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H2Overdrive: The Hydro Thunder successor you didn't know of

Unless you heard of it from another Hydro Thunder fan, or have watched MrThunderwing's retrospective on the entire franchise.

Anyways, while I don't write big things about games as often as I used to, I have felt somewhat compelled to try doing at least a thing for this game due to the fact that, while I first revisited Hydro Thunder Hurricane and then tried this game for the first time, it wasn't until I went through the entirety of the original Hydro Thunder on PC and then came back to this with the new knowledge I had obtained where I started to click even more with this one.

Even if sometimes, in a few jank occasions, can feel more annoying. But as I'll get to those oddities later, it definitely lives up to this spiritual successor name this game has to Hydro Thunder.

Because it might as well be an official sequel with a different name.

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Content Table

Reintroduction to classic basics

Long story short, the game was developed by Specular Interactive, which was mainly composed of ex-Midway developers...so you can see that it was basically most of the original Hydro Thunder team behind this game, which explains the large similarity between both games, compared to Hurricane which was initially not a HT game and did focus on a different approach to certain things compared to the OG Hydro Thunder. Things that were instead stronger emphasized in this unofficial sequel.

One of those would be the Mighty Hull, the ability to ram boats off your way with boost. While in Hurricane this ability was removed, forcing you to be mindful of any other boats on the way as you can't just push them, H2Overdrive instead grants you free boost for each opponent you crash into. Although note that you'll still have to often plan your boost pickup routes, as each hit only grants you one second of boost.

Funnily enough, you can actually juggle boats and keep getting boost from them if they happen to get sent straight ahead and continues being struck by you. But enough of the Mighty Hull...for now.

If you aren't familiar with Hydro Thunder already, there are three key things you need to know and start learning if you want to win.

There's certainly a noticeable nuance to these games when you catch on those secret-at-plain-sight strats, most notably with the first two games due to the Hydro Jump not being mapped to a single button, but as I go through each of those three points, I'll mention what H2Overdrive adds or change to these instructions, whether big or small.

...Oh, and I forgot to mention that this game actually has stunts for when you go off ramps, which seemingly give you boost as well, but I won't be mentioning it again on what I had written here already because I never figured out how to use it lol

Boosters are mapped

Boosters in all three games are in blue and red variety, blue pickups giving you a few seconds of boost while the red pickups give you double of that. So that is easy enough to understand...until you have to start deciding between paths that might have different pickups, or more commonly later on, get distracted by shiny booster pickups that are way above the water you are racing on if you don't know the Hydro Jump.

While explaining how the boosters you choose to pick can influence the lines you take on the race [beyond the fact that if you are clearly aiming at one and miss it, you're screwed], there's a THIRD booster pickup exclusive to H2Overdrive: The Super Boost.


This is a yellow pickup that grants its own boost gauge until its depleted, and the titular Super Boost is very fast-acting, as well as being faster than any other boost.

The Super Boost gauge usually depletes way faster than a full Boost Gauge despite looking the same, can only be refueled with another Super Boost pickup, and once you use it up, you're back to the normal boost.

Although any boosts you pick up while its active, as well as any you had before taking a Super Boost, will stay stored for when you run out of it.


However, there's a very good reason for the Super Boost to be rare and much faster to waste if reckless.

A quirk that's kept from the original is that any speed you gained before going mid-air, or are gaining mid-air through boosters, will stay stored until you land or hit something on the way down. It's one reason why it can be effective to boost into a jump, then as long as a straight allows you to, keep chaining jumps to keep that speed while wasting less boost than just holding it down the whole straight.

There's even an achievement in the game for doing a double jump in a track that gets tracked in your profile alongside others.

So if you use the Super Boost briefly mid-air, you can save on the boost itself while gaining its speed increase for way longer as long as you are mid-air thanks to how insanely strong it is to just use it a bit in that scenario.


If there's a track where you can see this in full effect, it would be Temple of Flume - not only there's an easy to pick up Super Boost on the first half, but not too long after that there's a second one that only needs an Hydro Jump to catch and use in the long straights inside the temple.


And speaking of the Hydro Jump...

Taking an Hydro Airflight

Because with how much you might get hooked to hitting Hydro Jump, you might as well be an airplane constantly landing and taking flight again for speed.

The Hydro Jump in general is a tool that adds an extra layer of dynamics to the three games, although all vary slightly in what they can offer.


For the case of H2Overdrive, I actually didn't quite use the Hydro Jump to its fullest potential until I sank my teeth into the original Hydro Thunder ironically enough, and being forced to learn the little strategies I could take with it are what carried over to my revisiting of H2Overdrive after first impressions and pushed me to keep playing until I could win most tracks in first place.


The Hydro Jump itself is a button combo in HT and H2O, pulling the throttle back and pushing the boost before pushing back to accelerate, but in a controller or keyboard it goes like this:

And the longer you hold the brake after pushing the booster, the higher your jump will be. Of course, sometimes you'll want smaller jumps for precision or saving time to land before a booster, while other times you'll need the high jump for very suspiciously high boosters or shortcuts in tracks.


