I have to admit that my memories of the original Arcade hit Hydro Thunder are a little muted. I remember it being good in that era when Arcade games would get a natural port over to the Dreamcast instantly, and while I have memories of the original cabinet it’s from the Dreamcast version that most of my memories are from.

It’s a strange franchise to be revived for Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade on Xbox Live Arcade as the last release was ten years ago, but it’s also obvious – the arcade racing formula is a perfect fit for an XBLA title and also a perfect fit for online play.

"Boost your way through wide-open tracks against other racers or the clock"

The concept of Hydro Thunder is pretty simple – you take control of a bunch of super-powered, tubro-charged boats and race around a number of crazy, over-the-top tracks that could only be found in an arcade game.

Throughout the tracks there are hidden routes, boost items to pick up and a number of static and moving obstacles. One track has a gigantic Viking burst out of the scenery towards the end, whilst another has a dinosaur rear its head from beneath the waves and try to gobble up passing boats on a crucial part of the last lap.

All this stuff is pre-programmed, and so replaying tracks will help you to figure out exactly how to best avoid all the obstacles on your way. That, at its core, is what Hydro Thunder is actually about – perfecting your lap time by figuring out exactly how to avoid the obstacles and navigate the course best to pose an awesome leaderboard time – that, after all, was the core of the original arcade classic.

It’s not all necessarily about picking the right route and avoiding parts of the course, though. It’s also about picking the right boat for any given job and reading the waves. They’ll jostle you about, and so trying to read them and use them to propel you forward rather than slow you down is vital if you want to set a decent time.

Being a console release it’s not all about high scores, even with the online enhancement that’s been given to high scores. Every race you win will award you with a cumulative currency which then unlocks new tracks, race modes and colour schemes for the boats you’ll be racing.

"Gauntlet mode has you avoiding explosive barrels while setting a fast lap time"

Outside of straight-up racing there’s also two other modes – Ring Master, which has you jumping through stunt rings against the clock, and another mode which has you trying to navigate the course as quickly as possible without hitting explosive barrels.

All three modes then feature in a final mode which strings several events together into a ‘cup’ of sorts. All the events are fairly standard stuff but play out pretty well, and the Ring Master challenges in particular get very challenging and are a good primer for learning the shortcuts on a course for straight-up races.

As well as single player stuff there’s of course multiplayer options to race against others supporting four-player split screen and eight players online. While online matches are always scarce before an XBLA game comes out the matches I got into ran smoothly and the difficulty level spikes a great deal against other real humans.

In short, Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a competent water-based racer, especially when you put into consideration that it’s a downloadable title. My time with the game left me with one major complaint, mind: there’s not enough of it.

Clocking in at 1200 Microsoft points, I felt the number of boats and tracks included in that initial download was lacklustre, with three boats to each class and a handful of courses utilized in different ways within each different mode and difficulty level.

There’s certainly potential for some decent DLC here, and while I still feel 1200 Microsoft Points is a reasonable price point for what you’re getting here a bit more variety in the tracks and available boats wouldn’t be amiss.

"Water physics will leave you fighting to keep control"

There are other little niggles, of course – the way boats sometimes seem to explode at the slightest touch of any scenery whilst in mid-air and how I’m certain the AI cheats – but these are all kind of racing game tropes that I think can be accepted to an extent.

If you’re looking for a fun arcade-style racer that you don’t have to plop a disc into your machine to play, Hydro Thunder Hurricane is definitely a more than worthy candidate.

Best Moment: Unlocking the expert class boats – it takes time, but it’s so worth it!