An Extremely Fun Game!
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is in no way a serious racer, It is just pure arcade fun. You have a selection of nine boats, each with their own weird kinda look to them. Picture Wipeout only with boats. The boats themselves are split up into 3 different sections with 3 boats in each. Novice, Pro and Expert, with novice being the slowest and easiest to handle and expert being the fastest and hard to master (apparently). The boats are not that important, what's really important is how good are the courses themselves and how well does the game play.
There are a small variety of different courses (9 I think) but you never get bored of them. They are mostly all 1 lap courses that ends once you cross the finish line, these are usually filled to the brim with awesome set pieces and changing enviorments so that each time you play them it seems fresh and new! There are also 3 circuit tracks and you have to complete 3 laps to win.
As well as your standard racing modes there are a few other modes that will keep you busy. There is your standard time trial mode (WITH EXPLOSIVES EVERYWHERE!) that adds a lot of fun and offers something different than standard racing. There are numerous championships you can take part in which usually consist of mixes of races and the non-race modes. There is a mode where you have to drive through rings until you get to the end of the track and there are 3 difficulty levels, expert being the hardest (believe me, it is hard).
If you get bored of singleplayer their is an excellent multiplayer modes thrown in. You can play split screen or take the challenge over Xbox Live (SP has 16 boats BUT multiplayer only has 8 racers at once) You can have standard race modes or you can participate in a "Rubber Ducky" mode. Basically, you have 2 teams of 4, a rubber ducky in each team, 1st rubber ducky to cross the finish line, that team wins.
Matchmaking does not work great, you almost always get a message saying "could not connect" or "host has ended game". There is a quick way around this tho because custom games search usually works a lot better.
All of the environments look good, not great but you're usually too busy to notice. The waves can put you off at time but you can forgive them because they look AWESOME. All of the boats look great and you should be satisfied.
The music is great. It is very catchy and you will most likely find yourself humming the tunes in your head all day!
Sound effects are great. All the boats sound authentic and the sound of waves hitting against your boats and the enviorments is amazing!
If you're looking for a cheap, arcade racer to drag you away from the stress of games such as forza (and it's aggressive drivers) then Hydro thunder is a great game for you. Even if you're not a big racing fan like me then I still think you could manage to find some fun out of this.