Yaris

Some companies (or probably most) would use their advertising budget to put a message, billboard, poster etc. in to games to put out a message of their latest product. For an example you'll find advertisements in the FPS game Counter-Strike, and there are billboards of the movie The Bourne Ultimatum in the game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. However, other companies like to spend it on developing a short mini game to promote the product. Today, Microsoft announced that this Thursday Xbox Live Arcade will be putting up their very first advergame which is Toyota's Yaris.

Advergames started way back in the past around 1979 with a game called "Pepsi Invaders" which was a hack (or you could call it a parody) of the classic Space Invaders, it was developed by Atari at the request by Coca-Cola. In 1990 a game called Yo Noid came out for the NES, was designed to advertise the famous pizza company Dominos. In 1992 a game called M.C. kids came out for the NES, was designed to advertise the famous fast food company McDonalds. In 2002 the game America's Army was released for free and was financed by the U.S. government to be used to train and to recruit new soldiers. There are many more advergames out there and possibly more in development.

Such as Toyota's Yaris, which has been developed by Backbone Entertainment. As clearly as it may seem, the game is designed to advertising Toyota's latest vehicle which is called a "Yaris". The game will be a free download (requires an Xbox Live Silver or Gold membership) and features 1-2 players offline and 2 players online. Basically you can drive the Toyota Yaris (several other vehicles are available also) around on a total of 8 tracks, some of the tracks will feature loops and you don't even have to worry about falling off the tracks as it defies gravity by scaling side walls and going topsy-turvy, it kind of reminds me of WipEout. You can load your vehicle with several weapons, because you'll need them to take out your enemy on the track. Also there will be achievements to unlock and even a leaderboard for you to rank up on.

Here are some of the games features...

Features
* Customizable cars: Drive either a Yaris Sedan, Sports Sedan, or the Liftback. Collect coins on the track and outfit your Yaris with weapons, shields, and tire configurations.
* Game modes: Race and take out your enemies in either single player or player vs. player game mode.
* Wild tracks: Drive on eight different tracks of progressive difficulty.
* FREE download: Yaris is a free Xbox LIVE® Arcade game. Play it today.
* Gallery feature: Browse through the game's cast of characters, including all the Yaris cars.
* Twelve new achievements and new Leaderboard: Twelve new achievements to unlock, and a new Xbox LIVE® Arcade leaderboard for you to dominate. Get in your Yaris and drive!

With Yaris being the first advergame to make an appearance on Xbox Live Arcade, it most certainly won't be the last. Recently, the company PepsiCo did a contest looking for concepts for a Doritos based game, and the winning entry is going to be released over Xbox Live Arcade as well.

So, who will be downloading it? Why not? After all it is a free game.