Hydro Thunder/Versions

Arcade
The original. Never actually played it myself, so I can't comment. Apparently does not contain the Catacomb & Castle Von Dandy tracks. Some of the tracks are hidden from normal play also.

Sega Dreamcast
Control of the boats is not always good & sometimes they don't respond to turning even if you go at a snails pace—really frustrating when you don't get the angle right when heading for an obscured boost. Only thirteen tracks are in the game, not the misprinted 14 that is in the manual (the 'test' track got pulled before release). Lighting on some levels makes for difficult visuals, but realistic. This version has the most annoying name entry system for high scores as the control is via the control pad's left & right with no auto-repeat and the game does not remember the last name entered.

Sony PlayStation
Graphically the worst of the lot. Plays well with a good sense of speed. A little too dark in places though. As with the Dreamcast version, control of the boats is not always good & sometimes they don't respond to turning even if you go at a snails pace. Has two additional features to the basic 13 tracks: Time Trial & Circuit Mode. In Time Trial you get to pick a course & run through it without any opponents.

In Circuit Mode you have a pot of money & enter each track. You have to race all the easy tracks before being allowed to enter any medium tracks, race all medium before hard & all hard before bonus. You can race the tracks within each difficulty in whichever order you care to. You begin with a pot of $3,000 and it costs $500 to enter each of the easy tracks, $1,000 for medium, $1,500 for hard and $2,000 for the bonus tracks. Prize money is $3,000 for 1st place, $2,000 for 2nd place and $1,000 for 3rd—nothing for any other place. The high score is based on your earnings only—not the amount left after track entry fees—so a maximum of $39,000 is possible.

Nintendo 64
Graphically OK. Plays very sluggish and gets far too dark in far too many places to really see what you're doing. No sense of speed in this version at all. Very big let-down compared to other versions.

IBM PC
Visually superb but the quirk with the super start was off-putting at first. Control of the boat is responsive. Record entry is the easiest as the developers took into consideration the keyboard being present so you can simply type it in. Some great visual effects in terms of lighting but this can make some areas of the game difficult to navigate until you are used to the course.