PepsiCo is snug in bed with Microsoft, promoting its exciting new Mountain Dew flavor, “Game Fuel,” with a Halo 3 tie-in. The flavor is described on the bottle as “an invigorating blast of citrus cherry flavor,” but it could also have reasonably been called “Unbelievably Vileberry,” “Piña Colonic” or “Kool-Aid Man’s Embalming Fluid.”
The soda is a limited edition, meaning that people who collect videogame-themed soft drinks have a reason to live, poor pathetic sots, and that in a few weeks the remaining stock will be shoved off to Big Lots to make room for some sort of holiday-blockbuster tie-in soda.
PepsiCo does deserve praise, however, for being one of the few corporations striving to make sure that gamers get the empty calories they need. Speaking as a gamer, I can tell you that caffeine and sugar are nearly impossible to find for sale, and what’s available is rarely provided in portable, easy-to-ingest form. In fact, here are some more desperately needed gamer-oriented products that I hope to see clogging retail outlets by 3 p.m. at the latest.