For those unaware of the previous game, Hydro Thunder Hurricane is an arcade speedboat racing game. Everything about the game is over-the-top; from the arcade style handling and boost system, to the crazy level design with frequent giant waves and even huge monsters that block your path.

There are four main modes in Hydro Thunder Hurricane. Race, where you pick a single track and race against 19 AI players. Ring Master, which is a slalom style event where you must pass through gates. Gauntlet, a race against the clock with lots of exploding barrels. And finally, Championship mode which sees you complete several events in row with points being awarded for each.

There is a very nice prgression and unlock system in the game. After every event you are given a gold, silver or bronze medal and a certian amount of credits based on the difficulty. These credits then gradually unlock new events, boats and boat skins. There are 50 events in total to unlock so Hydro Thunder Hurricane has plenty to keep you occupied.

The gameplay itself is great fun and captures the spirit of the orginal. The handling is simple enough for anyone to pick up and play but mastery of the boost and boost jump as well as knowledge of all the shortcuts and hidden roots in each track are vital to success.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane also features online play with up to 8 players competing online. You can compete in two different modes, standard race mode and the online exclusive “Rubber Ducky” mode. “Rubber Ducky” sees the players split into two teams. Each team choses a leader who drives the rubber duck. It is then up to this person with the help of the rest of their team mates to get the duck to the finish first.

There are a couple of very nice multiplayer options which one of which is the ability to have up to four local players playing splitscreen against any combination of players online. The other is Geometry Wars 2-style leaderboards integration. You can easily see scores when you select an event and also your in-game split-times are compared to the person above you in leaderboards.

There are a few of issues with Hydro Thunder Hurricane though. Firstly, there are frequent framerate drops on several of the levels. Secondly, with only eight tracks there is a lot of of repetition as you progress through the single player modes. Finally, whilst the arcade-style announcer is great for nostalgia, he becomes annoying after a few races and inexplicably the only way to turn him off is to reduce the sound effects volume which means you can no longer hear your boat. There are a few problems then, though hopefully these can be rectified with a patch and some DLC.

So is Hydro Thunder Hurricane worth the 1200 points? The answer is it depends entirely upon whether you enjoy arcade racers. If you do (and especially if you liked the original Hydro Thunder) then I would have no problem recommending the game. Everyone else should at least play the trial.

Score: 8.0/10

Game of the Day:

Avatar Bowling – 80 points – Download
What’s this? Two decent avatar games in two days? Avatar Bowling is a solid bowling game with great presentation.

Other Games:

D.O.T.S. – 80 points – Download

Guide your dot through various obstacles. Controls were very floaty.

WordWise – 80 points – Download

A nice collection of word games well presented.

Wordsearch Rush – 80 points – Download

A really nice wordsearch game with the twist being there is no word list. Instead you are given a subject and must find words related to it. Good fun.

Bubble Buster – 80 points – Download

A really cleanly presented puzzle game where you must move rows and columns of bubbles to match colours. The only slight problem I had was there are two different blue bubble types and there colour is very similar making it hard to tell them apart.

Classic Minesweeper – 80 points – Download

A very simple Minesweeper clone.

Game of the Day:

AvaGlide – 80 points – Download

Finally, another good 3D avatar game to join Avatar Golf. In this Pilotwings-esque game you control your Avatar on a Hand Glider through various objectives. It’s only 80 points so get it now!

Other Games:

Ophidian Wars: Opac’s Journey – 80 points – Download

A really good 2D platformer with exploration, abilities and upgrades. Definitely give this one a go. Full review coming soon.

SudokuGeek – 240 points – Download

A pretty solid Sudoku game. Though the menu system is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Phat Fly! – 80 points – Download

Collect fireflies and avoid the flies bigger than you. Not bad but the collision detection seems a little off.

Avatar Bowman – 80 points – Download

An avatar take on a much-used formula. Adjust the trajectory and power of your bow and try to hit the other avatar. Not bad.

Four Corners – 80 points – Download

Interesting RTS/Tower defence hybrid. I didn’t get to play that much of this but what I did play seemed pretty good.

