Betas for Doritos XBLA Games Available

Play and vote on five user-created titles for Live Arcade. By Philip Kollar, 10/30/2007
This summer, Microsoft teamed up with Doritos to make a contest for user-created Xbox Live Arcade games. Submissions were accepted and poured over, and now finalists have been revealed. The five finalists are now available in beta form to play for free on the Doritios "Snack Strong" website.

Here are a full list of the five finalists with game information, as provided by Microsoft:

"Doritos Dash of Destruction" by Mike Borland of Sewickley, PA -- In "Doritos Dash of Destruction," players can choose to control one of two characters. Either a hungry T-Rex chasing a delivery truck loaded with crunchy Doritos tortilla chips or the delivery truck driver, racing to escape the clutches of the T-Rex. As the chase begins havoc ensues as the lumbering dino barrels through the completely destructible city resulting in an intense game of cat-and-mouse.

"Doritos Presents UDC: Ultimate Dodgeball Champions" by Devan Moore of Panama City, FL -- In this futuristic dodgeball game, inspired by Devan?s favorite childhood game and the intensity of Doritos, players start by creating a customized team from a handful of colorful characters. Then, using special "power up" features to create fire balls, teams go at it in futuristic stadiums and compete for ultimate dodgeball dominance.

"Monkeys from Mt. Doritos" by Juanito Lagasco, of Algonquin, IL -- In this quick-play, high-fun, retro-style game, one or more people play as monkeys that collect Doritos chips exploding out of Mt. Doritos. The more Doritos players collect, the more points they earn and the closer they get to winning. But, watch out as fellow monkeys and lurking monsters want to steal your prized Doritos chips.

"PB?s Quest for Flavor" by Jeremy Mattsen of Colorado Springs, CO -- In "PB?s Quest for Flavor," PB - the game?s pill bug hero - goes on his quest for the perfect chip flavor. Throughout the game, favorite Doritos flavors are introduced as weapons giving PB unique abilities. With the strength and power of Doritos, players guide PB through a household of obstacles and enemies to successfully complete his quest.

"Rythum Racing" by Kenneth Parker of Warner Robins, GA -- In this original racing game, players turn up the volume in game play as they import song files and use music to "drive" the game. Players race around the equalizer race track, where sounds, beats and rhythms will alter the track. Deep bass sounds for example might cause the race track to ripple, throwing the race cars up in the air while other elements of the music generate power-ups.

That?s a whole lot of Doritos-inspired gaming, people. While the betas will remain online and playable indefinitely, they can only be voted on until November 18, after which time a winner will be announced. The winning title will be developed into a full downloadable game by NinjaBee, the creators of such previous Live Arcade hits as Cloning Clyde and Band of Bugs. The complete game will be offered as a free download to Xbox Live users next summer.