Review | Hydro Thunder Hurricane

Hydro Thunder is a relatively well-remembered arcade racing game in a time where the arcade scene was well on its way to being dead.  While the age of the coin-op arcade may be long dead, Microsoft Game Studios in conjunction with developer Vector Unit try to bring back the arcade experience in their reimagining of the arcade classic with Hydro Thunder Hurricane. Are the glory days long since passed for the franchise – or does Hurricane successfully update the classic?

Hydro Thunder Hurricane tries to recapture the allure of the original. Every track in the game – many of which are re-imagined classis tracks – gradually crescendo with highly kinetic environmental activity that makes the sprint to the finish line an exciting experience. Hurricane is built upon the very same design principles of the first game. At first, Hurricane’s design direction to faithfully resemble the original may garner a positive reaction, but in practice, it serves more of a problem than a blessing. Vector Unit took the core design of the original, and instead of refining and refocusing the game or the experience, chose to simply build upon it.

Each game in the Thunder series has had tracks that feature an idiosyncratic assortment of themes. The variants in the track list essentially boil down to environmental staples of the genre – or for that matter, games in general. Hurricane features the token desert, jungle, ice, sewers, city, stadium as well as the almost clichéd Area 51 stage. What this speaks to is Hurricane’s reliance on genre conventions that now seem woefully outdated.

The arcade heritage is pretty obvious in the game’s general design philosophy. The shortcuts in each track are meant to be discovered organically by the player in multiple game types. What this amounts to is an experience in which success or failure in placing within the top three entirely hinges on the players’ ability to know and exploit all the shortcuts – a feat that requires dozens of playthroughs in order to fully grasp, let alone master. The mechanics and structure of Hurricane is very much akin to that of the coin-ops of old.

Arcade racing games of the times essentially were rooted in their business model. Developers needed to find reasons with in game’s context for a player to repeatedly pay for gameplay. Gameplay conceits of shortcuts and secret passages were meant to add a layer of complexity that would help generate more revenue. Hurricane does not need to share these gameplay conceits. Hurricane’s unforgiving AI, which has little to no rubberbanding is a design relic that has no real functional purpose in a modern racer.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane does well in bringing the arcade classic to a new audience – an experience that is enhanced by online connectivity. Paradoxically, what serves as the game’s greatest trait also serves as its greatest flaw. Vector Unit could have been progressive with Hydro Thunder’s core design. Rather, in their slavish allegiance to the original, it is merely brief, disposable fun.    [7]