My favorite Games of All-Time #4: Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Originally published on 1UP - July 28, 2006

Street Fighter Alpha 2 is the greatest fighting game ever made. That's all I should have to say about it. A decade after it's release it still had not been topped, not even by Capcom. But I can't leave it at that, I have to explain why it ranks so high on my list. Above so many fine RPG's, racing and adventure games.

The game meets all my criteria for what I consider a great title. It is a title that is easy to pick up and learn, yet impossible to master. If I could sum up the game in one word it would be "balance." I don't mean solely a balance between characters in the game. I mean a complete balance behind the development and execution of every element in the game... I should elaborate.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SFA2) is a title that works on multiple levels. The more you look into the details the more you will discover. From the control, to the graphics and sound, pay attention now. Peel back each layer of the game and you will discover something yet to be duplicated.

SFA2 picks up on the heels of the original Alpha. Many felt that the first Alpha was rushed for release, Capcom countered by updating the game and fleshing out the experience with new levels, moves and characters. The game was nothing short of perfect.

Capcom had recently lost a good portion of the Street Fighter II team and was nervous about the next fighting project. With a good number of former Capcom employees working on the Samurai Showdown series a rivalry was building. SF II was such an incredible game that topping it was going to be near impossible with members of the team missing.

In fact Street Fighter II was the reason that many left Capcom. Management kept pushing the developers for updates to SF II rather than allowing them the time to develop a proper Street Fighter III. Many elements that were supposed to debut in III were added in the final version of Super Street Fighter II. In protest many members of the team walked away. The rest as they say is history...

Okay, so it really wasn't cut and dry.

Noritaka Funamizu and Yoshiki Okamoto were the last senior men left from the original team. They knew that without Akira Nishitani (who left Capcom to start ARIKA and create Street Fighter EX), making a proper SF III would be next to impossible, the universe of Street Fighter had grown very quickly. Would SF III be a new beginning or would it return to the plot of SF II?

Rather than release part III, Noritaka turned the clock back and created a legacy that tied together the first two SF games. In a word it was genius. There was no way Noritaka could have developed a proper trilogy when a good portion of his team had jumped ship. What he gave us instead was an epilogue far more enjoyable than any Street Fighter before.

It began with a careful selection of characters.

Of course Ken and Ryu were in the game, they are the stars. Or as it turned out, Ken and Ryu are part of a larger world where the supporting cast influences their fate and the fate of the Street Fighter universe as well. These people include Nash (I use the original Japanese names), the soldier and best friend of Guile. Aside from being a great character, Nash was placed in the game to add depth and back story to Shadowlaw and the murderous Vega.

The women in the game were all strong characters. None of them had enormous breasts that bounced all over the screen. None of the women wore anything too revealing. The women, like all of the characters in the game, took on multiple meanings. Sex appeal was substituted for substance and history. Chun-Li, returning from SF II in a younger guise with her traditional kung-fu, Sakura as a parody of the girl fighters in SNK games. Rose as a mystic who reveals some of the origin of Vega.

Rolento, Guy and Sodom tie the Street Fighter and Final Fight universe together. Final Fight was originally titled Street Fighter '89 and all of the characters in the series were meant to replace Ken and Ryu as the stars of the universe. Instead there became a melding in Alpha and all of the characters were allowed center stage. Birdie was a returning character from the original Street Fighter. Dhalsim and Zangief were returning from Street Fighter II. These were all nods to the legacy of the series, the creators and even the people that left Capcom.

This balance of the new and old was brilliant. Between strong female characters and familiar male characters there was little more the game needed. That's when Capcom piled on the substance and turned a potential good fighter into the "greatest."

The move selection for each character was great. The special moves, super moves and combos were unique and balanced. Large characters actually had a fighting chance against smaller, faster characters. Those in the middle weren't impervious to either extreme in character or style. Unlike the latter games, the ones I mention in the Primal Rage blog as "combo pornography," Alpha had just the right amount of multiple hit combos and even defense against those combos.

