Hydro Thunder Hurricane Archive

3

XBLA’s Most Wanted: Blood Wake

By
Steve Melton
– January 28, 2012Posted in: Features, XBLA's Most Wanted

Back in the winter of 2001 eager gamers stood in the cold overnight in anticipation of getting their hands on Microsoft’s first console, the Xbox. They took their new console home along with their selection of about a dozen launch titles. About a month later a second wave of games were released, among them was Stormfront Studios’ Blood Wake. It was an innovative title that focused on combat on the open waters. Like many titles from that time the plot had a certain amount of cheese factor, but somehow was still incredibly satisfying. But the real gem was the water physics, something ahead of its time.

Funny thing is, without Blood Wake we wouldn’t have Hydro Thunder Hurricane. See, Stormfront housed the brains and brawn behind Vector Unit, Hurricane‘s developer. Ralf Knoesel and Matt Small both worked on Blood Wake as a programmer and artist, respectively. Knoesel designed the water simulation which became one of the building blocks for the system in Hurricane. These guys have a special place in their heart for this little gem, and there are a lot of good reasons why.

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3

Weekend Rant: If I were a rich man. . .

By
Steve Melton
– January 21, 2012Posted in: Features, Weekend Rant

Weekend Rant is a non-regularly occurring weekend mini-editorial. In layman’s terms that basically means that if a staff member has something they want to rant about they can do so on any given weekend.

I have a confession: I’m a dreamer. Amidst having a career, being a husband and a dad, and life in general I constantly have daydreams in my head. One of those has always been to help develop or fund a game. Last night I was up until the wee hours with friends playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane, and as I dozed off my dreams were that of being a rich man. Since I can’t indulge my fantasy in real life, I thought it might be fun to throw out some of my XBLA dreams and hear some of yours.

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9

XBLA games you can’t pass on the cheap: Volume 1

By
Steve Melton
– October 28, 2011Posted in: Features

In the past few years we’ve often had people ask us what Xbox Live Arcade games are worth the money, but unlike us they usually don’t shell out a lot on XBLA games each year. It makes sense, after all 1200 MSP every month or so adds up in the end. Every site has those “you should buy it” lists where games like Limbo, Braid, Castle Crashers, Bastion, and Trials HD sit, but sometimes with other games you’re still not convinced. That being said here’s list of games you shouldn’t pass up on a sale. After all, we’re all on a budget. So if you’re one of those that won’t buy it at retail price no matter how good the reviews are, take a look at this list for the best titles you can find on sale.

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0

Awesome avatar awards: Week of 5/29

By
Steve Melton
– June 4, 2011Posted in: Avatar Awards

We’re starting yet another feature here at XBLAFans that will showcase any newly announced Xbox Live Arcade-based avatar awards from are friends over at AvatarAwards. They’re a great site that somehow gets news on avatar awards for all 360 games before they’re released. Be sure to check them out if you’re curious about any non-XBLA related avatar awards. For simplicity’s sake and so that we don’t leech from them, each of the links below will take you to their site. Remember, these are awards, so they’re given out to the player by completing criteria in each game. For more detail hit up the Avatar Awards site. You can also follow them on Twitter at @AvatarAwards360.

We’ve got a big backlog to fill between the AvatarAwards and things that pre-date their site, so this one’s a lot longer than usual. Hit the jump to see the list. Also, let us know if we missed one.

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0

Now get your Hydro Thunder to GO

By
Steve Melton
– May 25, 2011Posted in: Off Topic

Fans of Hydro Thunder Hurricane who also own a Windows Phone 7 device can now get their boatin’ on anytime they like. Pixelbite Games and Microsoft Game Studios have released Hydro Thunder Go, a 3D mobile spinoff of Hurricane. The game features nine original tracks and 12 boats, including some classic boats like Rad Hazard and Razorback. It’s now available for USD $4.99.

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What would you change about Hydro Thunder Hurricane?

By
Steve Melton
– May 13, 2011Posted in: News

Hydro Thunder Hurricane developer Vector Unit wants to to hear from you. In a recent Facebook post the developer posted the following: “Question for you HTH fans out there: What did you think of the Achievements in HTH? Too easy? Too hard? Points distribution good? What would you have done differently, if anything?” Be sure to pop over to Hydro Thunder Hurricane‘s Facebook page, give it a like and post some feedback. Be sure to request more DLC too. While you’re at it check out the Facebook page for their new game, Riptide GP, coming soon to Nvidia Tegra 2 powered Android devices.

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1

Thanks for a great playdate!

By
Steve Melton
– May 1, 2011Posted in: News

Although it’s a little late, we wanted to give a huge thank you to the Xbox Live community, and particularly our readers for coming out and throwing down against us in Hydro Thunder Hurricane! Each of our staffers involved were literally flooded with so many friend request we couldn’t accept them all. We split off into multiple groups and tried to team up with as many gamertags as we could, so if we missed you we’re sorry.

