Game:

Hydro Thunder (1999)

Duration: 14:21

3,262 views

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Many viewers of this channel probably got introduced to boat racing in The Crew 2, where it is not a very popular discipline. But what if you actually like it and want to see more of it? Then this video is for you! Here you can see gameplay from 10 different boat racing games, showing off the history and evolution of the genre from 1997 until today and featuring cult favorites like Hydro Thunder.

Timeline:
0:00 Speedboat Attack
1:16 Rapid Racer (Turbo Prop Racing)
2:35 VR Sports Powerboat Racing
4:00 Hydro Thunder
5:29 Aqua GT
6:46 Aquadelic GT (Power Boat GT)
8:08 H2Overdrive
9:23 Hydro Thunder Hurricane
10:51 The Crew 2
12:27 Ripwave Racing

Unlike for car and bike racing there are not actually that many boat racing games that exist but I was still able to reach my target number of 10 different games fairly quickly during my research. Most of these games I had never played before this project. Note that I am not showing any Jet Ski games, mobile games or Japan-exclusive games in this video.

Speedboat Attack is an old PC game developed by Criterion, who would later become famous for the Burnout series and infamous for their contributions to the Need for Speed franchise. This was actually the first ever racing game that they made.

The PS1 had several boat racing games, including Rapid Racer (known as Turbo Pro Racing in the US), VR Sports Powerboat Racing, Hydro Thunder and Aqua GT.

Hydro Thunder spawned two sequels with H2Overdrive and Hydro Thunder Hurricane. H2Overdrive is exclusive to arcade machines but it can be emulated on PC. Hurricane came out on Xbox consoles and on the Microsoft store on PC, where you can still purchase it now.

Aquadelic GT (also sold as Power Boat GT in the US at some point) is a game with some interesting ideas, although it suffers from a terrible button mapping on controller, which can't be edited ingame. It is available for a low price on Steam though.

The Crew 2 added boat (and plane) racing to a mainstream open world racing game. There are two types of boats with power boats and jet sprint boats. There are also hovercrafts, which can race on both land and water.

Ripwave Racing was developed by one person as a hobby project and it can be downloaded for free. It only features one track but maybe the creator would continue working on it if a lot of people would be interested.

You can find Aquadelic GT and Ripwave Racing here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/321450/Aquadelic_GT/
https://oakleaff.itch.io/ripwave-racing-demo

Have you played any boat racing games besides The Crew 2? Would you like to see more videos about any of the 10 games that I am showing here? Feel free to let me know in the comments.