I mention styles because each character in the game represents a particular form of the martial arts. Noritaka and crew went to great lengths to make sure that the characters not only looked unique, their style of fighting and associated strategy was unique as well. These styles balanced each other, moreover there was always more than one character to handle a particular form. Zangief's wrestling could be countered by Birdie's brawling or Sodom's hybrid budokan. Ken and Ryu's fireballs proved ineffective to Rose or Dhalsim's mystic powers... etc.

The final group of characters I mention help round out the plot of the series. Dan is another parody of the SNK characters, his pink uniform is a blend between Ken and Ryu's red and white uniforms. Dan, like Muay Thai fighter Adon, exists to be a thorn in the side of Sagat. Sagat being the original boss in Street Fighter and second-to-the-end in Street Fighter II. The "best" fighters in the game blend classic forms and mythology.

Gen is returning from the original Street Fighter and is on his last legs as a master of the old forms of kung-fu. His purpose, like the purpose of Ken and Ryu is to end the murderous spree of Gouki. Gouki was meant to be the original boss of Street Fighter III but was instead introduced in the sequel. Now with a stronger purpose in Alpha, Gouki serves as the true boss and best fighter in the game. Vega ties in the plot from SF II and shows how the tournament became a front for his criminal organization.

Still with me?

The plot of the game is complex. Whether stated or implied there are layers of subtlety in the story. Each characters plays their role, if you can actually allow yourself the freedom to get lost in the world of a fighting game. The beauty of the game being that the endings and relationships between characters were open to different interpretations. It is one thing to tell an audience what happens in the story, it is another to allow the gamer the freedom to explore the possibilities. That type of game design is unfathomable. Moreover it was easy to become immersed in the story thanks to the detail in the levels.

Each level in SFA2 has as much personality as the fighters. Some levels are an homage to the previous games. Some levels filled with characters and locations from Final Fight. These characters would return in Alpha 3 and the eventual SF III. There was even a level brought in from the Street Fighter II anime movie because it was so influential.

The art direction in the game was the icing on the cake. The immortal Bengus was credited for the look of the characters. At the time that Killer Instinct's SGi-workstation characters wowed audiences, Mortal Kombat 3's live actor models were different, as were Primal Rage's clay dinosaurs or Virtua Fighter 2's polygon models. The only way Street Fighter could compete in that arena was with sprites that oozed style and substance. Bengus' designs were pure genius. Always working behind the scenes at Capcom, Bengus was responsible for some of the best art and design ever to come out of the studio. His body of work went on to influence all of the artists working there and at rival companies for years to come.

His characters were all unique, colorful, bold-and-yet-subdued, just by looking at the designs you could tell a lot about them. They had a history, both the good and bad "guys" had a story to tell. They spoke volumes without saying a word. Such is the work of a talented artist, possibly the greatest videogame artist ever.

Bengus was responsible for the exaggerated, anime-look of the Alpha characters and the creatures in the Vampire (Darkstalkers) series. The sprites Capcom produced based on his work were nothing short of amazing. The characters were so universally loved that for the next decade Capcom would pull these sprites and use them on other games. This art, this game, influenced untold fighting games for many years after.

The legacy of Street Fighter has no equal. Street Fighter Alpha 2 made certain that Capcom would forever remain as the greatest company ever to produce a sprite-based fighter. Although the company has turned their back on sprite-based games, and has officially killed the 2-D sprite wing they cannot deny that it was the Street Fighter series that put them on the map. They cannot deny that Bengus carried them with his awe-inspiring art.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 will remain on my favorites list for all-time. I doubt that I will live long enough to see a better fighter. I hope that you get a chance to play it if you haven't already. Have a great weekend people! Next week begins the top-3, can you believe it?

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

My favorite Games of All-Time #5: Carmageddon - Originally published on 1UP - July 21, 2006

Carmageddon is the most vile and repulsive game on my list. It makes State of Emergency look like a walk in the park. My brothers were shocked to see how high it ranked on my list, more so when they found out that I ranked it above Burning Rangers. Carmageddon fills my criteria of a great game so perfectly that it is amazing I didn't rank it higher. If I were ranking games based on total time spent playing then Carmageddon is a top-three game.

