On the back of the game’s case, Midway makes note of the game’s water mechanics. It’s easily one of the game’s greatest strengths, along with the controls and physics. Aside from the profound location choices, the locations themselves are loaded with awe-inspiring backdrops, pleasing visuals, and killer graphics. From the Arctic Circle to the Greek Isles to the Catacombs and the Nile river, Midway pulled out all of the stops here.
I found the number of boats and tracks to be pretty inspiring for an arcade-port, but the true highlight of the developer’s focus and care is the locations. There are a few unlockable boats and tracks, although I admittedly could not bear the game long enough to unlock everything (more on those deets later). And that is how I will treat this review.įeatured in Hydro Thunder are 13 boats and 14 locations (or tracks, if you will).
There is no complication in deciphering the game’s intentions or depth, so it should be taken at face value. Plain and simple, Hydro Thunder is a racing game. In a nutshell, Hydro Thunder is a racing game where gamers control speed boats and race across waterway tracks in various locales. And while Hydro Thunder may have been one of the first Arcade-port-to-Dreamcast titles, any amount of guessing could tell you that it wouldn’t be the last.
Hydro thunder nintendo switch pro#
This is evidenced by their arcade port showcases of games like Crazy Taxi, 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker, Dead or Alive 2, Sega Rally 2, and Soul Calibur to name a few. With home consoles finally getting close to matching the power of arcade boards, Sega obviously had a marketing strategy to port the heavy hitters onto their powerful little machine. Talk about an awesome birthday present! None of my friends would end up getting a Dreamcast until years after the system’s demise, easily making my domicile the hottest spot for teenagers to crush cases of Yoohoo and generic brand soda like Limon Up, Dr. On September 9th, 1999, the Sega Dreamcast home gaming system hit shelves, and my mom reserved copies of launch titles Sonic Adventure and Hydro Thunder from the local Funcoland. I’m telling you… I haven’t played this game in any fashion in over a decade, but way back when, this was a mainstay on my coin-op cabinet rotation whenever my parents dropped me off at the arcades. But what really kept people coming back for more was the intense and fast-paced gameplay paired with precisely rock solid controls. Vague, yes, but you didn’t come to this review without reading the header, did you?Ī true behemoth in the arcade scene, Hydro Thunder would take the classic racing genre and amp it up with speed boats, impressive water physics, and intense multiplayer action! Some of Hydro Thunder‘s major draws in the arcades were the bright visuals and crisp graphics, exciting music radiating from the cabinets, and the long lines of eager gamers waiting to dump quarters into this beloved cabinet. Today’s white-encased console journey actually starts at the arcades and finishes in my living room. But I still have quite a bit of affection for Sega’s console swan song: the loud-n-proud Dreamcast. Over the span of gaming history, Nintendo easily bests Sega. That’s not to say that Sega is better than Nintendo. You don’t have to spend much time going through my myriad game reviews to see that I’m a bit of a Sega nerd.