Hydro Thunder Hurricane Vs H2Overdrive - Monster Island/Temple of Flume

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MrThunderwing

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Published on February 7, 2020 3:00:12 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSgzyvbWaMs

Game:

Hydro Thunder Hurricane (2010)

Duration: 4:17

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11

A split-screen comparison between Hydro Thunder Hurricane, the actual sequel to Hydro Thunder, and its ‘spiritual sequel’ H2Overdrive. The original Hydro Thunder was a Motorboat arcade racing game, released by Midway in 1999. Hydro Thunder Hurricane was later released for the Xbox 360 in 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade, after Microsoft Studios acquired the rights to the Hydro Thunder name shortly before Midway Games was bought by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment after going bankrupt.

H2Overdrive was developed by Specular Interactive which consisted of former Midway San Diego employees, along with Hydro Thunder creator Steve Ranck and was published by Raw Thrills in 2009. It’s never had an official home port and I’m using an arcade loader called J-Config to play the actual arcade version on my PC here. I believe the game was originally fully intended to be Hydro Thunder 2 before Midway went bankrupt, rather than the 'spiritual successor' that it later became. There’s a definite similarity in some of the boat designs in H2Overdive when compared to the original Hydro Thunder (and by association Hurricane); Sea Devil is a dead ringer for Banshee, ThunderBlade is Tidal Blade, Dead Wreckoner is Cutthroat, Scorpion might be Thresher... I'm trying in these comparisons to pick levels and boats that are similar.

Some of the levels are thematically very similar to some of the ones from the original HT; Temple of Flume seems very similar to Monster Island and Nile Adventure, Quake Canyon looks like a successor to Lake Powell, and, a bit more obviously, Honk Kong Buoy (great name btw) and Frozen Tundra are like The Far East and Arctic Circle. Even the checkpoints you go through are visually identical to Hydro Thunder.

H2Overdrive actually plays a lot more similarly to the original Hydro Thunder than Hurricane does too. In the original game, when you were boosting, you’re ship became invincible and activated what was known as the ’Hull Crusher’ that let you smash the CPU boats out of the way. In H2Overdive the Hull Crusher is the name of a specific pick up you can get that encircles you in a protective ring of fire, that lets you smash your opponents out the way, but when you are boosting normally it feels like you’re able to pretty much batter the CPUs out the way too. In Hydro Thunder Hurricane you can’t do this, and it’s always been one of my big bugbears with the game (much as I love it) as the CPU boats have a nasty habit of getting in the way a lot, just as I’m trying to make a crucial turn into a short cut or to trying to line up my boat to grab a boost. Pricks.

Your boat is also far more fragile in Hydro Thunder Hurricane and will explode if you crash into walls, although you can reset it to the track pretty quickly. Sometimes it can feel like your boat’s exploded when you’ve barely glanced something, which can be annoying, although conversely it can be pretty satisfying when you nudge a CPU tosspot into a wall or a column and watch the bellend burst into flames. Bwahahaha. The way you perform the Hydro Jump in H2Overdrive is also identical to the original Hydro Thunder (stop throttling forward, brake then hit boost), whereas in HTH it’s just done with a single button press (TBH, I don’t have any issue with that though). In both games you must have some boost in your tank in order to jump. H2Overdrive also adds in stunts, which is a new addition to the Hydro Thunder gameplay.

Visually, Hydro Thunder Hurricane on the Xbox is running at 30fps (and I thiiink it’s 720p, but I could be wrong about that) H2Overdrive is running at a res of 1360x768 on my PC and I thiiiink it’s 60fps (I can’t say for definite because the FRAPs counter is just slightly off screen when I’m playing – it certainly looks 60fps to my eye though). There is also a PC port of Hydro Thunder Hurricane, which I’ve never tried, but have been told does run at 60fps, but loses out on some graphical details from the 360 version (I’m not sure what). One thing I I think is definitely worth mentioning, is just what an excellent job Vector Unit did in Hurricane in creating some totally outlandish environments for the different stages with lots of stuff going on in them; like the yokels in the biplane dropping explosive barrels on you in Lake Powell, all the actual monsters in Monster Island, the UFO's in Area 51 (and what looks like a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird taking off above you) and the otherworldly section of track, a gigantic Thor (or possibly Odin) appearing in Storming Asgard and the general weirdness of Bermuda Triangle (together with the big section of open sea you race on, which is a cool touch). The game also gets kudos for the inclusion of a 4 player splitscreen option, something that seems to be an afterthought in so many modern games these days.

So which is better…? I’ll let you decide that. I love both games myself.

#HydroThunderHurricane #H2Overdrive #HydroThunder

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