I had to rank the games based on their importance to me. If I could only play one game for the rest of my days which one meant the most to me? Which game is my absolute favorite and which ones come close? Carmageddon is the closest game that any non-Japanese designers have ever designed. It is in the top-5, it is in a place of great distinction.

Carmageddon was inspired by the classic cult movie Death Race 2000, featuring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. If you can get the game to crash the error screen says "Terminate Death Race." There was also an arcade game called Death Race way back in the late 70's. The arcade game had nothing to do with the movie, it was a hot rod race around a cemetery where you ran over pedestrians and tombstones popped up. These peds were also called "gremlins" in some literature. The original arcade game was so repulsive that it was banned from most establishments. About 30 years later the legacy continued when Carmageddon was released and Australia banned the import and sale of the game.

Carmageddon (Carma for short) is repulsive and vile. It came out at the height of a congressional inquiry into violent videogames. Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat were the other big games being dissected at this point. Carmageddon showed up and the debate exploded. The content and purpose of the game could not be argued. You were the participant in a death race, you acquired time and points by running over pedestrians.

After all, look at the play screen. All of the important information appears on screen. There is car position and lap position, in case you really were paying attention to the race. Number of opponents wasted, time, profits and pedestrian kills. You could finish the stage by either winning the race, destroying all of your opponents or killing all of the pedestrians.

The gore was through the roof in this game. Points were rewarded for how many people you could take out in a combo. If you clipped a ped and sent them spinning you might have gotten an artistic bonus, if you plowed through them you might have gotten a splatter bonus. Blood was everywhere and the image of the driver (Max Damage) in the upper left corner sums it up. He seems to derive pleasure from the violence. Congress was in a fit, they had all the evidence they needed to condemn videogames. Only real sickos could find any pleasure in this game.

Seeing as how 1UP is filled with murderous sickos then I feel right at home. After all, those that have been playing videogames for any amount of time are surely riding an immoral path. If you've played Silent Hill and are longing for a giant butcher knife with which to skin people alive then please raise your hand. If you've ever played Mario Bros and have taken magic mushrooms that allow you to throw fireballs then please... raise your hand.

Congress, and many people that "don't get it" see only the surface level of a videogame. They don't understand that the good majority of gamers know the difference between right and wrong. We know the difference between what we see on the screen and our actions in real life. This isn't a case of monkey see, monkey do. This isn't a case of de-sensitation to violence. Violence has been around for as long as human kind has, we don't have the luxury of blaming videogames for the wars we have engaged in. Some of us choose peace, and would rather play games with action or violence than engage in the real deal.

The first two Carma games were made by the people at Stainless Games over in England. SCi published the titles. The people that worked on this game seemed to be out of their mind while they were developing the title. With the debate raging in congress they had the audacity to not only create but market this game as the goriest title ever

While in development Stainless went to extremes to capture the sights and sounds for the game. Polyphony is famous for recording the engine sounds of more than 400 cars for Gran Turismo. On the other side of the planet Stainless participated in demolition derbies to get the authentic sounds of cars crashing. Then they recorded the cars getting hit by bats, bricks and cinder blocks. In order to get an authentic sound of hitting pedestrians they got a good friend, Tony Taylor, the actor that plays Max Damage, to put on a helmet and let himself get hit a couple of times by a slow moving car. Then they took a bat to his helmet and recorded those sounds as well. Some people suffer for their art, none more than those at Stainless.

The plot of the game was set, you started off as either Max in his Eagle, which was a take on a car in the Death Race. Or as the female counterpart, Die Anna, in her faster car, the Hawk. Carmageddon was a sanctioned race taking place all over the world. Anything was legal in this race, including taking shortcuts, running over opponents and pedestrians. There were temporary power-ups scattered over the map and many secrets to discover on the massive maps.

The opponents and cars in the game were all unique. Depending on your rank you could sometimes win their car if you destroyed it in the middle of a race. Each car had different strengths and weaknesses. Some were dainty and some were unstoppable. These cars were designed for the various styles of drivers. All of the cars could be upgraded, money won from the races could be used to purchase extra armor or horsepower.