You can also boosting mid-air can also give you a bit of air control, more than in the OG HT but way less than in Hurricane, so that can be used for adjustments in certain ramp jumps.

But this is taken to a ridiculous degree with the aforementioned Super Boost, as the boost's strength basically lets you do midair turns if you tap the booster. Near the start of Quake Canyon, this is something that I often do through the nearby Super Boost and ramp afterwards, as I use the Super Boost briefly to go through the canyon turns midair [at 0:52].


While the Super Boost is the strongest tool to use with the Hydro Jump, using that speed-retaining technique with the Hydro Jump [boost to max speed then jump to keep the speed without further boosting], and more so if you're able to chain jumps during straights, can turn the Hydro Jump from a shortcut finder into bunnyhopping with a powerboat.

And of course, make no mistake, there are many shortcuts in the game's tracks that can really make or break a race due to their strength and often housing Red Boost or Super Boost pickups as an extra gift for your efforts.

This is...the Mighty Hull

...Or at least the original name in Hydro Thunder. In that game, they could be used to slow them down before the finish line or earlier, which might be necessary depending of the track with how they can get ahead in the OG HT - although be careful of actually punting an opponent boat into the finish line before you if both of you are in front of it.


As mentioned at the start, ramming boats with the hull in H2Overdrive actually grants you one second of boost, which can be used to keep up speed in straights without boosters nearby, or even crazier, run through a line of AI boats to have a few seconds of free boost while getting that hit of audibly smashing an opponent boat into the air.

Note that here, unlike HT, boats actually can often catch up fast even when you send them flying, likely to factor for how ramming boats like crazy is an intended part of the new gameplay, so here you have to focus on ramming those boats more to get more boost time than to get them out of the way [even if can help] - and sometimes you'll have to make choices between blindly chasing AI boats for free boost...or take a better inside line to actually catch up with first place. Preferably with enough boost to ignore the boats.


This is something that felt more pronounced in Quake Canyon, a track that took me so many attempts to beat even with a fully leveled up boat [we'll get to that too] as not only often there could be a jank moment of trying to scale up the big wave near the end but sinking and getting respawned [although one way to avoid it is to get there before the wave gets too big...but most of the time I just try to boost through it and hope I don't die], but also kept trying to ram the boats for free boost instead of aiming for the line earlier and often couldn't even catch up to see first place.


The hull here is given more utility than just ramming boats though, as there are boost crates that also give you small boost doses, mine crates that drop mines [duh] that can catch opponents and the game will notify you of them [oh damn, Hydro Thunder Hitfeed], and the one thing that could easily make or break a race: The Hull Crusher.


...Wait, didn't you hear me?


HULLLLLL CRUSHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

If H2Overdrive's higher framerate and focus on granting you boost from entering a blind road rage with sending boats to Davy Jones's locker was already making you feel like a monster truck, this item will turn you into a total monster: A circle of flames around you with loud rock guitars playing while active, with said circle instantly crushing any boat nearby whether you boost or not.


This is something that not only makes you look like a madman on a powerboat, but also plays directly into the boost-ram-the-boats mechanic, as if you aren't already bumrushing them with this powerup to get more free boost, chances are that the boats trying to catch up will sink themselves when approaching your field of fiery death.

Although you will have to improvise hard if you are banking on the Hullcrusher's natural ability to farm boost from the AI boats...and unceremoniously miss the crate by accident or from a troll wave - and there is only ONE hullcrusher crate available in a race. Unlike the boosters, crates are also randomized in their placement, so you have to pay attention for when you stumble upon it.


But yeah, ramming boats is viable to keep your speed high and can be a temporary relief from the AI boats rubberbanding up to you [even though again, they are arguably doing this just so that you can ram them], more so if you grab the Hullcrusher and hear the sounds of destruction while your boost gauge rises without even needing to boost. Just don't let it blind you from any critical chances to attack if a specific track is giving you trouble to conquer in first place or are time attacking for a fast time.

Profiles and achievements...wasn't this an arcade-only game?

Yes, legally and officially, unfortunately H2Overdrive IS an arcade exclusive game. But if the idea of an arcade racer with profiles sounds really surprising to you, then sounds like you haven't heard of arcade racers with card readers [Initial D Arcade Stage and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune]...or more appropiately, Midway's own San Francisco Rush 2049 for arcade having PIN codes to load your profile with all the unlocks you obtained.


H2Overdrive takes that PIN approach to create and store profiles in a specific machine, which allows not only your progress to be tracked, but also your boats to be leveled up as you continue playing.

Unlike HT and HTH where the boats you get are fixed with stats and the difficulty curve is to improve with the harder boats as you keep playing, this is still present in H2Overdrive...if you are playing without a profile or just starting with one.


All boats start as Level 5 and have differing stats as a result, with the Hard boats having better stats but harder handling as expected...but all the boats can be leveled up individually up to Level 40, at which point their stats will be maxed out.

So if you wanted to stay maining a beginner boat because you liked how it looked but didn't want to stay behind in speed, you can eventually get it to surpass the top dogs, as even the Hard machines aren't maxed out by default. I think a player had mentioned me that boats still had some handling differences even when maxed out, but at the end of the day, if you're just starting with this game, just take the one you like the most and keep fighting until you can win races, whether you turn it into a state-of-the-art powerboat or somehow can make the best out of a freshly bought one.