Cerebral Arena – 80 points – Download

Very average dual stick shooter. The voice over is hilarious though.

Avatar High Five – 80 points – Download

I couldn’t believe that the title really does describe this game. You put your hand on the screen (yes, really) and then press button combinations to high five your avatar. My screen is far too small so I couldn’t see what buttons to press and there are finger marks on my screen.

Super Avatar World – 80 points – Download

Surprisingly, this isn’t actually that bad. It’s heavily influenced by New Super Mario Bros. and the core platforming is okay. Even the animations hold up which is almost never happens in Avatar games.

Game of the Day:

B-A-Maze’d – 80 points – Download

3D maze game where you must tilt the maze to guide a blob through. Really nice presentation and solid gameplay.

Other Games:

Immunogen – 80 points – Download

Memorize certain colour combinations then try to match viruses using them. It is supposed to help your memory but I just found it frustrating.

Air Forte – 400 points – Download

Educational game that teaches you maths and geography, among other things, whilst you fly your plane through the answers. The menus and cutscenes have really nice presentation but the actual gameplay of guiding the plane is dull. Overpriced too.

Crazy Wizard in Creepy Castle – 80 points – Download

I love 2D platformers but unfortunately there isn’t much to like here. The platform mechanics are awful (especially the jumping), the collision detection barely works and it looks horrible.

This Way That Way – 80 points – Download

Puzzle game in which you must guide your character across a grid to the goal. The twist is that once you go in a certain direction you must use every other direction before you can go that way again. Seems interesting.

The Quest For Freshness – 80 points – Download

Average tower defence game. There are a lot better ones on XBLIG. Horn Swaggle Islands and Sol Survivor are two i’d really recommend.

StarField Battle 2 – 80 points – Download

Dual-stick shooter. With so many of these types of games on XBLIGs, this would have to do something special to stand out. Sadly it doesn’t. It’s not bad, there are just much better games at the same price point.

Ballern2D – 80 points – Download

The menus in this game made me feel sick. It’s a pretty poor vertical shooter. If you are looking for a good vertical shmup I’d recommend Vampire Rage (review coming next week).

Find out more at Chris Hughes’ official site.

Note: These impressions are based off 8 minutes of gameplay and are not an accurate assessment of the full product.

Game of the Day:

Lumi – 400 points – Download

Winner of this year’s Dream Build Play competition, Lumi is quite simply the best looking game on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It’s interesting platform mechanics are great fun too. DOWNLOAD IT NOW!

Other Games:

MusicNow! – 80 points – Download

This tool allows you to play music sotred on your Xbox 360. Unfortunately all my music is streamed from my PC so I couldn’t test it out.

Jurassic – 240 points – Download

Puyo Puyo clone with a twist. The twist is that dinosaurs are attacking form the right of the screen and you must make cavemen to defend yourdelf by matching the coloured blocks. Seems quite fun.

7strains : The Infectious – 80 points – Download

A very nicely presented game where you must avoid strains of bacteria and destroy them by throwing rocks. The gameplay seemed a little dull when I played it alone but maybe it’s more fun with up to 4 players.

Comet!- 80 points – Download

Destroy comets by pressing the face buttons of the matching the color. I couldn’t tell if I was bad at the game or it was just frustrating.

Decimation X

Coming from the developers of hotly anticipated Duality ZF, Xona Games, Decimation X is a re-imagining of the classic Space Invaders formula with support for up to 4 players.

The basic premise of Decimation X, like space invaders, is to destroy waves of enemies gradually moving down the screen before they kill you. To aid you you have several buildings between you and the enemies that shield you from incoming bullets but are gradually are destroyed.

The gameplay is extremely simple, you essentially focus on two things; destroying enemies and collecting powerups. Powerups have a variety of effects such as shields, increases in power, rapid fire and also the ability to repair the buildings protecting you.

Where Decimation X seperates itself from Space Invaders is in it’s speed and the amount of bullets on screen at one time. In fact, as you get better at the game, Decimation X seems less like a homage to a classic arcade game and more like a modern ‘bullet-hell’ shooter. You must have great reflexes to make it past more than the first few waves.

