Hydro Thunder Hurricane Physical
Marion Georgi
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a boat racing video game developed by Vector Unit and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. The game was released on July 28, 2010 as part of Microsoft's Xbox Live Summer of Arcade promotion. It is the sequel to Hydro Thunder, originally an arcade game, and part of the Thunder series, developed by Midway Games and under license of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It was also released onto the Windows Store. The game was added to the list of Xbox 360 backward compatible games on Xbox One on December 17, 2015.
Gameplay in Hurricane involves players selecting one of nine boats to race through over-the-top scenarios. Players can collect boost powerups throughout a course which are used to increase the speed of the boat, jump over obstacles, or unlock shortcuts. The game comes with three single player and two multiplayer modes, some of which are new to the series.
Hydro Thunder Hurricane received generally positive reviews. Critics generally praised the varied qualities of the different boats, the diverse arcade-style courses, and the game's overall replay value. The game has sold an estimated 321,000 units as of end-of-year 2012, with the Tempest Pack expansion reaching just over 38,000 units in sales in that same period.
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is an arcade-style boat racing game, and the sequel to Hydro Thunder.[2] Gameplay involves players selecting one of nine boats to race through one of eight courses. The primary mode of gameplay involves a sixteen competitor race to the finish line. As with Hydro Thunder, players can collect boost powerups throughout a course which physically transform the boat into a more aggressive-looking form. Once transformed, players can use acquired boost to increase the speed of the boat temporarily, or to jump over obstacles.[3] The game's eight tracks are (in order): Lake Powell, Storming Asgard, Monster Island, Tsunami Bowl, Lost Babylon, Paris Sewers, Seoul Stream, and Area 51.
Hurricane continues the Thunder series tradition of hidden shortcuts and alternate routes in courses. Some routes can be found by simply driving towards them or smashing through an obstacle, while others require the player to drive over green powerups which lower gates or raise ramps.[4] Players earn credits by winning races. These credits serve as points which automatically unlock additional gameplay elements, such as boats, skins, new courses and game modes.[5] Players can choose to race a given mode and track additional times to earn more credits.
The game also adds three additional single-player game modes in which to compete. 'Ring Master' removes all AI racing competitors and places a sequence of rings throughout a given course. The objective is to drive through as many rings as possible in the shortest amount of time.[5] 'Gauntlet' also removes AI competitors, but replaces the rings with explosive barrels littered throughout the water. Players must complete the course as quickly as possible while avoiding the barrels.[5] 'Championship' mode is also new to the series, and pits the player in a mixture of tracks and modes.[6]
Hurricane also features a number of multiplayer scenarios. Up to four players can complete via splitscreen against each other and twelve AI competitors.[5] Players can also use any combination of splitscreen and Xbox Live players to play online with up to eight players.[5] Track times are recorded on leaderboards for players to compete against. In addition one multiplayer-exclusive mode was added, 'Rubber Ducky'. In this mode one player on each team pilots a boat in the shape of a rubber duck. The remaining boats on each team try to protect their team's duck while keeping the other team's at bay, with the winning team being first to get their duck across the finish line.[7] Multiplayer races feature a "loser helper" powerup system. Instead of Blue "2X" and Red "4X" boost powerups, multiplayer races features primarily one type of boost powerup, being a yellow one that can give anywhere from 1X to 8X boost. This powerup is dynamic, granting players leading the race with less boost, while those in the rear are awarded more boost. This is to create a more aggressive race, and to allow those with less skill to enjoy racing along with more competitive players. A few 4X powerups are unchanged, however, which can help players keep an edge.[8] Vector Unit explained the decision further on their blog: "If players -- especially new players -- are too easily frustrated, they just say screw this and drop out, which reduces the number of players and the number of available online games".[8]
Hydro Thunder Hurricane was first unveiled at PAX East on March 26, 2010.[9] It was then used as one of two mystery games for ScrewAttack's Iron Man of Gaming.[citation needed] Hydro Thunder Hurricane was released as part of the third annual Xbox Live Summer of Arcade along with titles such as Monday Night Combat and Limbo.[10] The water was programmed for the game using several different techniques. Fresnel reflections, normal mapping, ray-traced depth fogging and depth-based foam and an adaptive LOD system were built to handle the visuals.[11] The physics system that controls the water allows multiple types of waves such as wakes and whirlpools, and also adapts to handle different boat hulls and other objects in the water.[11] V-hulled boats cut through waves, flat-bottomed boats hydroplane across the water, and multi-hulled boats have greater grip in the water.[12] An external audio contractor, Robb Mills, was called upon to compose the game's music. Developers also provided support for the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel.[11] A premium theme for the Xbox 360's New Xbox Experience dashboard was also released on July 15 the same year as part of the game's promotion.[13]
The first game demo we made was an original speedboat racing game. The demo showed off the game's controls and our new fluid dynamic system. Microsoft was interested, and through talks with them the idea came up of making this a full-featured sequel to the original Hydro Thunder.
