The meal comes in four configurations, offers four "collector's cups" featuring NFLers rendered, interestingly, in their cartoony Madden-for-the-Wii forms. McWhertor, still nauseous from last year's unboxing of the Guitar Hero meal, assigned this to me on the pretense that as the sports writer, it was my responsibility.

I selected the five hot wings version over the two-piece grilled chicken (white or dark meat), the three chicken strips or the Twister (a wrap with lettuce). I went with the hot wings because I figured five pieces would allow me to burn 66 percent more calories reaching into the box than I would with three crispy strips, and that would be healthier than whatever I got from the Twister's vegetable matter.

The KFC Madden Box also comes in a standard $5 version and a $7 special edition that, while it doesn't include night vision goggles, is packed with enough pupil-dilating sodium you'll see in the dark on your own. I went with the $7 configuration, which is supposed to deliver an extra side item and a dessert.

But as you can see in the above unboxing, this product shipped in such an incomplete state I'm not sure any patch or update can fix it. Opening the box reveals just the five wings and the mashed potatoes and gravy - which I had declared as my extra side item. No crumbly biscuit doused in butter pheromones. No chitinous coleslaw in mayonnaise the color and consistency of watery ejaculate. In fact, since the hockey-puck brownie bites come in plastic and I poured the Diet Pepsi (oh hell yeah, I went with the diet), there are a grand total of two items here actually prepared by KFC employees, even though the loading time for this was an unacceptably slow seven minutes.

KFC #D705027, Springfield, Ore., you fail. Well, maybe you were thinking of my health by subtracting 360 needless calories. Either way, my review of this meal's components follows:

Hated (Secretly Loved):
Hot wings: These babies start slow, not really hitting you with the spice until midway through the third piece. Then it was like Cayenne Frankenstein farted in my face. Even after the meal my mouth had this residue on it that reminded me of the time I drunkenly kissed this chick who had that bee-sting toxin lip gloss to give her the Angelina Jolie pouty look. Both encounters were degrading, but this one diminished my self-esteem. Also, these are not boneless wings; I thought "wings" was an allegorical reference in lieu of "nuggets," a competitor's term, because these things were fried up to the point they no longer resembled the limbs of any known terrestrial animal. So I took a big mouthful of bone on the first attempt, and believe me, that's not a sentence I ever wanted to write. I didn't expect the amount of meat in this item to be nourishing; I did expect it to at least be filling. Rating: Anorexy.

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy: The pudding-like body of potato flour and pureed notebook was at least free of lumps or standing water. It was thoroughly mixed with the viscous tailings of cooked chicken, whose bouquet hit artful notes of obesity, unemployment, and parole. If the chicken didn't fill me, this sure did, as not soon after polishing off the MP&G it felt like my large intestine was mixing up Redi-Crete, certain to turn my commode into a birdbath. Rating: Lunchlady.

Brownie Bites: These pucklike treats came packaged in a cellophane sleeve upside down on a piece of waxed cardboard, evocative of the conveyor belt that shat them out. In March. But ultimately, they were chocolatey and thus the highlight, comparatively speaking, of this dining experience. Rating: Hockey.

Despite the grandiose packaging and $7 pricetag, even if this order had been completely filled it would still be engineered for a 15 minute experience, tops. I expected that this calorie bomb would have left me doing the old Dad thing of unbuttoning my pants and laying on the couch to watch Jeopardy and blame my farts on the dog. But all it took was one tuberculose belch-cough and I was back to full strength.

If there was $1.95 worth of actual food in this meal I'd be astonished. That, coupled with the EA Sports sponsorship, must make this cross promotion an insanely profitable no-brainer for Yum! Brands, and all but guarantees a sequel in the coming year.

KFC Madden NFL Box was developed in a conference room by marketing geniuses and produced by KFC, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. Retails for $5, $7 if you want the extra side-item and brownie bites, assuming they remember to pack all the base items. Eaten until regretted.

We'll walk you through the meal after the jump.

Cracking open the Guitar Hero branded box, we get a look at just how much of this baby is deep fried. Pretty much everything. We opted to pass on the mac and cheese shown in the ads, instead going for the "BBQ baked beans" in a futile attempt to cut back on the saturated fat and grossly unnecessary calorie count.

It's been about a decade since our last trip to a KFC, so we thought we'd start in on the KFC Snacker to make an easy transition. We grabbed our spork and dove in.