We had such a great time that we want to do it again as soon as possible. We’re looking for ideas on XBLA titles that can have five or more players getting together to have a good time. We’ve got a list of possibilities below. Let us know which one you’d like to play. If you were there at the playdate this past weekend let us know, we didn’t get to meet up with everyone that wanted to play with us. Oh, and next time we play we’re not doing it at our house. We spent an hour cleaning up pizza, soda, and doritos out of the carpet.

Possible titles for future Community Playdates:

  • Section 8: Prejudice
  • Hydro Thunder Hurricane
  • Snoopy Flying Ace
  • Breach
  • Battlefield 1943
  • Blacklight: Tango Down
  • Monday Night Combat
  • Harm’s Way
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0

What we are playing: Week of May 1st

By
John Laster
– April 30, 2011Posted in: Features, What we are playing

This is a new piece we’re starting to let our readers know what we have been playing for fun over the past week.

John Laster – I’m playing Outland, or at least I will be once I can stop staring at how pretty it is. Also big thanks to all you guys who came out and played Hydro Thunder Hurricane with us yesterday!

Steve Melton – Just finished The Da Vinci Disappearance DLC for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Going to get back into Crazy Taxi and Rock Band 3 for a while until I can get Portal 2 on sale.

Tyler Cameron – Since I’m too poor for anything good in retail right now (*sigh* one day, Mortal Kombat and Portal 2) and I’m still waiting for my wife to decide she wants to play the Gears of War 3 BETA with me, it’s been all XBLA for me. I’m still enjoying Section 8: Prejudice very much, but I got back in to playing Battlefield 1943 and Hydro Thunder Hurricane. I also picked up Banjo Kazooie on sale this week, rekindling my love for old Rare games. Afting that, I plan on digging in to the beautiful looking Outland.

Kaitlyn Chantry – I’m taking a break from Dragon Age 2 to play Another World on a DOS emulator. I’m gearing up for this summer’s release of From Dust by playing Chahi’s 1991 masterpiece. So excellent!

Andrew Crews – This week I finally finished up the Lode Runner DLC and it was literally the worst thing I have played on the Xbox 360. I also took a few hours and played through Nin2-Jump which is a fun little game that supports a great cause. At only 400MS points, everyone should buy this game.

Ross Adams – Finished Bulletstorm and Portal 2, one was substantially better than the other. Still playing lots of Mortal Kombat but my weekend will also be filled with Outland and Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, which I finally got round to buying.

Jonathan Cole – Almost finished plowing through Section 8: Prejudice campaign mode while also spending a bit of time with the great multiplayer. Rented Mortal Kombat for the weekend and having a blast with it, despite my total worthlessness with fighting games. Finally, continuing my Dwarf Noble playthrough of Dragon Age.

Damon Filman – I’ve spent this week finishing up Portal 2; I’m really close to the end now and have loved everything so far. I will be ditching the Xbox briefly this weekend to play the next episode of the Back to the Future game.

James Heiger – I have been playing Catan with my friends.  Its a great way to make them not my friends anymore

John Drawdy - This week has been completely taken up by the Gears of War 3 BETA which I am loving oh so very much. I also have found a few minutes here and there for the campaign in Section 8: Prejudice, not to bad so far.

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0

Community playdate tonight!

By
Steve Melton
– April 29, 2011Posted in: News

Tonight is our Xbox Live Community Playdate. This isn’t a “let’s get together and play”, it’s an official, Xbox Sponsored playdate. We’ll be playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane, one of our many favorites around the XBLAFans offices. Jump online from 8-11PM Eastern Standard Time to game with our staff.

We probably won’t be playing the DLC maps as it requires money to play them, but we will be requiring the multiplayer Tempest Pack patch, available here for free. This compatibility patch (technically free DLC) will let those who like DLC-only boats and skins use them, and people who don’t own the paid DLC can see them. For those interested the full version of the DLC includes three new achievements two new boats, three new tracks, expert versions of the novice and pro boats, and new skins for every boat. It’s well worth the 400MSP, as indicated by our review of it. If you want to buy the full version of the Tempest Pack, you can do so here.

Hit the jump for a list of gamertags participating.

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1

Mark your calendars for April 29

By
Steve Melton
– April 7, 2011Posted in: News

Being a site focused solely on XBLA and XBLIG titles we occasionally get to do some cool stuff that makes us feel like celebrities. Enter the April 29 Xbox Live Community Playdate. This isn’t a “let’s get together and play”, it’s an official, Xbox Sponsored playdate. We’ll be playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane, one of our many favorites around the XBLAFans offices.

We probably won’t be playing the DLC maps as it requires money to play them, but we will be requiring the multiplayer Tempest Pack patch, available here for free. This compatibility patch (technically free DLC) will let those who like DLC-only boats and skins use them, and people who don’t own the paid DLC can see them. For those interested the full version of the DLC includes three new achievements two new boats, three new tracks, expert versions of the novice and pro boats, and new skins for every boat. It’s well worth the 400MSP, as indicated by our review of it. For those wanting to buy the full version of the Tempest Pack, you can do so here.

Hit the jump for a list of gamertags participating.

Read the rest of this entry »

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