Carmageddon was the definition of the impossible racer. The physics were good. The cars all handled realistically, more or less. It was what the cars that were capable of that made the game so much fun. The cars were almost indestructible. In any other game a car that hits a wall at 300 mph would explode. In this game it would just wreck the body a little. The cars behaved like Hot Wheel toys on some of the most fantastic tracks ever designed. These tracks had tunnels, massive jumps and drop offs. The cars could even operate under water, in acid, toxic goo, snow and lava. Some tracks were on raceways and others were on rooftops of massive skyscrapers.

Blind intersections where two cars could collide at high speed and send one of them flying a few hundred feet straight up were the rule, not the exception. This helped create a breakneck (no pun intended) pace for gameplay. Drivers and opponents were always willing to go full-tilt at each other or even at the police that patrolled the race because the cars would mostly survive the wreck.

Carmageddon is a great stress reliever. The more people you can get to join in a lan game the better it is. Within a few minutes any person that I've introduced the game to had the car up and running and was shouting "holy shit" at every crazed jump and high speed wipeout.

People often say that Carmageddon would be perfect if only it had weapons like Twisted Metal. I say that they are missing the point. The cars are the weapons. In Twisted Metal the cars don't behave like cars at all, they behave like FPS characters. The mass and momentum of real cars is lost in that game because the designers don't want it to weigh down the gameplay. Carmageddon is a pure game, the car is everything and it is the only thing. There is no more rewarding experience than catching up to a race in progress and wiping out the lineup with a runaway plow. Or dropping down on an unsuspecting opponent that is hobbling on his last three wheels.

Here's the part where you ask "well if this game is so great how come I've never heard of it?" Hell if I know. Stainless made this game back in the day when you could fit a Windows and Mac version of the title on one CD. Most reviewers that played the first fell in love with it. The game was mad hijinks and word of mouth helped it spread quickly.

A large community of gamers became dedicated to the game. Stainless released tool kits to let gamers make their own skins for the cars. The code for some cars that weren't finished with the release of the game were left on the CD. Budding programmers and modelers were allowed to finish the work of Stainless and were fully supported for example with patches that allowed gamers to play in ED-101's flying concept car.

The congressional hearings only helped make Carmageddon a more desirable game by all audiences. As the saying goes "even bad publicity is better than no publicity at all." Despite the negative attacks, magazine editors and gamers both agreed that this game was pretty damn good.

Stainless helped keep the momentum of the game going by releasing the "Splat Pack" shortly after the original was released. The new tracks and cars helped round out the overall experience. The Splat Patch helps cement this game in the top-5.

If this game was so great what happened? The sequel "Carpocalypse Now" was a fun game. The cars were far more detailed and could be pulled apart, pedestrians were no longer sprites but three dimensional models with their own weight and mass. Power ups were more weapon like now. The levels were just as massive and as interactive as they've ever been.

However the experience was less enjoyable the more realistic the game became. Cars could be destroyed far more easily. Some blind hits or explosive barrels could take you apart quickly. This turned a former full out crash and smash title into a delicate shadow of its former self. Realism is not meant for every game and definitely not this one.

Carmageddon 2 was good but not great. The third in the series was absolutely horrid. SCi had just acquired the rights to the Death Race 2000. The official name for the next title would be Carmageddon 3 TDR 2000, SCi figured that they could save some money by giving the game to a new developer and took Stainless off of the job. The game that came out was absolutely horrid.

Everything that was good in Carma 2 was gone. Any remnants from the original game were in name alone. TDR 2000 was panned by gamers and critics and a legacy that could have been was buried some years ago.

I still find the time to play the original game, although OSX on the Mac is making it harder to launch these days. The game holds up very well, even more against a human opponent. My brother was always a fan of Grand Theft Auto and Twisted Metal. There was one game that was more pure and enjoyable than either of these. I hope you get a chance to play it before your computer can no longer run it.

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

My favorite Games of All-Time #6: Burning Rangers - Originally published on 1UP - July 14, 2006

Most people know that I'm a Sega fan. Always have been, always will. Sonic Team used to be the best development team over there. I say used to only because Yuji Naka burned out shortly after the release of this game. For a while I held him in high regards. Easily the best at Sega and one of the best designers ever. In fact, I have yet to find any Japanese game designer whose library of work I enjoy more. For reference I think David Jaffe has the best USA lineup ever.

