Jul
28
Hydro Thunder Hurricane Review!
In case you missed Hydro Thunder in arcades its back in full glory in this week’s Summer of Arcade release. Hydro Thunder was a boat racing game to the extreme with tons of boost and tons of jumps and is considered an arcade classic. Now the folks over at Vector Games have created Hydro Thunder Hurricane for the 360. But does it live up to its arcade brethren?
First thing to get out of the way is that this feels like old school hydro thunder. It controls very simple with you moving the boat about a track trying to collect boost or some other objective until you reach the goal. There are a total of 8 tracks but in order to unlock them all you will need to complete them numerous times in the one of four modes in order to obtain enough points to unlock them. This is how you unlock pretty much everything in this game.
The game itself looks very pretty with its water physics and environment moving about and changing throughout races. You can be traversing into an artic cavern and the next thing you know an avalanche will occur causing the water to rise and fall making it so you can launch off a wave. The environments feel familiar of the original but have flair to them to make them also stand out. The sound could have been better but has that arcade feel to it.
The main issue with the game is its AI. The computer offers up a challenge sometimes but most of the time it can be a pushover. They don’t seem to do much other than the basics during a race. It would have been nice to see some knock you out of the way or try to steal boost and such more often. But that is also why this game offers online multiplayer.
Overall this is definitely a must buy for Hydro Thunder veterans and new comers to the series. It has some fun gameplay and the online will keep you coming back more and more. Having the ability to do split screen 4 player racing or even take all of that online is a great package for those that want to have a Hydro Thunder Party! Plus with new DLC possibly coming in the future it will certainly be one to come back to after finishing.