Hydro Thunder Hurricane did not start life as a Thunder franchise title. Matt Small, creative director for the game explained: "The first game demo we made was an original speedboat racing game. The demo showed off the game's controls and our new fluid dynamic system".[12] Vector Unit co-founders Matt Small and Ralf Knoesel had both previously worked on Blood Wake, a boat combat title for the original Xbox.[7] They took lessons from Blood Wake, altering and updating the physics to be not only realistic, but to "make a game which a Novice player can easily pick up and learn".[7] The team began development on their own I.P. boat racing game, code-named Barracuda.[14] According to Vector Unit: "The basic idea was speedboats meets Supercross in a futuristic post-global-warming flooded Earth".[14]
After six months a working prototype was pitched to several publishers. Microsoft Studios was one of three publishers interested in Barracuda, and talks began for publishing the game: "There was this one producer at Microsoft Game Studios who kept talking about how with a few tweaks Barracuda would make an awesome Hydro Thunder sequel. At first we were like, yeah right, that'll happen. But the more we all talked about it, the more it started to make sense".[14] The decision was made to turn the game into a Hydro Thunder sequel and Microsoft Studios acquired the rights to the Hydro Thunder name shortly before publisher Midway Games went bankrupt and was bought by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.[12]
Hydro Thunder Hurricane was developed using a combination of proprietary and third-party tools. 3D models were created in Maya. Co-founder and Lead Programmer Ralf Knoesel created a plugin which integrated with Maya that allowed artists to see what the boat would look like in-game.[15] The engine was built from the ground up, and unitizes FMOD for sound and Bullet Physics Library as part of the game's physics system.[15] Level construction and placement of props was done in BarracudaEditor, the team's level design tool. During the development process Vector Unit maintained a PC build of the game which allowed artists and other team members to test their assets in-game without moving to an Xbox 360 Debug Kit.[15] A team of seven people worked to create the game; two programmers, four artists, and one sound designer. The game took fourteen months from initial prototype to final build to complete.[15]
Vector Unit had contemplated simply porting the original Hydro Thunder to the Xbox 360, as they had been given the source code to the original game. They felt that given they would have to update all of the assets and that they had already built the water system, the decision was made to continue building the title from the ground up.[12] The original source code was used for reference, and the Vector Unit "played the heck out of the original game to refresh our memories".[12] The boats and environments were redesigned, taking cues from the original, but accommodating the new physics system and updated graphics engine.[12] The developers contemplated things such as boat customization and user-generated tracks, but "ultimately we felt that it was more important to present an accessible, hand-crafted experience that players can just jump into and have fun with".[16] Besides for Xbox 360, Vector also announced the game to be available for Windows 8 via Microsoft's Windows Store when the operating system is released.[17] It joins other ports of popular Xbox 360 Xbox Live Arcade titles such as Ms. Splosion Man, Toy Soldiers and Ilomilo.[18]
When asked about the possibility of a PlayStation 3 port of the game, the company stated: "People ask us this all the time, and unfortunately the answer is no. Microsoft Studios licensed the game from Warner, and as you can imagine Microsoft is not generally all that gung-ho about making games for the PlayStation".[19]
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