H2-Whoa

AFTER PLAYING Hydro Thunder for just five minutes the adrenaline will thump through your body, causing foaming white water to course through your veins. As your speedboat crests the luscious waves at break neck speeds, there is a constant sense of danger. Switching between boosting and cruising to guide the lightweight craft through hoops and over jumps is a thrill ride in itself. In case you can’t tell, Hydro Thunder is not just a good game, but a great one.

The title’s place in “the summer of arcade” is fitting. What suits summer more than blue oceans, speedboats and exotic locations? From the first race to the last, Hydro Thunder is a treat for your senses and emotions. The boats are designed as if a crayon was given to a child with ADD. The crafts are accented with more curves than an episode of Baywatch and enough decals to trick your brain into thinking you’re playing Fast and The Furious: Coast to Coast.

Each of these wildly different speedboats are pushed around through some of the most gorgeous water effects, particularly for an arcade game. From tropical beaches with monsters living beneath the waves to a metropolis canal system, there’s plenty of variety in the courses. And it’s a blessing that so much time was spent in the designing of these tracks. As the game plays out the courses become harder and force you to shave fractions of seconds off of your time. The design really pushes you as a player, causing you to look for shortcuts and conserve boost power.

Because of course, you can’t have a racing game without boost. So while you are careening around corners be aware of floating Nitrous cans that allow you to cut through the deep blue with even more gusto. The wonderful thing about the boost, however, is the change on the game that takes place. Because of the swell of the water, hit the boost at the wrong time and you could find yourself flying through the air and landing on a poor racing line.

I do like to be besides the seaside

It’s not all about racing, well, it is… but the racing comes in different flavours. It isn’t just you and the opponents. There’s ring racing, basically a time trial mode, where you must pass through a sequence of rings, each one giving you an increment of boost. Then there’s a similar mode that requires you to race from start to finish as fast as possible but rather than guiding your boat through rings, you’re avoiding explosive barrels.

Then there are the championships that mix each of the modes into one championship. Pass the events with a top three finish and earn points that unlock events and boats. It’s all very simple but that is the beauty of the title. The joy of the game is heightened by a steady but challenging learning curve. The game gradually gets quite tough and each race will require skill and a small amount of luck in order to succeed.

I was thankful that the balance of this difficulty is set just right. There’s never a point of frustration as you always know that you can do better. Each time you fail there’s an urge to jump back in and find a shortcut or conserve your boost for a tricky section. You may even find that using a boost jump can give you an edge when the water is very rough.

If you want to see the entirety of Hydro Thunder then the developer has included hidden badges for you to collect and these will only be found by exploring each corner of every track. It may seem a little out of place at first but actually it’s a welcome addition and allows for you to train for races by finding shortcuts.

Hydro Thunder is rather special, mainly due to it being released on XBLA this highlights the power of arcade gaming. Although its home isn’t in a dusky arcade on a seafront, the feel of that environment oozes through. There’s definitely a ‘one more go’ vibe to the game that pushes the game onwards and before you know it, a five minute go has become a two hour session of chasing times. Hydro Thunder is a gem in the summer download game crown.

9/10

What does this score mean?