''Doritos Crash Course'' (formerly titled as ''Avatar Crash Course'') is a 3D sidescrolling platforming

advergame An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising (s ...

developed by Wanako Games for the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

. It was released for

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

as one of the finalists of the "Unlock Xbox" competition sponsored by

Doritos Doritos () is an American brand of flavored tortilla chips produced since 1964 by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. The original Doritos were not flavored. The first flavor was Toasted Corn, released in 1966, followed by Taco ...

, alongside ''

Harms Way ''Harms Way'' is a racing advergame developed by Austrian independent software developer Bongfish GmbH for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. It was released on December 8, 2010, for free as one of the finalists of the Doritos-sponsored " ...

''. The concept for the game was designed by Jill Robertson from

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the South ...

, inspired by

Japanese game shows A Japanese variety show is an entertainment television program made up of a variety of original stunts, musical performances, comedy skits, quiz contests, and other acts. Japanese variety shows are predominantly made to be weird and extremely fast- ...

such as ''Sasuke''. On December 29, 2010, the game was announced the winner of the second "Unlock Xbox" competition. The game received positive reviews from critics. A Windows 8 version of the game, ''Doritos Crash Course Go!'', has since been released.

Gameplay

In ''Doritos Crash Course'', the players have to get their Xbox 360 avatars through increasingly difficult obstacle courses before the time runs out. Each course has a various number of checkpoints scattered throughout. If the avatar falls off the course, the game will begin from the last passed checkpoint. The game is composed of three locations (

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, Japan, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

), each having five levels. Some of the obstacles include collapsing floors, swinging ropes, chains, and water balloons.

Reception

As of year-end 2010, ''Doritos Crash Course'' has been downloaded over 1.4 million times. It has received an aggregated review score of 74 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, based on five reviews.

Downloadable content

On January 2, 2013, the "City Lights" DLC was made available for $1.99 (USD). The pack contains fifteen levels spanning

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, along with the new versions of the levels set in Japan from the original game.

Sequel

On May 8, 2013, the sequel named ''Doritos Crash Course 2'' was released for free on Xbox Live Arcade. Similar to the first game, avatars controlled by the players will participate in obstacle courses. Leaderboards allow competitions with friends online, where up to four players can in local multiplayer. The game brings our 4 new worlds (Amazon, Antarctic, Egypt, and Pirate Island) with five courses each. Unlike in Doritos Crash Course, players must collect stars, which are used to unlock levels, buy power-ups and effects that change avatars' appearance in-game. On April 24, 2014, the game was removed from Xbox Live Arcade following an announcement of closure one week prior, on April 17.

References

External links