In an effort to cover World of Warcraft's
extended Extended Universe I drank not one, not two but four Game Fuels recently, two of each flavor. Now I know the Horde is going to freak out about this with claims that Project Lore hates hordies, but your drink taste exactly how I would imagine Cherry citrus-flavored death to taste. The stuff is absolutely
awful. It should be pulled off the market as fast as
Zicam and its creators forced to drink it, and only it, until they beg for mercy. Screw waterboarding, just force terrorists to drink this concoction of chemicals and "flavor!"
As with most things, the Alliance is better. Well, that is simply relative to the Horde mockery of a refreshing beverage. This pop is only mildly less appalling than its co-branded cousin, offering gamers a Wild Berry-flavored potion of high fructose corn syrup, caffeine and almost the same collection of chemicals that are difficult (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid), and scary (
Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin), to pronounce. I've yet to meet someone who drank the disgusting tonics out of something other than curiosity, but the shocking thing is that they have both been around the block before.
As unattractive as I find Horde Red, the carbonated catastrophe is a re-branding of Mountain Dew's Halo 3 GameFuel which debuted in 2007. Not to be outdone by unoriginality, the
Alliance Blue is also a re-branding, this time of Mountain Dew's election tie-in flavor, Mountain Dew Revolution.
Something good did come of the cross branding though,
IRL dailies. Again, I am not a marketing mastermind, but forcing us to view the same junk, much of which has nothing to do with the sodas, day in and day out seems like an odd marketing strategy. Even money says it has to do with the act of repetition forcing the human brain to remember things more accurately (see
Navi).
In all seriousness the good aspect is
another vanity pet! After this morning's failed attempts at the Scorched Stone, my GM and I took out our frustrations on each other's
Battle-Bots. Once fueled up (you have to reboot WoW after
requesting your fuel) these guys duke it out for a bit and then one explodes in a great show of leakage. Glad Blizzard gave the animators some time to play with these machines, but it makes me want a
mini Diablo vs.
mini Tyrael battle even more.
I'd say that between the chance for IRL rewards, even if the token collection system is
absolutely stupid, and the in-game combat pet, the co-branding has been a success. But Blizzard, next time make the other company create interesting IRL dailies. It really shouldn't be that difficult, some guerrilla marketing, puzzles we have to solve, trivia, need I go on? There are a ton of things more entertaining than "watching" videos over, and over again.
Here I thought reading
numerous Knaak novels was the worst thing that could come from the Extended Universe! I kid, I kid, the story arcs are entertaining and leave absolutely no aftertaste (of death).
I am sure many of you out there actually enjoy these deviants of ahh, but are you proud enough to admit it? Me? I will stick with my
Pepsi/Mountain Dew Throwback, as I cannot stand the aftertaste left on my palate by High Fructose Corn Syrup. The Throwback stuff is awesome, as far as soda goes anyway. Anyone else get a kick out of the Battle-Bots?
Edit: Yes the Horde Drink is the Halo 3 GameFuel, not Code Red. Thank you readers!
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