Project Lore

Ever since Mountain Dew's Game Fuel promotion started back in May (the drink itself is just now starting to show up on store shelves), people have been wondering when exactly they'd be able to get their hands on the associated Battle-Bot vanity pets. Well, good news everyone! They're finally here!

Here my puny pugilist is trying to convince me that Game Fuel is part of a balanced diet.If you've already signed up for the promotion, then you're halfway there. Simply go to the website, log in, and click the button in the lower-right hand corner. Be warned: you will need to have a Battle.net-linked Warcraft account in order to receive the pet (it's a good thing to do anyway, for added security and the option to digitally download all your favorite Blizzard games once you've authenticated them through the site -- not to mention beta opt-ins!).

Once you've gone through all that, simply log out of your WoW account in-game and then log back in. The key to your new mechanical bruiser should be in your mailbox.

I have to say that these little guys (invented by famed Gnomish toymaker and proprietor of Wonderworks in Dalaran Jepetto Joybuzz) are actually really cool. Click on them, and they babble in some obscure techno-language (no doubt subliminal messages telling you to buy more Mountain Dew). You can also fuel them up with either a red or blue mixture, and when your Battle Bot encounters another one with the opposite color, they'll get into a fist-fight. Sadly, it seems that the only way to obtain the fuel right now is to visit the Mountain Dew page every day and click through the same image as before.

Hopefully, there will be some sort of in-game method for claiming the juice once the promotion period is over.

On that note, I have actually found individual bottles of Game Fuel at the local Wally World, but only the Horde-themed red (perhaps this town ain't so bad after all!). The bottle says "Citrus Cherry," two flavors that I generally like, but ends up tasting something like carbonated bubble gum. Not entirely unpleasant, but it probably won't appeal to everyone's palette. Never tried the Halo 3 stuff, so I'm not sure if it's any different, though the Alliance version is some sort of berry (and I use that term very loosely).