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.

Instead, I got a box that looks like a book (handy for hiding stuff in), a mini art book, some bizarre playing cards with the main characters on them, a badly crinkled poster and a candy called "Sugar Discs" made by Sweet Sensations in the United Kingdom (not pictured because they don't photograph well).

Oh, and I got a copy of the game, too. For review purposes.

As detailed earlier, the set is a sports locker with shelf space for 25 games inside. It also comes with a combination lock for your front door latch. A poster, Kobe Bryant figurine and, of course, the game itself, are included. Only 30,000 were made, this one is No. 986.

This was unboxed - why else - for sports gamers to drool over, but we won't be keeping it. Only the outer seals were broken, but the whole package is going into our charity item warehouse. Later this year someone will be happy to claim it in the name of a worthy cause, with thanks to 2K Sports for a well made game and a worthy shrine to it.

The game arrives in a promotion-copy-only sleeve, with the same advisory stamped on the disc so, no case and no full value for those who think they might flip it for cash or store credit. Recipients also found no evidence of the means to export Van Halen tracks into Guitar Hero 5, probably another resale-defeating mechanism. although who knows if this capability may be enabled once the game is fully on sale in the U.S. Dec. 22.

On the whole, the game appears to be based on Guitar Hero: Metallica, skinned for Van Halen. More pics and details at the link.

Guitar Hero Van Halen Hits Mailboxes, First Setlist Photos [5frets]

That's right I didn't just get an edible DSi today, Nintendo also sent along the real thing. Take a gander at these fancy unboxing skills.

Warning, because I went from outside box to the start-up and main menu, the video is nine minutes long.

Ps. To adjust brightness on the fly you hold in select and use the volume buttons.

MTV Multiplayer has taken delivery of Guitar Praise: Solid Rock — the Christian Rock-themed Guitar Hero knock-off — and performed a solemn unboxing ceremony.

The box itself makes some pretty bold claims of UNPARALLELED GAMEPLAY, informing would-be players that they can SHRED the riffs, THUMP the bass and BLAST that solid Christian Rock.

Inside, there is the game CD (it's a PC game) and the aforementioned guitar - it looks like a hybrid of the GH and Rock Band controller. The strum bar looks like it is covered with that fake plastic chrome effect which wears down to nothing upon contact with sweaty hands.

It's otherwise impossible to judge build quality or features but it seems to include a tilt-switch. The packaging proclaims that you can 'tilt the guitar to activate spinner bonuses to achieve maximum points".

Where do they get these crazy ideas!?!?

It is maybe a little unfair to poke fun at Guitar Praise for lack of originality - after all, if Guitar Hero or Rock Band acknowledged the CR niche then it arguably wouldn't have to exist. Although you could say the same about other genres of music too - if Harmonix don't start listening to me soon I may have to go in to production with Japanese All-Girl Noisecore Band Revolution Hero.

Hallelujah: ‘Guitar Praise’ Unboxed, With Screenshots[MTV Multiplayer]

I received a box set of Halo 3 Covenant Plasma Pistols in the mail yesterday. The two guns and two targets are sold together as a Halo-themed laser pursuit game. I haven't had a chance to play yet (that's for this weekend), but they seem like they're pretty well put together and have a nice set of rules backing them. For instance you can fire off super shots with the gun by holding down the trigger for a few. You can also run out of ammo and shield. I'll make sure to update everyone on Monday about how they worked out. In the meantime check out the unboxing.

Since we were tipped to both the unboxing video and the opening sequence around 6 pm Crecente time, we've been flooded with tips to other videos. The above, uploaded within the past hour, was cut to fit YouTube's 10 minute requirement.

After the jump, video of someone unboxing the 80 GB PS3 Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle four days before the street date. It's 5 minutes in a single take so, looks pretty legit. Also after the jump, another video showing the MGS4 intro/start menu video.

The unboxing:

The start menu video:

MGS4 Start Menu Video [YouTube, thanks reader Y. Liu — twice!]

"Mommy, is Daddy dead?"

Good times, good times. Hit the jump for plenty of pictures of the wheel. SEXY!

The longbox version of GTA IV, you may recall, comes with a fancy metal safety deposit box, The Art of Grand Theft Auto IV hardbound book, a selection of music tracks and limited embossed cover art. Shots of the GTA goodness have been uploaded to web servers for posterity. Will I be forced to drop $90 on a game I will already own come next Tuesday? Yup!

GTA IV Special Edition arrives in stores [GTA Gaming]

The Xbox 360 Elite just hit my doorstep in an alarmingly small box. Inside: The sleek black 360 Elite with black accessories and a little cable for transferring my saves from the silver harddrive to the black one. Now to figure out where the hell to put this thing in my already packed entertainment center... ahh, maybe I'll just give to Jason over at Gizmodo to store in his pants. Brian Crecente