Burning Rangers is proof that gameplay, and game design are king. The game is short, very, very short. Other adventure games like Tomb Raider and God of War are credited for longer experiences. Longer games don't always mean better experiences though. In that span of Burning Rangers we get two things, a play through a fantastic world and a glimpse into the genius of Naka.

Burning Rangers crosses genres, despite its brevity the game touches many bases. It combines anime with science fiction and high adventure. The Burning Rangers are an elite group of firefighters. They rescue people from collapsed structures where other firefighters cannot reach. Their skin-tight suits are fire proof, water proof. They can even fly and float with the aid of rocket packs fashioned to look like wings. The subtext is that they are high-tech angels sent to rescue people in their greatest time of need.

Naka helped craft a world that was believable and also perfect for a game. The Burning Rangers fought fires with blasts of energy, these energy blasts absorbed heat and converted fire into energy crystals. These crystals became important because they could be used to power a teleporter and send rescue victims out of harms way. The faster the fires were put out, the lower the chance that explosions would follow the player. The number of people saved, time spent and crystals left over helped set the points for the game. Players that wasted too much time not only received poor scores, they also had to deal with violent fireballs that chased them through the level.

Naka pioneered a few important things in this game. The levels could be randomly generated after a first play-through. The rooms themselves wouldn't change, only certain doors and tunnels not previously accessible would open up. The possibilities kept the game new and fresh for multiple play-throughs. Random level generators are nothing new to RPG fans but a whole new experience to adventure gamers.

Naka also wanted to emphasize the use of our senses in the game. Rather than just running and gunning between floors players had to listen for backdrafts. A rush of wind was a cue to jump back and prepare for an explosion. If not the player would be injured by the resulting fireball. The controls were simple and became intuitive with little time. We could scour every floor quickly for survivors, put out fires quickly and even listen for cues as to the next hot spot or survivor while in the middle of a fire fight.

The characters all fit the template of classic anime. There is the level-headed leader Chris, the strong guy "Big," the aloof member Lead and the two playable rookies Tillis and Shou. The original design was for multiple players to be able to choose members of the team and help find victims in massive levels. There were plans to have network co-operative play. Given the development cycle and limitations with the hardware much of that was scrapped. From time to time we still get to see team members appear on a level, sometimes through the glass a floor below. The AI still helps us with a portion of the game and one can only imagine how much fun it would have been with two players or more.

The game itself is memorable for many reasons. The action and exploration elements were important. What helped cement the game was the impeccable level design. Each level was self-contained and fully realized. Details abounded on each level. Doors with working lights and locks, an environment that was visible through windows. The illusion of depth and dimension maintained through the whole game. While clunky by todays standards, the graphics and lighting effects were far ahead of their time.

Always thinking of the future the levels are not designed with either an Eastern or Western influence but rather something in between. The look was clean and high-tech but not dated. Each of the levels had a theme which helped make them unique. Unfortunately there were only four levels in the game. A fuel factory, an underwater lab, a space station and a massive space barge. Each level came with obstacles aside from mini puzzles, victims and fires. They also included crazed robots, security droids and massive bosses.

Each person scattered on these levels in need of rescue had something to say. Whether is was a simple thank you, a cry for help or even a plot point Sonic Team made sure that these people all had names and all reacted in a different way when they saw you. The idea of making a player give an emotive reaction to a game has been the talk in the industry for the past few years. Sonic Team was way ahead of the curve. When rescuing a child the first thing a character does is tell them everything is going to be okay. If you find a victim that is unresponsive he or she is knocked out, Chris gives you statistics on some of the rescues and tells you which ones are in bad shape. The thought of making sure every floor, every room, every corner is clear of survivors pushes you against the clock. Some times you even get e-mail updates from those that you rescue. Whether it's a note of thanks or important information related to the story, every little bit becomes appreciated. The survivors help add dimension to the gameplay. In the end it's an emotive reaction makes me appreciate real firefighters and paramedics each and every day.

