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Tesla drivers can play 'Beach Buggy Racing 2' starting today
A new wave of behind the wheel gameplay is coming to Tesla. The company announced that it has started rolling out Beach Buggy Racing 2 to vehicles today. A new, Tesla-compatible version of the mobile game by Vector Unit will be available on every vehicle with an over-the-air software update. And unlike the current selection of games in the Tesla Arcade, Beach Buggy Racing 2 has a twist: it has direct wiring to the car's brakes and steering wheel.
Riptide GP2 brings six-player split screen to Xbox One
Back in my day, we squinted at a small square of GoldenEye on a cathode ray tube and we liked it. Split-screen multiplayer gaming may have diminished in light of the internet connecting us with hurtful, bigoted strangers, but it does creep into modern games on occasion. The makers of Riptide GP2, a futuristic watercraft racing game picked up through Microsoft's indie games initiative, have opted to split the screen up to six ways in their port for the Xbox One. If you don't have six controllers handy at home (you don't?!), you can swap out local players for online ones. Riptide GP2 comes from portable platforms, having done a successful circuit on iOS, Android, Windows 8.1 and Kindle. The Xbox One version - more akin to the current Steam version – will ship with 24 tracks and a host of customization options for your rocket-powered hydro horse. Beyond its predilection for screen fragmentation, developer Vector Unit is known better for its work on Xbox Live Arcade's well received Hydro Thunder Hurricane. [Images: Vector Unit]
Vector Unit announces Riptide GP for Tegra 2-based Android devices
Vector Unit, the developer behind the downloadable Hydro Thunder Hurricane, has announced at the Mobile World Congress that it's bringing a new game called Riptide GP to Android devices, specifically those with Nvidia Tegra 2 chipsets. As you can see above, it's a futuristic watercraft racing title, and Vector Unit says that it's been able to do some impressive things effects-wise with the Tegra 2 architecture. Riders will be able to jump from wave to wave and race around "waterpark racetracks," all using console-style visuals on a mobile device. Riptide GP is playable at MWC this week and will arrive sometime this summer. Check the gallery below for a few more screenshots of it in action.%Gallery-116808%
Hydro Thunder Hurricane 'Tempest Pack' available Oct. 27
Transforming supership news now, with the announcement of an October 27 release date for the "Tempest Pack," a new add-on for Xbox Live Arcade's well-received racer, Hydro Thunder Hurricane. According to developer Vector Unit, the 400 MSP ($5) pack will introduce two new boats -- "the super-agile Whiplash and the slip-slidery Psyclone" -- and three more imaginative race tracks. If you're happy to pay for a trio of route canals, you'll end up hurtling through the Bermuda Triangle, into the lost city of Atlantis and past the boisterous bastions of Castle Von Boom. Those besotted with naval gazing will also welcome new skins for all the original boats, along with six expert-class variants of the lower-end boats, allowing you to compete effectively online with any selection. (Not against us, of course.)
Hydro Thunder Hurricane 'Tempest Pack' DLC splashes down in October
Vector Unit has announced the first DLC for Hydro Thunder Hurricane. The "Tempest Pack" will offer three new environments, two all-new boats, a boatload of new skins, plus Championship, Ring Master and Gauntlet events. The environments will have you racing through the ruins of Atlantis, the stormy Bermuda Triangle and a medieval setting named Castle Von Boom. The new boat skins will supercharge the existing boats, allowing you to run even your favorite clunker at the game's highest speeds, with two of them coming straight from the Design-a-Skin contest held a while back. No final date or price yet, unfortunately, but you can look for the pack sometime in October. [Thanks, Steve!]
