Reviewed: Hydro Thunder Hurricane [XBLA]

Hydro Thunder returns in its long awaited sequel… Was it worth the wait or has Hydro Thunder Hurricane drowned a classic? Find out in this review.
Video Review :

Gameplay
The gameplay is back and in top form. The mechanics from the first haven’t changed and that’s the way we like it. The main gameplay focuses around of racing high-tech speedboats through unexplainable environments. The gameplay in each environment does have its own minor different tweaks,this consists mainly of short cuts and jumps. Each level is different and unique which really helps stand out the gameplay and giving it a longer life span. There will be a few fan field favourites such as Area 51, Monster Island, Lake Powell to e cold seas of the Arctic with frozen mammoths larking in the ice caves. Previous players and new will be able to pick this up with ease and not encounter any major difficulty with the controls or boats.

As you would of guessed Boosting plays an important role in the game and will soon become your best friend when finishing well in races. Boosting hasn’t changed much since the previous which isn’t a bad thing, Once you collect a blue or red nitro tank your boost meter will charge up and give you the opportunity to glide past you opponent. Using boost can be an enjoyable thing to watch and do and makes the gameplay solid. Without boosting the races would be really slow and dull. After racing for a good solid 10 hours plus I came along a few helpful tips that I wish to share with you readers. 1. Don’t use all you boost as you will need to equally spread it across level environments or learn where the next top up will be. You don’t want to turtle behind other racers. 2. Boost up ramps when possible, air time is quicker than racing on the water. And finally the 3rd and last. Ignore any hidden objects If you want to win the race. Its better to go over the hidden objects when you have completed all the races since the objects are just scattered all over the place. Looking for them during a race will seriously set you back.

So now moving on to the different game modes. Well Hydro Thunder Hurricane packs in of course a Single Player mode. This single player mode is divided in four different modes. During all of the modes in the single player you will have to aim to finish in the top 3 to receive enough points to unlock more races. The single player mode alone is pretty self explanatory and is probably one of the easiest modes. Just race to the finish and finish in the top 3. Some may struggle against the AI, but if you listen to my boosting tip you shouldn’t struggle coming in the top 3.  Throughout the singe player experience you encounter a lot of different gameplay tweaks in certain environments. The game packs in probably the weirdest creatures objects in your path during races. Expect to encounter a Sea dragon, a Giant Viking, Police boats which all seem to want to destruct your path and make sure you don’t finish in the top 3.  It is funny and entertaining at first but after a few times racing on the same track it becomes really frustrating since they all seem programmed to target only your boat.
After establishing your self with the single player races you will unlock ‘Gauntlet’ which sadly actually doesn’t relate to anything ‘Gauntlet’ specific.  This mode consist of you dodging the exploding barrels and get to the finish line. Sounds pretty simple indeed. That is until you are in a situation where your facing a wave will manage to throw you of your course into the exploding barrels, along with the waves natural changing and moving the barrels into your path. This mode is probably the most enjoyable and addictive mode out of all 4, but after a while you will start to dislike it. This is because the game really starts to throw all it can to blow you up.  Again the same point system applys. You will receive points when coming first, second or third.

The next mode is ‘Ring Master’ as you would of guessed this mode just consists of you going threw as many rings as possible and finish with the quickest time. Missing rings will result in a time penalty. It is fun and enjoyable but its not well balanced on where the rings are placed. You will find yourself coming to a point where a ring is out of view and cause you to miss it unless you have done the race before. There is also an issue hroughout the twenty of these ‘Ring Master’ races, they all seem to similar and really does become repetitive. This is though mainly due to it being unbalanced.

The fourth mode will take the majority of your time completing, this is the ‘Championship’ mode. There are multiple events that partake in a championship mode event. Normally 2-3 different races, including the above modes and placing them into a championship event. The events are based on receiving the best points when finishing the races. The one overall with the best score over the race events will become the championship winner. Pretty straight forward but starts getting repetitive as the game makes you replay events you have already done in the standard modes and placing them into this mode. It actually drags the game down a bit and makes it feel slow.

Design

Vector Unit have really done there just deserts on the fantastic water physics that really make Hydro standout amongst the Xbox Live Arcade crowed.  The quality is unexplainable and is absolutely amazing. Majority of the time it will make you feel like you are really racing on water.  The water physics alone has different styles and effects that cause the boats to react differently as well. The waterfalls that have been placed throughout different environments are awesome. Before I forget to mention kudos to Vector Unit for implementing splash back effects. That alone makes me think ‘There’s water on my TV!… Oh wait its Hydro!Visually the game is an absolute peach.  As mentioned above the water looks amazing, the boats are decently well detailed and the only let down is where some of the course obstacles look a bit odd, I guess I could say they look a bit “dreamcasty’” overall though this doesn’t put you off.  If it does, “YOU’RE CRAZY” as the announcer likes to shout about. I may just join him on that.

Multiplayer
The 4 player split screen is the only multiplayer feature we got to experience, this said it actually is really fun playing with 4 other friends on one Xbox, it really does make the experience more hectic (which is actually great). We can confirm however that there will be on line Xbox Live Leaderboard challenges for you to compete against. The system will pick up another racers score that is better than yours by a few seconds. If you beat it you overtake their place on the leaderboard. Even though the servers were not online we can confirm you will be able to race against 7 other racers.
Good

· Brilliant gameplay

· A lot of content

· Visually impressive

· Announcer is awesome

Bad

· A lot of content is recycled, not mainly a bad thing but does feel a bit to similar.

· Police boats! Don’t trust the police!

· Minor graphical mishaps

Overall 8/10
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a great sequel. It has taken about 11 years for this master of the waves to return. Personally its a personal favourite. Its brilliant and for 1200 MS points your getting a complete package that will seriously pack in a lot of time to master all of the races. Even though it gets repetitive it can still be enjoyable. Were hoping in the future that Hydro will receive some TLC from some DLC. Maybe bring some classics back?It’s a shame we couldn’t try the multiplayer but I can tell that it will be a hit thanks to the brilliant 4 player split screen mode.  So overall this is a must have for your XBLA collection.