Hydro Thunder Hurricane

Xbox console exclusive

Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a downloadable high-speed watercraft racing game for Xbox Live Arcade and Windows 8. It is the long awaited sequel to Hydro Thunder.

Released: 28 July 2010
Platforms: Windows Xbox 360
Genres: Racing
Developers: Vector Unit
Publishers: Xbox Game Studios
Series: Hydro Thunder Thunder
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person Third person
Themes: Science fiction
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB E PEGI 7 ACB PG GRAC ALL

About

Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a boat racing video game developed by Vector Unit and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. The game was released on July 28, 2010 as part of Microsoft's Xbox Live Summer of Arcade promotion. It is the sequel to Hydro Thunder, originally an arcade game, and part of the Thunder series, developed by Midway Games and under license of Warner Bros. Games, Midway's license owner.

It was also released onto the Windows Store. The game was added to the list of Xbox 360 backward compatible games on Xbox One on December 17, 2015.

Keywords

helicopter
ufo
achievements
time limit
drifting
airplane
explosion
digital distribution
motorsports
voice acting
game title announcer
windows store

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Hydro Thunder Hurricane is an arcade-style boat racing game, and the sequel to Hydro Thunder. Gameplay involves players selecting one of nine boats to race through one of eight courses. The primary mode of gameplay involves a sixteen competitor race to the finish line. As with Hydro Thunder, players can collect boost powerups throughout a course which physically transform the boat into a more aggressive-looking form.

Once transformed, players can use acquired boost to increase the speed of the boat temporarily, or to jump over obstacles. The game's eight tracks are (in order): Lake Powell, Storming Asgard, Monster Island, Tsunami Bowl, Lost Babylon, Paris Sewers, Seoul Stream, and Area 51.

Development

Hydro Thunder Hurricane was first unveiled at PAX East on March 26, 2010. It was then used as one of two mystery games for ScrewAttack's Iron Man of Gaming. Hydro Thunder Hurricane was released as part of the third annual Xbox Live Summer of Arcade along with titles such as Monday Night Combat and Limbo. The water was programmed for the game using several different techniques.

Fresnel reflections, normal mapping, ray-traced depth fogging and depth-based foam and an adaptive LOD system were built to handle the visuals. The physics system that controls the water allows multiple types of waves such as wakes and whirlpools, and also adapts to handle different boat hulls and other objects in the water. V-hulled boats cut through waves, flat-bottomed boats hydroplane across the water, and multi-hulled boats have greater grip in the water. An external audio contractor, Robb Mills, was called upon to compose the game's music.

Reception

Hydro Thunder Hurricane received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

Reviewers were mostly unified on the overall quality for the price of the game. com's Bob Mackey called it "a perfect match for Xbox Live Arcade" and the reviewer from GameTrailers said the game "looks sharp for a $15 release". Ludwig Kietzmann of Joystiq called it a "dynamite download" and Dakota Grabowski of GameZone stated it is "the must-have arcade racer of 2010". GamePro echoed these comments, calling the game "a perfect throwback to the 'high production' arcade games of yesteryear".