It’s that time of the year again…
Mountain Dew gets buddy-buddy with major game developers and makes a fancy Game Fuel dedicated to a major game. This year, Activision gets the choice for the second year in a row, this time for Carl on Duty: Black Cops III – Revenge of the Urkel- er, Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
At this point, Mountain Dew has made the Citrus Cherry a standard flavor. No longer seasonal, you can get the stuff at any time anywhere. I noticed this as I found bottles of the normal Citrus Cherry at a Safeway, rather than the 7-Eleven like I usually do. Since this change, they’ve had various game-related promotions with Game Fuel this year, such as items for Batman: Arkham Knight and Warframe.
At first, I thought Mountain Dew retired the seasonal flavors, which would’ve meant an end to what has become a yearly tradition on my blog. But thankfully that wasn’t the case, as I found the new special flavor in the usual locations.
I’ve written about Citrus Cherry every single year since I started this. It hasn’t changed in taste whatsoever. It’s got a cherry taste with a citrus-y tinge that reminds me of Squirt or similar citrus-heavy sodas. At this point, I’m not even gonna bother talking about that flavor, and skip ahead to the new special flavor for BLOPSIII.
The new Berry Lime flavor certainly tastes like berry. At times, it tastes like I’m drinking Mountain Dew mixed in with a berry lime candy or something. Much like the Citrus Cherry, it has a very strong fizzy aftertaste which took a little getting used to. I’ll certainly say that it’s not the worst soda I’ve had, but this is definitely the weakest promotional flavor. To be fair, I’m not a regular Mountain Dew drinker, so maybe it’s an acquired taste. But I’d rather they bring back the Lemonade from last year instead, at least that tasted good.
Much last year, you can “FUEL UP FOR BATTLE” and punch in codes at dewanddoritos.com to get XP boosts in the game’s Zombies mode. You don’t even get special items like last year’s Advanced Warfare promotion, so it’s much less cooler this time. Maybe Treyarch had no time to make dumb fancy cosmetics for it.
So, I already said how I felt about the Call of Duty series in last year’s entry about Game Fuel, and it hasn’t changed. Moreso this year since it looks more like an Advanced Warfare 2 rather than something cool and unique. Even Activision is likely aware of how derivative it looks, since I hear more about the new Zombies mode than the base campaign or the multiplayer. I bet it’s not awful, just underwhelming. Besides, if I wanna play some futuristic Call of Duty-like game, I would rather play Titanfall.
So, this is where it gets a bit interesting. Now with Citrus Cherry being a normal anytime flavor, I could in theory write about the various game promotions throughout the year, no longer making this a yearly fall tradition. But I’m more interested in the special flavors than anything. In the case of the times where I wrote about Monster and Red Bull sponsored drinks, it was just normal cans with game branding. Hell, right now I could buy a Rockstar Energy that advertises the recent Mad Max game. But that’s not nearly as interesting to write about, compared to these special flavors.
I can’t wait ’til next year to see what experimental flavor they bring out next, likely for the next Call of Duty game. But for now, I will FUEL UP FOR BATTLE alright, just not this battle. I’ve been more of a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive guy anyway. In an ideal dream world, CS:GO would be the next Dew and Doritos promotion. At least I’d proudly have a gun skin that had silly Mountain Dew/Doritos branding…
