What a travesty. When Midway first introduced the Thunder series a couple of years ago, arcade gamers embraced the over-the-top crazy ride of Hydro Thunder. It was soon ported to the consoles and ended up being one of the better titles for the Dreamcast launch. Building upon this success, Midway took its Thunder series to the Arctic in an attempt to capture the same excitement. In the arcades, this excitement was once again rejuvenated thanks to solid design, sweet graphics, super fast gameplay and a great arcade cabinet. Therefore, great things were expected when the title would find its way onto the PS2. Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong in the porting process.

Quite honestly the game is virtually unplayable due to the incredible choppiness of the framerate. It is all over the place, going from 15-20 frames per second and then jumping up to 40-50 frames and then sliding back down. There is no consistency and as a result there is really no point in playing this game. You would be better off going to the arcade and dropping $20 to play it in its entirety. What happened? We are not sure. It looks as if the game was severely rushed and did not make a stop in the QA department. Instead it was shipped to retail. Hopefully Midway can remedy this travesty before it appears on XBOX.

The game offers a number of modes including: Race, Points, Training, Arcade and Battle. The Points mode kept us the most busy while enduring the awful visuals. In points you must earn your way by collecting power-ups, performing tricks, and taking out opponents. You can then use your earned points in the upgrade shop for additional attributes, snowmobiles, hidden tracks and riders. The Battle mode is basically the two-player mode where players must earn the most kills by taking out opponents.

In the end, Arctic Thunder is a wasted concept that came out of an excellent arcade game. For those still interested a rental will suffice. For the rest of you, stay far away and hope any future Thunder games are ported properly.