We’ve all seen in-game advertising of some sort, whether it was a cleverly placed billboard in a racing game or even the clothes that characters wear in certain games, they really are hard to avoid. Doritos have gone one step further than that by releasing a full Xbox LIVE Arcade title – Dash of Destruction.
Unlike many Arcade games, Doritos: Dash of Destruction is the result of an ‘Unlock Xbox’ competition which ran in Summer 2007. The competition came down to five entrants with Dash of Destruction taking the winning prize of being made available on the Xbox LIVE Arcade.
The game has two campaigns, both overlapping each other and altogether consisting of six very short levels. The first campaign puts players in the role of a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex, who chases down Doritos delivery trucks around various cities. Players simply need to step on a required amount of delivery trucks to complete the level. The only real obstacle as a dinosaur comes in the later levels, as you have an opponent to face against.
The second campaign works the other way round. You control the Doritos delivery truck as you drive around collecting the crisps and avoiding the T-Rexs. This is ever-so-slightly harder than the previous campaign, though it’s made easier by the ten lives you are given. Completing each level of the campaign gives you an upgrade for your delivery truck/T-Rex.
Storylines within each campaign is told by Mike Borland (the creator of the game), though when I say storyline I mean one short paragraph of text on-screen explaining what you have to do, while his mouth moves up and down without any sound coming out. One thing Mike does say quite a bit is “…and earn a bunch of GamerScore”. He wasn’t wrong.
Doritos: Dash of Destruction is now officially the easiest 200 GamerScore you can unlock as there are rewards for finishing both campaigns and winning a multiplayer game; you can’t fail to achieve the full rewards on offer here. Not only is it the easiest, but it is one of the cheapest. If the title was sold for 800 Microsoft Points, I could guarantee very few people would buy it. Even if it was 400 Microsoft Points I’m sure people would feel the same way, but thankfully Doritos: Dash of Destruction is free.
Dash of Destruction does contain multiplayer though it’s only available locally. There are two game modes: Zen and Chaos. Within Zen, you simply need to collect as many Doritos as you can as player-controlled dinosaurs come after you. If a dinosaur manages to eat/step on the delivery truck before they reach the specified goal, they then become the delivery truck. The winner is the first player to reach the goal.
Chaos mode is pretty similar in the way the T-Rex’s must eat/step on the delivery truck, though this time round stepping on the delivery truck simply scores points. The player to reach the goal first, as the T-Rex or delivery truck becomes the winner. Unfortunately, I believe the player controlling the delivery truck has a major advantage over the T-Rex in this game mode, though on a slim positive note, the goals for each can be changed. The six multiplayer maps are the same as witnessed in the single player campaigns, which work perfectly well for multiplayer as well as single player.
As for the game’s graphics, they’re very average at most (and this is being kind) and the menu screen is also quite average. The game’s audio is barely noticeable with the exception of the music played during the menu, though the noticeable audio is poor and repetitive. Both these factors were never going to be brilliant for a free game, I don’t have too many complaints and I wasn’t expecting much.
Doritos: Dash of Destruction isn’t the best of games available from the Xbox LIVE Arcade, but for free it is a must-download – especially for achievement junkies looking to earn some easy GamerScore.
