Lay wake to your opponents in the perilous waters of this fierce competition.
- JP release: 14th September 2001
- NA release: 18th November 2001
- EU release: 3rd May 2002
- Developer: Nintendo
- Publisher: Nintendo
- NGC Magazine Score: 91%
- Mods Used: Widescreen Code
Wave Race 64 showed how water physics could work in 3D, and how the movement in the water can affect controlling a Jet Ski. Blue Storm, on the other hand, focuses more on just how stunning water can look, being a wonderful technical showcase of what the water can do. There’s so much detail not just in the water itself, but under the water and the surrounding area as well, such as an immense amount of different wildlife. It all looks absolutely stunning in motion.
The major feature added to this is the weather, with different strengths of rain up to a thunderous storm. These don’t just change how the courses look, but also alter the waves on them as well. So you’ll not only have to deal with the course’s natural waves, but how the weather and other racers affect them as well. This does make the game extra challenging, though, and the CPU racers don’t tend to have the same issues you do.
One issue, though, is that there doesn’t seem like there is much new to the game at all. There are only seven courses and while only one is a complete remake of a Wave Race 64 course, some of the others use the same kind of style: Ocean City Harbour is a lot like Twilight City, Arctic Bay is like Glacier Coast and Aspen Lake is a lot like Drake Lake. While the tracks are different, the close theming to the original make Blue Storm feel a lot smaller. Aspen Lake comes across as the worst, too, with the original Drake Lake having an ethereal beauty to it with a fog that slowly lists, which is lost with the new weather system.
One thing that’s a bit harder to quantify is the “style” of the game. Something just feels a little bit less exciting than Wave Race 64. The announcers don’t seem very enthusiastic and there’s just a muted feeling all around instead of what should be high-octane energy. Parts of the game feel oddly calm, such as the lovely, soothing loading screens where you can mess with riddles in the water. It’s rather jarring.
Blue Storm is a really well made racer, but it lacks the impact of Wave Race 64.
Great
For as long as the one-player mode lasts, it’s almost a perfect racing game – it always was, which is why the US-based development team wisely chose not to mess around with it in any kind of fundamental way. That’s not to say there aren’t one or two things we wish they hadn’t touched. The announcers (a different one for each of the eight riders) are very irritating. Miss a buoy and they’ll explain the rules of the game in a very patronising manner, even if you’re in first place on the last race of Expert mode. And they pronounce ‘buoy’ as ‘boo-ee’, which is just about the most annoying thing anyone can say in an American accent. The volume control is tucked away in the options menu.
Martin Kitts, NGC Magazine #67
Remake or remaster?
I think we’re due a new game.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to play Wave Race: Blue Storm.
Europe
Japan
North America
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Wave Race Blue Storm is a good sequel to the N64 game, but it is wildly different from a tonal perspective. Unlike the N64 game (which was made by EAD), Blue Storm was made by the American 1st party studio Nintendo Software Technology; a newly minted studio founded in 1998 and housed inside NOA’s offices. Comprised primarily of graduates from the Digipen School of Technology, it saw production oversight from a number of former EAD/R&D1 staff members, notably including Shigeki Yamashiro; who served as director on Wave Race Blue Storm and previously worked as a programmer and producer within EAD.
This team really hit the ground running, releasing no less than four games in their first year (2000); including Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, Crystalis GBC, Ridge Racer 64 and Pokemon Puzzle League (licensed from Intelligent Systems, as a reskin of the cancelled Panel De Pon 64). What’s notable about all of these four games? They’re all licensed titles. NST worked very differently from Nintendo’s Japanese-led studios, operating more like a traditional western game developer; and this philosophy bled into their games as well, both for better and for worse.