With the visual style Xona Games has achieved a perfect balance between retro and modern gaming. Like Geometry Wars, the simple graphic design is complimented by modern particle effects to create both a nostalgic and impressive look.

So are there any problems? The biggest one is the lack on online scoreboards. Despite there being a message in the game saying ‘Online Scoreboards Coming Soon’ there has been no sign of them and we are nearing six months since release. Also slghtly disappointing is the fact that the music, whilst great, drowns out the sound effects and there are no options to adjust this.

These are minor issues in the grand scheme of things though. Decimation X is one of the finest, most polished and addictive games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. At only 80 points everyone should own it.

Decimation X is one of the finest, most polished and addictive games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

Halfbrick Blast Off

When Albert Einstein said “The laws of gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love”, he certainly had a point. Said laws can however be held responsible for the fact that my cute little spaceship has just smacked into the side of a planetoid, killing everyone onboard. Still, at least it’s a quicker way to go than drifting out into deep space until your food and oxygen run out.

Australian developers Halfbrick have a long history as a developer for hire, writing DS games for other people. Their most recent releases include Raskulls on Xbox Live Arcade, and a couple of PSP Minis. Their experience shows, as Blast Off is a simple, addictive and well-executed game. Comparisons to Atari’s Lunar Lander are inevitable, but in reality the games are very different. This game is a puzzler, with more than a hint of the arcade. And it’s a good one.

Blast Off starts with a simple level that introduces the player to the control scheme and the game itself. Holding the “A” button blasts your little rocket from Earth. After launch the left stick rotates your rocket, while “A” again provides thrust. Every second of thrust burns up your limited reserve of fuel and brings you closer to the time when your oxygen runs out. Get too close to a planet and you’ll smash into the surface, or sling-shot away into deep space, too far away to return. Get the distance, your speed and the angle of thrust just right and you’ll sail around the system, collecting stranded astronauts, then making it to the convenient (and not terribly realistic) warpgate that signals the end of the level.

This is a game of repetition. Like me, you’ll probably die dozens or even hundreds of times until, almost by accident, you nail it and get through to the next level. But along the way you’ll enjoy the environments, with spinning planets, hazy galaxies and passing meteors. You’ll love the minimalist synthesizer soundtrack (available to download for free from Halfbrick) and you’ll be mesmerized by the variety and complexity of many of the levels.

Halfbrick Blast Off was the first game to be released under the Halfbrick Fridays series, and is available for 240 Microsoft Points.

You'll be mesmerized by the variety and complexity of many of the levels.

Nasty

The temptation to make a tabloid-style comment based on title from from Fun Infused Games is overwhelming. But I’ll fight it. For as long as I can.

Here’s the elevator pitch: Nasty is a cross between Contra and Bubble Bobble. You’ve got a gun, you dodge and shoot, and jump onto platforms to collect fruit. Once you’ve killed all the enemies a door opens, leading you to the next level.

Nasty is nicely polished, with good attention to detail. Each level has a theme, and while some have clearly had more attention than others, there is a nice mix. The animation is smooth, jumping and moving is precise, the controls are simple, and graphics and sound are good. There’s tons of variety in the game, and a challenge that ramps up as you move from level to level. Your enemies include little green men, ghosts, sharks and large, menacing bosses. The levels include destructible walls, lava pits, spikes and much more.

Wrinkles are few, and if this kind of game is your bag, they won’t cause too much heartache. Nasty has a save system that can only be used every ten levels, with a fixed number of continues for each level. Run out of continues and it’s back to the last save point. Nasty has no Xbox live multiplayer, but this is balanced by local play modes. My only other niggle is that some of the levels could have done with some more attention to detail to make them distinctive.

Nasty has had two major updates already from the developer, improving gameplay and fixing many issues. More updates are planned. It’s good to see an indie studio standing by their game, and it bodes well for future releases from this studio.

Give Nasty a chance, with 100 levels, 4-player local “Battle Mode” and cooperative play, at a mere 80 Microsoft points this is a steal.

Nasty but nice.

With 100 levels, 4-player local "Battle Mode" and cooperative play, at a mere 80 Microsoft points this is a steal.

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