Review: Hydro Thunder Hurricane
Remember Yaris for Xbox Live Arcade? No? Good. It was undeniably the low point for downloadable racing games on Xbox 360. Finally XBLA gets something to wash the taste from your mouth for good: Hydro Thunder Hurricane. Upstart developer Vector Unit didn't actually start out making a Hydro Thunder title, but Microsoft liked what it saw, licensed the rights to HT and made the (what's turned out to be excellent) decision to resurrect the franchise. For the uninitiated, Hydro Thunder was an arcade game from the late nineties that drew in crowds with its transforming, jet-powered speedboats and courses that felt inspired by amusement park thrill rides. Hydro Thunder Hurricane doesn't deviate from that blueprint, and while gaming hardware has changed, fun hasn't -- and Vector Unit was clearly keeping that at the forefront in designing Hurricane.%Gallery-92281%
New Hydro Thunder Hurricane media hits the waves
Just in time for summer, Vector Unit has doled out some fresh, wet screens and video of the upcoming XBLA revamp, Hydro Thunder Hurricane. Check out a handful of new screens in the gallery below and more videos after the break. Like, a lot of videos.
New Hydro Thunder Hurricane pics and details wash up
Click to fill your screen with sheer liquid wonderment There's an old sea shanty that goes: "I'm on a boat and it's going fast and I've got a nautical-themed pashmina afghan." Which reminds us that, in Hydro Thunder Hurricane from Vector Unit, you're in a boat and you're going fast -- and while it's up to you to provide your own fine pashmina wool garment, the game will provide a couple of nifty modes not found in the arcade original (or its home conversions). The first of these is called Ring Master. Each course in the game will feature three different layouts of floating rings that must be raced through in this slalom-style event. These "gates" will get smaller and smaller as the difficulty level grows higher. Gauntlet mode will see the courses littered with exploding barrels to avoid, boost jump over or collide with, if that's your thing. Vector Unit has also built a system into its game whereby you'll see your friends' best split times as you pass checkpoints. We've got a whole galley gallery of new screens today as well, so give 'em a look below. And if you haven't seen the game in action yet -- or read our hands-on impressions of it -- you really need to. %Gallery-92281%
Hands-on: Hydro Thunder Hurricane (XBLA)
Hydro Thunder Hurricane is not your typical case of sequelitis. The original concept, simply, an arcade-style boat racer, was hatched by indie developer Vector Unit. The 2-man studio, which has grown to 6 for Hurricane, is led by technical director Ralf Knoesel and creative director Matt Small, who met in the late '90s at Stormfront Studios. They stayed in touch over the years, as each continued to build a strong resume of work, and, in late 2007, they co-founded Vector Unit and began work on a small, downloadable project that would become the licensed sequel to Midway's decade-old arcade racer. Checking out a playable build on the PAX East show floor today, I quickly understood what caught the attention of now publisher Microsoft Game Studios, which smartly licensed the Hydro Thunder brand from sinking Midway in order to establish Vector Unit's game as part of a celebrated heritage. With the exception of nods to some boats from the classic arcade game, Hydro Thunder Hurricane is not much of a sequel, and instead represents the promising talent of a new independent developer. It's also, bizarrely, one of two Xbox Live Arcade games premiering at PAX East with a really slick, proprietary water physics engine. (Hydrophobia being the other.)
Hydro Thunder Hurricane racing to XBLA this Summer
It's scientific fact that racing games are roughly 200 percent more exciting when the genre's standard asphalt surfaces are replaced with good ol' H20. One of the clearest examples of this was Midway's classic arcade racer Hydro Thunder -- a franchise that's been dormant for over a decade. However, Microsoft Game Studios and developer Vector Unit today announced that they'll soon blow the proverbial dust off the series this summer with Hydro Thunder Hurricane, an Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive sequel to the arcade classic. Hydro Thunder Hurricane will include a number of multiplayer-oriented game modes, eight super hazardous race tracks and several returning speedboats from the series' original iteration. There's support for four-player local matches, eight-player online matches and a co-operative "Rubber Ducky" mode, which just sounds so intense. Vector Unit is showcasing the title at PAX East. We'll let you know how it handles.