Wave Race Blue Storm was their true big break though, and a huge step up in terms of developmental priority. This wasn’t some small licensed title for their fresh graduates to cut their teeth on, this was a launch title for Nintendo’s next gen cubic console and a direct sequel to a fairly popular and beloved EAD-made title. It was so important that EAD had even lent them the original source code for Wave Race 64 and instructed them to straight up reuse the physics engine from that title. This proved to be an excellent decision, as WR64’s water physics were (and still are!) a triumph of engineering and remain, even 25 years on, the best simulation of watercraft physics that the industry has ever seen.
Given that context, we start to see why Blue Storm was designed the way it was. On one hand, this was an American-made game, done in the “American Way”. This meant that EA was their competition, and the happy-go-lucky easy going vibes of the original Wave Race simply wouldn’t fly; instead, they focused on trying to make the game “cool”. This meant techno & R&B music, and a much edgier vibe were in. On the other hand, this was the sequel to a beloved EAD Japanese-made title, and so they were never going to stray too far away from what made the original game so great. The big new gameplay twist (the Turbo mechanic) was actually a mandate from EAD, and a direct suggestion from Miyamoto himself; and these fresh-faced graduates were never going to say no to their boss. Luckily for them, their boss was Nintendo and Miyamoto, which meant that this new mechanic was going to be fucking fantastic; and the absolute right decision to make. This was no time for NST to start developing an ego, that would come later on.
Likewise, a team of fresh-faced graduates were never going to steer too far away in terms of course design either; going so far as to include a direct remake of one of WR64’s most iconic courses (Southern Island). As such, it’s no wonder that the course archetypes veer very closely to their N64 counterparts.
You know what though? NST did a bang-up job here! While many people bemoan the tonal shift and how this game can err dangerously close to becoming a remake of the N64 game, Blue Storm plays like a dream and has excellent level design. It makes excellent use of the Gamecube’s greater processing power to make the courses more dynamic than could ever be done with WR64; with crates falling from ships and causing waves, to wildly varying weather conditions, to killer whales jumping out of the sea and causing tsunamis that you have to race through. All of these real-time physics greatly alter the way you have to tackle each course and all of the new mechanics work perfectly within the context of the game; and while most of those new mechanics were mandates from down on high? It doesn’t take away the incredibly accomplishment that they pulled off with this game. It’s hard to believe that a sophomore effort from a group of new university graduates could turn out a game this good, but that’s exactly what they pulled off.
They say that Nintendo has the midas touch when it comes to working with outside developers? Turns out that Nintendo had already proven their golden hands with NST well before they started working with other western developers.
While it’s tragic what later happened to NST over Project HAMMER, it’s at least comforting that NST have recently just started to find their footing once more within the last 5 years or so on Switch. It took a long time, but perhaps they do still have a bright future ahead of them after all.
Wave Race Blue Storm is not a perfect sequel, but it’s a sequel with a distinct personality of its own. And that is perhaps exemplified most perfectly by the hidden Sarcastic Announcer cheat that was hidden for more than 10 years before it was finally found!
The worst part about the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct is that Wave Race: Blue Storm wasn’t shown in the GameCube selection.. but it has to come, right? 🥲
I think there’s one key difference between the N64 Wave Race and this. And it’s the product placement.
The N64 game got a revised version that changed the sponsor boards, and I believe that’s the one that’s on the N64 app?
I don’t believe Blue Storm ever got a second version, and something tells me McDonald’s would be a hell of a lot more expensive to get these days. That’s the biggest hurdle.
Of course, if NERD go in and edit those to be more Nintendo focused, then it can happen, but that does mean more effort, for a very niche game.
I’m loving it! What’s the worst that could happen?
Wave Race: Blue Storm is one I did own. Once again, I didn’t really appreciate the seemingly little amount of content at the time (especially when I also had F-Zero GX), but looking back, that game had plenty of strengths. Gamefeel was superb, and it looked great for the time. Surprising amount of personality for such a western-coded game, too. I’m sure it’s coming to the NSO, and I do hope I can give it another shot sooner rather than later.