On the note of profiles and progress, I had mentioned that this game does have achievements that get tracked to your profile, and this also even factors to the stage select having a percentage shown for each track indicating how many of the achievements available per race you've obtained in that one track.

Some of them are easy, such as ramming a boat for the first time, grabbing a hull crusher or doing your first Hydro Jump, but there are a few others like doing two or more Hydro Jumps, ramming five boats in a single race, and the most expected of all: Win a race in first place.

A forgotten successor of a forgotten classic?

It sure doesn't help that, besides being a spiritual successor anything but name when Hydro Thunder Hurricane exists as an officially named sequel [which goes on a more modern take and feel, but still holds up for me], this game has been relegated to arcades ever since its release in 2009 - a whopping 15 years as of writing this.


And the only way it has been somewhat more accessible is thanks to PC tools that allow the game to be hooked up with functional controls on a PC such as JConfig or Teknoparrot, as the original game was actually running in an arcadified Windows machine [and this often goes to almost all modern arcade games you find out that are playable in PC without ports].

But otherwise, it has got no official re-releases of any kind - the latest Raw Thrills port being Cruis'n Blast which got brought over to Switch a few years after it dropped in arcades...but it was both made in house at Raw Thrills [instead of H2Overdrive which was made by Specular Interactive] and was actually licensed by Nintendo themselves as the Cruis'n trademark was owned by them after Midway went under.

So at this point the only way an H2Overdrive re-released happened was if either, for some miracle reason, Raw Thrills decided to re-release it themselves on consoles, or if Microsoft wanted to be funny and hit them up for an official re-release for Xbox, regardless of the name. However, in that occasion, it would still be a question of whether the people behind the actual game are still available to this day to make a port.

Even that though is a very unlikely scenario, as again, Microsoft owns the Hydro Thunder IP...and the only thing they ever made after Hurricane was a Windows Phone game called Hydro Thunder Go. And that's not even adding the way they have been handling their business on games recently...

Only saving grace for Hurricane itself is that it is still available in the Windows Store as well as the Xbox One and Series digital storefronts - even having a resolution + framerate bump up in the latter case.

Otherwise, it seems that Hydro Thunder's legacy ends with Hurricane, with the original that took the game by storm being left forgotten officially and in general when only those who are invested in these classic arcade racers would investigate or even have already known about it before.

Let alone the differently named, arcade only spiritual sequel that would only be playable in PCs sometime after 2020.

Conclusion

There's no Castle von Dandy awaiting in this one, but if you loved the original Hydro Thunder, having mastered the controls, Hydro Jump and way it feels...then H2Overdrive will feel like a double shot of adrenaline when it follows up on the same gameplay but rewarding being aggressive with the hull [as well as using the Hull Crusher for twisting metal off the competition] and Hydro Jumping if you have boost, or even better, the Super Boost.


But it only really delivers on that payoff if you, again, have got used to the original HT or are willing to invest enough time to learn this from scratch - as HT may be easier with the less exaggerated speeds and learning to use your basics effectively to win races, and then move over to H2O due to the more aggressive bots, speeds and even the level up system forcing you to play A LOT unless you are willing to go for minimalist boat runs...or get a savefile with all boats leveled up from speedrun.com.


In any case though, while at the time of writing this I haven't played it in a while, it definitely had a hook on me the few days I did, both before and after getting good grips with Hydro Thunder - except that it felt even more satisfying to play after learning the sacred Hydro strats. And the aggressive racing you can partake to your heart's fiery content reminded me of the hectic peaks that other racers like Burnout 3 and Ring Racers gave whenever you had the right booster to crash through an opponent and see them fly off to Brazil. Just take in mind that like the original Hydro Thunder [including the home ports], there isn't a dedicated TIme Attack mode for you to run against the clock...so if you wanna aim for a big time, you'll have to make use of the opponents at all times, hope you get good crate placements, and don't choke on the water.


The one thing that might be an obstacle to people curious to try it is if to figure out how to...get the game [cough] and more importantly, how to configure it with the right tools, as it is less simple to do than running an N64 or Dreamcast emulator [or running the PC versino] for HT- at least if you aren't tech savvy. If you have someone that can help you on that, find a good tutorial on that regard [I can guess there's at least one]...or you know exactly what you need to do to get your hands on overdrive with H2Overdrive, then go ahead and crush those boats!!

Thanks for reading!

The videos I linked are from my Replay Channel, where I had uploaded some runs of this game back when I was actively practicing it - was definitely a neat diversion after going for all tracks completed in PC Hydro Thunder.


I know that this might be slightly messy in formatting at the moment and don't have many fresh screenshots to use [I don't have the game anymore since a few weeks ago - I backed up my savefile but that's it for now], but if you enjoyed reading this, then let me know in uhh...huh. I guess that you can reply to the post on Bluesky where I shared this, or drop a message on the Guestbook that's in the main page. It would be neat to get back on the long haul for long writeups like this since I can allow myself to use this much space thanks to being my own site.