Hydro Thunder, one of the launch titles for the Dreamcast, is a boat racing game that is plain arcade fun. As a racing game, your goal is to finish first in various tracks of increasing difficulty. Through the tracks, you will find different boost icons that help you speed up your boat which, of course, is always helpful to win a race. When the game starts, you only have access to three tracks and three boats. These are all designated as easy.
If you win in first, second, or third position in all three easy tracks, you gain access to the medium difficulty. To advance to hard, you need to win first or second in medium. Winning first on the hard tracks, opens up four bonus tracks and four bonus boats. This gives the game a total of 14 tracks and 13 boats! All the boats available to you are different from each other in both appearance and features, so choose wisely! Both the tracks and the boats have amazing designs. The tracks range from a Lost Island, the Arctic Circle, the Greek Isles, Lake Powell, the Venice Canals, and New York City, among others. The boats have such futuristic designs that they almost look like space fighters. I particularly like Miss Behave, Cutthroat, and Rad Hazard. Yes, they also have funny names. Hydro Thunder boasts gorgeous graphics, smooth animation, and fantastic music. The two-player mode gives you a split screen so both players can race simultaneously. This means you can challenge a friend to a race to see who’s the best boater! Overall, this is an excellent title that I can highly recommend.