KFC Snacker - Features the only hint of vegetable in the form of a few shreds of iceberg lettuce, the nutritionally bankrupt variety. Also features a vile khaki-colored sauce with black flakes we assumed to be pepper. Made it about 80% through before throwing in the towel. Rating: Disgusting.
Chicken Strips - These leathery strips were the most enjoyable part of the meal, but we were dismayed to learn that we had only Safeway brand ketchup in the refrigerator. Rating: Most food like.
Biscuit - We cut the rest of our meal with bites of biscuit, a food item that seems nigh impossible to fuck up. KFC didn't let us down, with our only complaint that it didn't inspire us to play more Guitar Hero. Rating: Meets expectations.
Original Recipe Thigh - Clearly the most atrocious aspect of the Guitar Hero: World Tour KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal. After carefully biting into the flesh of the fried thigh, much of the oily skin sloughed off, letting loose a stream of white hot grease. Gave up halfway through. Rating: Nauseating.
BBQ Baked Beans - So loaded with sugar, it's hard to go wrong. Diabetics need not apply, nor should anyway with an aversion to scalding themselves on beans. Rating: Bean-y.
Potato Wedges - The most damningly filling of the fried stuff. These pasty wedges are delicious, in a regretful way. They'll make you feel about fifteen pounds heavier. Rating: Brown.

We feel we must disclose that we did not complete the Guitar Hero: World Tour KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal 100% before writing this. That's why this is not a review, but an impressions post. In all honesty, we probably only ingested about a thousand calories and maybe fifty grams of fat before giving in to a feeling of fullness, regret and nausea.

Plus, we had a good opportunity to look at the flotsam from our KFC experience. It wasn't pretty.

Overall, we'd give the experience a D-. It was one of the few meals where vomit phobia was almost outweighed by a feeling to purge this poison. We'd recommend either waiting for the more fully-featured sequel or avoiding putting this sort of thing into your body ever.

Guitar Hero: World Tour KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal is prepared by apathetic employees, sold by KFC, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. Retails for $7.99. Ate until feeling terrible.

Microsoft cross-promotion at its best! On June 15th, a special Halo 3 Zune music player will be available exclusively at GameStop for US $249.99. The 30GB black device (better than brown!) comes pre-loaded with tons of Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 3 goodies like vids, music, trailers and artwork for you to stare at on that 3-inch screen. Hit the jump for the details. Yes, the details! Brian Ashcraft

Features: •Special-edition collectible. Fully customized with a "Halo 3" graphic overlay and collectible packaging

•Pre-loaded "Halo" content. Packed with videos, music and artwork from the famed "Halo" franchise, an exclusive new episode of "Red vs. Blue" from the fan-adored machinima creators Rooster Teeth Productions LLC, and more. The content package includes the following:
•Music:
•"Halo: Original Soundtrack" — complete album
•"Halo 2: Original Soundtrack," Volume 1 — all tracks by Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori
•"Halo 2: Original Soundtrack," Volume 2 — complete album
•Videos:
•"Halo 3" "Starry Night" advertisement
•"Halo 3" E3 2006 announcement trailer
•"Halo 2" theatrical teaser trailer
•Three documentary videos on the making of "Halo 3"
•A custom episode of "Red vs. Blue" just for Zune
•The first six episodes of "Red vs. Blue" Season 1
•Artwork. More than 120 images are included, including game concept art, storyboards, paintings, and conceptual marketing imagery.
•Enhanced Xbox 360 experience. Gamers can plug it in and turn it up to enjoy their music, pictures or videos on the go or in the living room. Player can just plug their Zune into any Xbox 360 to enjoy their content on the best screen and speakers in the house. They can also stream music directly from their Zune to create a custom soundtrack for any game.
•30GB digital media player. Gamers get the new "Halo 3" look and the same great Zune features. Users can store up to 7,500 songs, 25,000 pictures or 100 hours of video:3
•Big, bright screen. The 3-inch LCD video screen works in portrait or landscape mode.
•Built-in FM radio. Users can tune in to their favorite local stations.
•Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing. Users can beam select music and pictures to friends wirelessly — device to device.2
•Personalized Zune. Users can create a custom background with their favorite picture or image.
•Zune Marketplace. Users can download songs individually or choose a Zune Pass subscription to get unlimited downloads for a flat monthly fee.
•Zune software. Users can automatically import most music, pictures and videos from iTunes and Microsoft Windows Media Player, including existing playlists and song ratings. Some content is protected by the service from which it was purchased, and cannot be imported.