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Crunching an over-the-top arcade rocket-boat simulator onto a PSX disc can't be easy -look how badly "San Francisco Rush" missed the mark -so it's a pleasant surprise to find Hydro Thunder so true to the arcade original.

Tweaking the arcade game slightly to squeeze out some more replay value, you begin the game with your choice of three easy boats and three easy tracks. Finishing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd (in a field of 16) on these tracks opens up the medium set, where you need to be second or better to move onto the hard tracks.

The graphics are a wildly mixed bag -some races have patches of incomprehensible blur and pixelation (most notably the first portion of the "Arctic Circle" track), while at times you'll be stunned by surprisingly good reflection and other water effects.

The developers also did a great job of keeping in all the "look ma!" cutesies of the arcade game, such as police boats and tour guides chasing you down the river (sample audio: "the tracks in Hydro Thunder were constructed from thousands of tiny triangles... oooh!")

The knock against this game is the agonizing difficulty level. You won't win a race without finding significant shortcuts and getting most, if not all, of the "boosts", which often require a special "hydro jump" technique to blast out of the water and into the air. I'm all for getting more than five hours of playability out of a disc, but in HT, it seems you have to run the same track 30 or more times to get the perfect run that places you high enough to move on. It's grueling, and when all's said and done, I think the shortcut-crazed novelty-racer might do better to play "Sled Storm" instead.

But if you absolutely loved the arcade game, the PSX version is a worthy adaptation.

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this game is so sweet racing through the water at 100mph hitting boats and hering people scream but your not hurt.

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The game is very fun to play but some levels are over the top difficult. But you just want to keep trying.

Honest reviews on Hydro Thunder

don't like very much because the game was not made by the orginal company it was duped and you can't even jump the boats or get a super start off the line this product really sucks i will not buy again i don't like being tricked into thinking that something is just used not duped!!! find some way to insure that the product is what it is suposed to be !! freeman caldwell

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It's fast paced, great for two players for fun competition. Love finding the shortcuts...Just wish they had a go your pace mode to really explore where those shortcuts are ;)