like you're writing them off a bit early is all, regardless of what you've seen.

    Didn't notice your "I'd like to be proved wrong" comment originally, sorry

  • lucky_jim #26 2 years ago

    No problem! Basically this and Limbo are the only titles which have grabbed my attention this year, whereas in previous years I've been at least looking forward to trying every game.

    I do give the trial a go with almost every XBLA game that comes out, there are a lot of gems to be found (Ancients of Ooga is a recent one which I hadn't paid any attention to pre-release, but turned out to be very good). I'm just finding it very hard to be enthused by most of this summer's crop.

    Edit- just re-read my last post and realised how arsey it comes across! I'll leave it as it is so the thread makes sense, but I promise it didn't sound like that in my head when I typed it.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/10 @ 20:46

  • Quak #27 2 years ago

    I found the handling totally off on the Dreamcast game. Steering felt more like you were turning the road underneath your car's wheels than actually turning your car, due to the bizarre lack of momentum on any of the vehicles - the same feeling you get when playing Daytona CCE on Saturn.

  • darkmorgado #28 2 years ago

    To me it seems like to non SoA games will be excellent. Deathspank, Comic Jumper, Hydrophobia, Bulletstorm, Super Meat Boy etc.


    It totally pains me to say this, but don't waste your money on deathspank. Diablo-lite mistaking toilet humour for high-comedy.

  • Darren #29 2 years ago

    7/10 is good enough for me. The Dreamcast version of Hydro Thunder was a personal fave of mine so I can't wait to play the XBLA version even if it isn't a direct remake.

  • lukaz #30 2 years ago

    @BlinxHDD

    Neogaf says 30fps, not always stable :(
    It's a shame that info about frame rate is missing from so many reviews.

  • vegard #31 2 years ago

    this game looks fuuuun! going to try out the demo first, but i don't think i'll have a problem paying 1200 for this.

  • smelly #32 2 years ago

    People are moaning about 10 quid? sheesh!

  • androidave #33 2 years ago

    "Bleht, having dusted off wipeout 2097 the other day this looks ponderous. I really, really would like an HD version of 2097 (on 360 pls (I do however realise this will sadly never happen)), all wipeouts since have had weird handling (not played any of the PS3 versions btw, they might be just fine but I don't fancy forking out the required sums to test them out)"

    Um.. Wipeout HD? I've played all wipeouts and while I agree with you somewhat, Wipeout HD is by far the best of any of them :) well worth the download.

  • 3william56 #34 2 years ago

    @snick - there's a Wipeout HD demo on the PSN. As AndroidDave says (as does the EG review, and pretty much everyone else), it's far and away the best WO since 2097, and, dare I say it, better in a lot of ways. Worth the cash for sure (and available as a disk if you don't like DLC). Wish I had the cash for a 3D telly to totally ruin my eyes on it.

    It's always puzzled me where the WO equivalent for the 360 was. Looking at this, it's obviously what they're aiming for (banked water? Really?) but apart from the deforming surface (which looks a great feature), the rest looks seriously bleh in every way when put next to Wipeout.

  • rickyhabana #35 2 years ago

    william- think that was meant to be Blur, by the looks of things

  • bloodflowers #36 2 years ago

    Bah - this was going to be a purchase until the comment above about 30fps. Not good enough for arcade racing, next! EG: Can you please start discussing that? FPS has a -massive- effect on quality of gameplay in many titles.
    Edited by 1 at 27/07/10 @ 09:53

  • muttler #37 2 years ago

    A 9.0 and a very positive review from oxm uk:

    http://www. oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=21352

  • JimmyT67 #38 2 years ago

    I remember playing this game recently but i can't for the life of me remember where - and i never had a dreamcast or N64, The physics in this game look ok compared to the version i played. arrgh this is bugging me - it might have been an emulator i was playing. was it on PC? maybe a demo on a magazine, was it on original xbox? arrgh.

    anyway i just bought earthworm jim and doom II both of which i haven't played yet. - has the demo for Hydro been out a while i must have played it on XBL arrrghhh what is going on??! It's like deja vu x 1000

  • Darren #39 2 years ago

    @JimmyT67- Dunno about you but I seem to remember playing Hydro Thunder on the original Xbox as part of a classic Midway games collection that also had the awesome 4-Wheel Thunder and San Francisco Rush 2049 on it too (two other DC faves). I wonder if I still have the game... and does it run on the 360? Hmmm.

  • metalangel #40 2 years ago

    @rickyhabana: pretty much, after Fatal Inertia sank without a trace.

  • darc #41 2 years ago

    Looks like fun, but it strikes me as one of those games where I'd be just as happy playing the demo 5 times as I would paying for the whole game. Which is a win for me, I guess! :)

  • smelly #42 2 years ago

    Frame rate is the emperors clothing imho.. Just like "true" hi-def.. no-one notices until they're told what resolution/frame rate its running at - then all of a sudden it's the most important thing.

  • Mr_Bogus #43 2 years ago

    Is the crap framerate the game or just the video? That doesn't even look like 30 to me.

  • bloodflowers #44 2 years ago

    smelly: if you can't tell the difference between 30 and 60 in about 2 seconds there's seriously something wrong with your eyes.

  • DAN.E.B #45 2 years ago

    This standard 1200pts price tag is killing the XBLA market, its putting alot of people off these games.
    Why they continue this trend is a mystery to me,they would sell so much more at 800pts and therefore make more money
    Im no expert on these things it just seems like common sense.