A signal from space is causing the electronics to go haywire on Earth. The fuel factory and underwater lab, for example, suffered from explosions shortly after the signal was received. The underwater lab was my favorite level. Portions of the stage had you swimming underwater and even rescuing a dolphin and killer whale. Tillis has a latent psychic ability and could communicate with the sea life. This comes in handy when you need to use a dolphin to take you to levels unaccessible by swimming under your own power.

I had a blast controlling the characters underwater and certainly wish I had a dolphin pull me along on some levels in, oh let's say God of War... Not to mention that this was also the same underwater lab where school kids were at during a field trip. So not only do you end up fighting fires and trying to find your way through sealed off underwater tunnels, you also have children to worry about. No level in God of War ever pulled that much emotion from me.

The bosses in the game were as impressive as the levels themselves. Massive in scale and reminiscent of the designs used in Sega's Virtua On or Taito's Darius, the bosses in Burning Rangers were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The machinations that you fought were created by the signal from space. Each boss was unique to it's environment. The boss at the fuel factory shot fire, the one at the underwater lab was a robotic fish with a pulse bomb and torpedoes.

Each of the bosses was directly tied into the plot of the game. These bosses are the result of a haywire sentry program that was designed to protect a girl with an incurable disease. She was in suspended animation inside an unmanned space barge. When word of a cure was sent from Earth, the space barge responded by sending back a defensive program and causing havoc. Sonic Team used a variation of this story in Sonic Adventure 2.

The Burning Rangers are led from one encounter to the next and eventually find the source of the signal. The space barge has become massive by collecting space debris over the years. An unfortunate side effect due to its defense programming. Now more a small moon than a satellite it would lead to disaster if it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. The Burning Rangers are placed in their most dangerous assignment ever. Get past the defenses of the barge, rescue the girl and prevent the barge from colliding with the Earth. Hey, not a problem at all for the world famous Burning Rangers!

Did I mention that in one level you actually get to pilot the Burning Ship into space and use it to breach the defenses of the space barge? This game really does have it all!

Few videogames accomplish anything of such magnitude within a few levels. That is the genius of Naka. We get to see everything that he wanted to put into the game, albeit a shorter version than he envisioned but also things that would have been completely cut out if done by another designer or team. We get a taste of what could have been if only Sonic Team were given more time and resources and yet find no faults with the game we are left with. That is what drives me crazy about Naka and the state of game design today.

With a high to moderate budget, using an engine he designed, on the final cycle of releases for the aging Saturn, Yuji Naka and Sonic Team completely knock one out of the park. No other designer, to this day (save for Miyamoto) has accomplished more with less. It almost seems as if Naka and co. are capable of greatness only when they are left with few resources. I believe the more they had the worse their games were. Epic games can be short and sweet, no studio could ever lay claim to something remotely close to Burning Rangers.

As a bonus Naka always played up to the fans. Those that bothered to play through the game multiple times were rewarded with codes and secrets. Allowing players to choose different Burning Rangers for the levels and even unlock a mini game with the Burning Ship. If you put the game disk into a computer you could even get several wallpapers and system sounds for your e-mail featuring the voice actors from the game.

The curse with this game is its brevity. At double the size, with all of the features that Naka envisioned it might have been a contender for the number 1 spot. As with some of Naka's great games I am left wanting more. I would love to see a sequel worthy of the name. I would love to see an anime series based on it. But instead I will settle with what has been, an experience that will remain with me all my days.

You should play it if you haven't already and see how great adventures could be made.

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

My favorite Games of All-Time #7: Hydro Thunder - Originally published on 1UP - July 7, 2006

Hydro Thunder is the greatest racing game ever made.

There, I've said it!

It feels as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Think about it and let it sink in.

In all of my years playing videogames there have been a few standouts. Pole Position, Monaco G.P., Race Drivin', San Francisco Rush, Mario Kart, F-Zero, Gran Turismo, Wipeout, Auto Modellista, Daytona, Virtua Racing, Star Wars Pod Racer, Burnout, Need for Speed and Forza Motorsport...

None of those games can rival the greatness of Hydro Thunder.

Call my bluff, I dare you.

Hydro Thunder isn't about a bunch of bad-ass boats.

Hydro Thunder isn't about the best tracks ever committed to a racing game either.

