Games as Snacks: The Tastiest Titles of Last Year
Let’s not dance around it. You know your video games. You know your snacks. Why not just merge the two worlds and start eating your game discs. Or, even better yet, chomp down some snacks with the new knowledge of their 2015 video game equivalents!
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Destiny – Nacho Cheese Doritos
After a 4 year development, Destiny finally graced our screens in 2014. Despite feeling one part repetitive and two parts grind-y, the game flew off shelves like a Wizard flying in from the Moon. It took a year and plenty of expansions, but the game finally feels complete. Early adopters and late comers alike are consuming the content by the handful, and just like Nacho Cheese Doritos, even if you don’t especially like Destiny, there’s a good chance it’s on your shelf right now. If nothing else, you certainly would never turn down a big bowl of it at a party.
Dying Light – Nitro Takis
The first time you saw a bag of Takis you might have thought, “Bootleg, Mexican, Cheetos knockoff!”, or “What does Nitro taste like?” Turns out munching on Takis is like taking a shot of hot sauce with a lime juice chaser while chewing a mouthful of Corn Nuts. Dying Light was equally as abrasive to the palette.
After Techland had a falling out with Deep Silver, they chose to use their existing tech to make Dying Light with a new publisher rather than stick around for Dead Island 2. The resulting game felt bootleggy and unoriginal. It was easy to find yourself thinking, “Why am I playing this? There’re better products than this out there.” But for some reason you couldn’t stop playing it while eating Takis by the bagful.
Evolve – Fun Dip
Turtle Rock Studios spent the run-up to the launch of their first game by championing the E-Sports angle. The asymmetrical thing was unique, but four player coop games rarely work. As you try to plot out how to do a mission, your teammates invariably break in three different directions. One will start firing pell-mell at wildlife, one will double jump like a lunatic while calling air strikes at nothing, and one is sure to end up sprinting in the wrong direction. The most exciting part is to be the monster and eat everyone as they run in opposite directions. Fun Dip, by extension, wastes no time in exaggerating just how fun of a candy is. If there’s a less efficient way of eating 2.5 oz of Pixy Stix dust, science has yet to find it. You’re most likely just going to eat the stick anyway.
Mario Maker – Tortilla Chips
Can you really turn down a bag of tortilla chips? So pleasantly crisp. Lightly salted. Simple. Easy, Familiar. Like jumping on a Koopa, a nice bag of Tostitos is something you can trace back to your childhood. Like the old, Italian, plumber, though, more of the same can get pretty boring. With sequels and reboots the likes of New Super Mario Bros 2, and Mario Party 10, and Hyper Paper Luigi: The Year of Envelope-ing Failure, the mustachioed man’s core franchises were leaving people’s mouths dry and salty.
But that’s the magic of the tortilla chip! You throw a little salsa or some melted cheese on there, and it turns into a symphony again. How about some seasoned meat? Got some nacho cheese? Whip up a dish and share with your friends, and you have the beautiful, variety clad, creativity driven, booster that Mario Maker gave to the hero formerly known as Jump Man.
The Witcher 3 – Pringles
Kellogg was proud to announce that Pringles made a delicious 2 billion dollars worldwide last year. It would be hard for anything short of a surprise launch of Half-Life 3 to post numbers like that, but The Witcher 3 does have two things in common with the tubular snacks: it was one of the widest selling games of the year, commanding the most written content coverage last year, and once you pop you will never, ever, ever, stop.
Splatoon – Skittles
Sweet globs of gooey neon happiness splattering the floor, walls, and ceiling; no, not Splatoon, the last time you sneezed with a mouthful of Skittles. Nintendo’s landmark shooter-ish thingy mirrors the candy that has you tasting the rainbow in more ways than just expectorating sugar water. Splatoon’s bite-sized matches no doubt left you shoveling in one handful after another. Coupled with the sweet and oddly edgy tone, the squid toons had plenty of reasons to keep you painting.
Undertale – Oreos
How do you eat an Oreo? Dip it in milk, probably? Rend it apart and suck out the creamy innards? Dip it in nacho cheese? There are a million ways to eat milk’s favorite cookie, and there are a million ways to play last year’s indie darling, Undertale. The love that this weird and wonderful little game was welcomed with is second only to the adoration that these little sandwich cookies receive. Plus they’re both black and white, so there ya go.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 – Now and Later
When was the last time you bought a package of Now and Laters? The answer is “never”, and is followed up by “but my parent/older sibling would sometimes”. And the same is true of Tony Hawk games. Only our elders remember a distant, golden time of skaterpunk tunes and tearing around empty schools on a plank of wood. Now Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is just a shard of flavorless fiberglass designed to slice open the inside of your mouth while claiming to be candy.
