Guess what’s back? I’ll give you three guesses, first two don’t count.
Yes, returning for the fifth time, Mountain Dew and Doritos collaborate with a video game company for a limited edition soda. This time around, Microsoft comes back to the well for the third time, advertising the forthcoming Xbox One with Mountain Dew Game Fuel. This time, we’re given not one, but two flavors of the wonderful special edition drink. This is the third year in a row that the specialty drink has been available, which quashes my previous theory that they’d only push this out every other year, as they did in the past. Looks like this might be a yearly thing now.
While I was at PAX, Mountain Dew was fairly prominent at the show. Spread around the convention hall were QR codes that you could scan in to redeem points, either for small prizes like Game Fuel or to win a chance to get an Xbox One early. Alas, while I did scan codes like a goof, I did not redeem a single point, which probably screwed me out of getting Game Fuel three months early. So I got this stuff at a 7-Eleven like an ordinary person who buys promotional drinks advertising video games.
The two flavors are both infused with Dew, one with a burst of Citrus Cherry, the other with a charge of Electrifying Berry. These nicknames are so extreme that I wonder if I’ve jumped back into the ’90s. On each bottle is a promotion for a forthcoming Xbox One game (Forza Motorsport 5 on the Citrus Cherry, Kinect Sports Rivals on the Electrifying Berry), and have codes to enter at every2minutes.com for a chance to win various Mountain Dew and Xbox One prizes. Including a tacky-looking Mountain Dew-branded One.
Citrus Cherry is a repeat of last year’s flavor, so I didn’t do a taste test this time. For those who are curious how I thought about it, here’s the link to last year’s entry. The short version is that it tasted like Mountain Dew with a tinge of cherry and a punchy citrus aftertaste that I wasn’t expecting. So this time around we’re just gonna try the new Electrifying Berry flavor.
Electrifying Berry smells like grape soda and almost looks like cough syrup, which is a worrying start. As for the taste, I wouldn’t say it was electrifying, but it did taste like a berry of some kind but I couldn’t tell you which. Certainly not as strong as Citrus Cherry, but it’s not mind blowing. Wouldn’t be something I’d be drinking a lot, that’s for sure.
As for the Xbox One ads, I’m not interested in the system myself. I usually avoid getting game systems until a few years after launch when they start having a healthy library of games I actually want to play. (I didn’t get my 360 and PS3 ’til 2008 and my Wii ’til 2009.) Since the first year of any game system usually has a lackluster game lineup, I decided to wait out the launch of the One. At least it’ll be interesting to see unfold: They retracted their original draconian DRM policies, but now the only thing separating the One from the PlayStation 4 is $100 and a fancy camera. I’m hoping for more new game franchises so we can maybe get away from Call of Duty for a long while.
Speaking of Call of Duty and the Ghostly Adventures, I also recently covered the Monster Energy branded cans recently, because I couldn’t resist drinking more video game-related promotions. You check that out here.
Since Game Fuel seems to be a yearly thing now, I will not be surprised if I write about this stuff again in 2014. Unless the flavors are exactly the same, in which I’ll just link to this post instead. Despite me getting sick of soda in general, I do like these cross-promotions, as it further justifies video games and they make for decent collectables.
Though, don’t expect me to tackle every single promotion. I am not going to try that Taco Bell $5 Box even I could win a PS4, I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude to handle that stuff.
Now, I wonder if I can make any cocktails with this stuff…
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