Hydro Thunder is the complete package. It meets and exceeds all of the criteria in my definition of a great game. Ask any of my friends and family, I got them hooked on it. That game appealed to people that weren't even racing fans. They played for the sheer thrill of it. No other racing game can lay claim to that.

The idea for a boat racing game was spawned when members of Midway took a vacation on Lake Havasu. The good times and fast boats mixed for an experience that they wanted to recreate. They didn't just manage to recreate the scene, they streamlined it, supercharged it, juiced it on nitromethane, and blew it up.

I completely skipped Hydro Thunder in the arcade the first few months it was in. I thought it looked too much like a computer game. Other Midway racers did little to impress me. Many arcade goers were die-hard fans of the Cruisin' series. I always thought those games looked and played like crap compared to the Sega racers.

Granted I had a bias but at least I gave the game a chance. Within a few plays I was hooked. Literally, I would count the days until I could go to the arcade and play Hydro Thunder some more. You would be hard pressed to find a bigger racing videogame fan. In all my years I never thought that a boat racing game would ever make my list let alone become my favorite racer of all-time. Hydro Thunder is possibly the most underrated arcade game ever.

Let's begin with the basics. The control is both tight and unique. This racer features a steering wheel and throttle, there are no foot pedals. The designers at Midway fought management to let them make a boat racing game that featured these details.

In fact, the entire project was an uphill battle. The US arcade scene was dying, by 1999 is was hanging on by a thread. Midway was scaling back arcade projects. Hydro Thunder would be one of the last scheduled to come out. Any original Midway games that shown promise were rarely followed-up. Unless of course the title was Mortal Kombat... As you can guess I put a lot of the blame for Midway's success and failure squarely in the lap of management. Hydro Thunder was the best game they had made in 15 years and rather than turn it into a franchise they let it die.

The cabinet was designed around the experience. A large display showed off the fancy boat models and beautifully rendered levels. Team Hydro made sure the controls were placed logically to help create the illusion of a superboat steering wheel. The throttle on the right could go both forward and reverse as well as a boost button on the thumb.

The racing-inspired seat had a full back with speakers on the headrest and under the seat itself. Perfect surround sound was achieved when combined with the speakers facing the player. I have heard louder games in the arcade but I have yet to hear any one with as much fidelity, range and clarity as a Hydro Thunder cabinet. Team Hydro put in the game the low frequency rumble of a blown supercharged engine, the high-pitched squeal of a turbo, the roar of a rocket and just about every effect that can be created on water. Just sitting and listening to a blown V8 idle before a race can quickly put you in the mood for racing.

The music on each level is as epic. Midway's Orpheus Soundstation is credited with the music on Hydro Thunder. Rather than put together some bland rock-inspired riffs Orpheus instead put together some amazing compositions. Each of the songs compliment the tracks on a cinematic level. As if Harry Gregson-Williams had written the score.

The two most memorable things about the game are the boats and the tracks. This game would not have worked with just any old boats either. Those featured in Hydro Thunder had to be as wicked as the levels. With names like Cutthroat, Banshee, Rad Hazard and Razorback you better believe these were anything but ordinary boats.

These boats could hit speeds at over 250 mph and even jump with a boost technique. While boosting the boats received a "Mighty Hull" attack and could plow through opponents or obstacles without losing any speed. Each boat handled differently as well. Some boats drifted around corners while others carved the turns hard. There was a boat for every type of driver and each helped balanced the game.

The theme for the game was that you were a pilot in the most elite and secretive boat racing series around. This meant that each race location was special and often times surrounded by police, making the stakes for winning all the more important.

Whether you were tearing up the canals in Venice or navigating some of the tightest rivers in all of China, the experience was never the same twice. Hydro Thunder, like many classic arcade racers, featured a series of shortcuts, some obvious and some well hidden. So in Venice you would hit a straightaway at 200 mph, reverse the engines, cut a 90 degree turn, hit a boost jump over a pier, turn the opposite direction mid-air and accelerate to full speed when you hit the water. Each turn in the game was critical, each speed line was important and every shortcut had to be exploited if you wanted to win. It could be very easy to get caught up staring at the eye candy on each level and miss a turn.

