Arctic Thunder

From the makers of Hydro Thunder comes the next mad racer by Midway--now digging into frozen race fields and fully throttled with the PlayStation 2! 12 outlandish winter tracks--From the Swiss Alps to the Blizzard in DC to the lost city of Atlantis, each track will challenge your skill and assault your senses. Amazing air, cool tricks--Perform up to 62 tricks to get points. Each character has unique moves.

Released: 17 September 2001
Platforms: Arcade GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox
Genres: Racing
Developers: Midway Games
Publishers: Midway Games
Series: Thunder
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB T

About

Arctic Thunder is a 2000 snowmobile racing game developed by Midway Games. It was released as an arcade game, Midway's final arcade title, and was also ported to the Sony PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles, with added content, as a launch title for the latter. In the arcade version of the game, fans built into the cabinet blow cold winds in the player's face during gameplay to simulate the feeling of riding a snowmobile while the seat contains a vibrating shaker motor to simulate engine rumbling. Arctic Thunder is part of Midway's Thunder series, which also included Hydro Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, Offroad Thunder, and Hydro Thunder Hurricane. An updated arcade version, titled Ultimate Arctic Thunder, which added some of the content introduced in the home versions, was developed by Play Mechanix and distributed by Betson Enterprises, released sometime in 2004.

The Xbox version of this game is not compatible with the Xbox 360. A Dreamcast port was also planned but was cancelled due to sagging sales of the console. A website was made available before the game's release. As of 2007, the site is no longer active.

Keywords

vehicular combat
snow
vehicle combat
launch titles

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

The Xbox version received "mixed" reviews, while the PlayStation 2 version received "generally unfavorable reviews", according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Jim Preston of NextGen's December 2001 issue said of the latter, "There's plenty of 'Arctic,' but little 'Thunder.' But then, we suppose Snow Snooze wouldn't have been as catchy." The magazine later said in its final issue that the former console version's "only saving grace is that the courses are well enough designed that you rarely get stuck in an alcove or behind a pillar – a frequent, frustrating flaw in racing games.

But this doesn't come close to the onscreen mess that makes up most of the gameplay." Tokyo Drifter of GamePro said of the PlayStation 2 version, "At the finish line, Arctic Thunder is moderately enjoyable with good replay value, but its many flaws really hinder what could have been a great romp in the snow."