When word broke that the KFC-Activision partnership had resulted in more than just Guitar Hero World Tour in-game advertising, with a Guitar Hero branded "Fully Loaded Box Meal" hitting the fast food chain, we decided to strap on the feedbag and test it out for ourselves.
The meal consists of seven levels: a "KFC snacker" sandwich, two chicken strips, a drumstick or thigh, a biscuit, two sides and a 32 ounce soft drink. It should give you serious pause at about 1200 calories, as advertised, not including the high fructose corn syrup laden soda of your choice.
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 feelings 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.