The sense of speed, of grand racing has never been better in any racing game. Much of that has to do with the details on each level. On Lost Island for example, there were prehistoric creatures swimming in the same waters you were racing in. Cave paintings, hidden temples and volcanic erruptions helped create the atmosphere of a "Jurassic Park" for boat fiends.

The closer you looked the more details you would see on the level.

You can measure the greatness of a racer by how much detail went into the selection of each stage. Each level was a living, breathing, slice of a fictional "now." Team Hydro had grown up playing Sega racers, so they knew how to properly exploit the balance between racing and exploring.

The physics of the water helped compliment these levels. You see, unlike the other racing games, water is a unique element. It can be as smooth as glass or it can be choppy. These things effect the way your boat handles in a race. During a severe storm the giant waves produce more dynamic racing than in the roughest off road courses. Hills of mud and dirt don't move and shift under an off road truck. Waves can peak and fall under the boat at any time. F-Zero, Pod Racers and Wipeout really never featured this type of detail in the racing. It was usually go all out until the finish line. Racers had to fight the elements for control of the boat during the harder levels in Hydro Thunder. The Ship Graveyard is a contender for the greatest racing level ever designed (if not for the Nile Adventure in the same game.)

Crappy still pictures do nothing to capture the fluid environment of the graveyard. Sunken boats and aircraft are strewn over the place while a tempest rages on. There is poor visibility in the dark and during a rainstorm, yet like the other levels it is tooth and nail to the end. Hydro Thunder excels in the use of gut-wrenching jumps and drops to help maintain the illusion of breakneck speed.

Notice that I used the word gut-wreneching instead of jaw-dropping. In the Rush games a sports car can jump a few hundred feet over a hill. That is jaw-dropping. In Hydro Thunder the boats can jump about as far, if not further. But when there is a drop-off, from a waterfall or dam for example, there is a more visceral reaction. The boat may drop more than a few hundred stories into the river below. In that time the reaction goes from "hell yeah" to "holy shit!"

Look at the picture above. Do you notice the third image on the right? There is a boat flying way above the lake? More often than not every race is decided by a last minute drop off from a hidden shortcut. A person will be in the lead right until the last few hundred feet, when all of a sudden, from out of nowhere a boat flies in and wins the race. Needless to say this is how I would usurp my friends in the arcade. Did I mention that this game is best enjoyed with a friend?

No great racer would be complete without secrets. In addition to all of the sweet boats you could pilot, there were hidden boats that were just as much fun. From the "Tinytanic" to the "Chumdinger." The designs of all of the boats, hidden or otherwise deserves a nod.

There were other codes that players could input into the game to disable the opponents from being able to catch up to clearing the area of competitors. There was even a hidden track in the arcade accessible only by pressing the right buttons.

Hydro Thunder was released to praise from both gamers and reviewers alike. It was one of the few games that magazine editors could genuinely call one of the greatest arcade racers and one of the greatest arcade titles ever. Crappy ports were made for the consoles. The Midway treasures one that came out recently has a Dreamcast port of Hydro Thunder, the best looking of the ports, but absolute crap when compared to the arcade game.

In their infinite wisdom Midway asked Team Hydro for a sequel. In the meantime Midway released half-assed racers with the "Thunder" logo in the name. These would be the forgettable Arctic Thunder and Off Road Thunder which stole much of the same things that made Hydro Thunder work but never replicated the experience. These games were panned by gamers and critics. Not long ago G4 TV named Arctic Thunder the most interactive arcade game ever... it seriously wants to make me punch someone at G4 right in the mouth.

To add insult to injury Midway then scrapped the Hydro Thunder 2 project well into development. I spoke with the team as they were working on it. At least three tracks were near completion and two boat models had already been made. Truly Hydro Thunder 2 would surpass the original in every way. But it was never meant to be. Here are the only known screenshots for the boat models in the sequel, Razorback and Tidal Blade

Hydro Thunder has earned its place on my list a thousand times over. I hope you get a chance to play this in the local arcade and not on the consoles. Right now I am going to take the cousins to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, there is a Hydro Thunder machine in the lobby. Looks like it's got some racing left in it yet!

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