Hydro Thunder

Hydro Thunder was a Sega Dreamcast launch title (September 9th, 1999) developed and published by the fantastic Midway and is a pretty fabulous game in itself. Its a racing game where you pilot a futuristic speedboat through a number of really cool and brilliantly detailed waterways, racing rivals as you go. And believe me, for a title that was released just over ten years ago it STILL packs a great arcade clout.
Shamefully this was another launcher that I missed first time around on the Dreamcast carousel (blame Shenmue) but having recently added it to my collection I have rarely given the disc a chance to stop spinning. Its that good. Every track has its own distinctive features and keep pulling you back for another stab at beating a previous time or better position.
It all looks great and you hardly notice you're playing a decade old game. The boats look good and handle really well. And they even have brilliant names, 'Damn The Torpedo' and 'Mis Behave' spring to mind. The only niggle I could find was when the boats went over ramps or high drops it was impossible to land on dry land due to an invisible wall obviously designed to keep the player on their watery track. Now when racing on good old H20 you don't want to land on the shore, but when flying through the air and obviously heading toward land, it does spoil the experience somewhat to find your boat suddenly bouncing off thin air and returning to the circuit.
Still its nothing drastic and when the rest of the game is so good im not going to knock it for, when it boils down to it, having a rather helpful 'glitch'.
There are 13 circuits in all:
EASY - Thunder Park, Lost Island and Artic Circle (complete with killer whales!)
MEDIUM - Greek Isles, Lake Powell and The Far East
HARD - Ships Graveyard, Venice Canals and New York Disaster

There are 4 tougher BONUS races too but I don't want to spoil the fun by revealing them all. Suffice to say earning them is well worth it. As ive said the detail in each track is pure eye candy, from skull rocks and smoking volcanoes in Lost Island through to the eerie underground section of Lake Powell, it all makes for a thrilling race ro the finish line.
Controls are as easy as an easy pie as they often are in Dreamcast racers and all in all Hydro Thunder is a peach of a game. Plus it goes for around £1 to £3, making it a very tasty peach indeed. Excellent stuff!

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