Harms Way

Posted 2 years ago By - Curtis McDonald

As the year comes to a close, the Doritos Unlock Xbox challenge is also winding to a close. The Unlock Xbox challenge is now down to two finalists; both of which are available on XBL Arcade for free! Once you’ve played them, head back to your Dashboard and select the Doritos Unlock Xbox advertisement and once there, vote for your favorite game. The winner will be announced on Dec. 29th.

The first of the two finalists is Harms Way, a co-op action racer from Bongfish. Harms Way has a bit of a twist though. Rather than have a co-op partner man a turret mounted on the vehicle, the turrets are spread around the landscape that makes up the race track. Set in what seems to be a Nevada style desert, there are three tracks to race on and the driver’s goal is to finish first after three laps around the track. Pick-ups can be found on the tracks as well in the form of Nitro, Turret Upgrade (for your partner), Turret Downgrade (for the competition) and Shield. Performing a barrel roll off of a jump will also nab you an instant shield power-up and power sliding around corners will net you a bit of nitro, depending on the duration of the slide. The driver can choose one of four vehicles: the buggy, the pickup, the truck and the bus; with each having differing armour, speed and handling ratings.

For the shooter, the goal is simple: help your driver win the race, though the means of doing that are varied. The most obvious method is to shoot the competition, although that can be easier said then done at times. You can also blast other shooters out of their turrets potentially giving your driver a bit of a break. Lastly you can shoot open shortcuts for you driver or cause disasters (like rockslides) that will befuddle the other racers. There are four weapon upgrades, the starting rifle, the machine gun, a mine cannon and a missile launcher, each weapon has it’s strengths though some are more useful than others. As the race carries on past the turret, clicking the left or right bumper will move you to the next available turret. You can also kill another shooter and take over their turret.

At the end of each race, points are added up for both the driver’s and the shooter’s performance and at the end of three races the team with the most points wins. Graphically, Harms Way is quite nice looking for an XBLA racer; with decent textures and weather effects - not to mention some nifty looking explosions and disaster effects. The audio is also quite good, though the voice over announcer gets repetitive very quickly, and the music is a touch on the hard-core side for my tastes, but is rather fitting for the setting.

Conclusion

Harms Way is, if nothing else a fun multiplayer action racer and for the fantastic price of free, it shouldn’t be missed by anyone. While it may leave much to be desired for physics, variety of tracks and number of players online, it does make for a fast-paced and fun game.