With Guitar Hero’s market share thoroughly decimated by the popularity of Rock Band, it comes as no surprise that they would look towards the Colonel for a little promotional help. Pretending to rock out with Guitar Hero is now something to be ashamed of, like playing with K’NEX instead of LEGO or rooting for the LA Clippers.

Box meals from KFC seem to vary from location to location, with some offering popcorn chicken and others giving you a Snacker, but as Linkin Park once said as I cried myself to sleep in junior high: In the end, it doesn’t even matter. These meals will be the ruin of you. At easily over a thousand calories, not including the gigantic cauldron of soda that you’ll have to hold in your child’s car seat, either the fat, salt, or sheer mass intake will be sure to have you running to Yahoo Answers so that you can ask about the possible side effects of bulimia.

The meal came with a Snacker, a leg or thigh, two original crispy strips, two sides, and a biscuit. I might as well have asked them to deep fry the biscuit in that secret batter just to ensure that all non-side items taste exactly the same. I tried to entice my taste buds by asking for the Buffalo Snacker. That was a mistake. The sauce tasted like tomato paste that had been mixed with a bottle of pepper spray and nuked in the microwave until it completely exploded. You will almost certainly choke on the fumes, but at least you’ll have a few shreds of iceberg lettuce to numb the pain.

The rest of the meal is your standard KFC fare, deep fried chicken that seems to be getting saltier every year. I think some company did a chemical test on the secret “11 herbs and spices” recipe and exposed it as merely salt, pepper, and MSG. At this point, that revelation tastes pretty spot-on. Still, I have to admit that I enjoy KFC chicken when it comes in a reasonable quantity. And I must say that I am addicted to KFC’s potato wedges. It’s just too bad that only one in every two KFC’s seem to carry them. I have to restrain myself from hopping over the cashier’s table and recklessly throwing boxes of food around looking for these hot and crispy morsels whenever they don’t have them. But alas, I can’t jump that high.

The other side I chose was the iridescent and fluorescently orange macaroni and cheese. I would bet money on it glowing in the dark, which would be nice if I was decorating a garden and not actually ingesting it. You can choose healthier alternatives, but I have a sneaking suspicion that KFC only puts green beans on their menu to keep the FDA off their asses. I have never seen a human order it and doubt that they even have it in the restaurant. Let’s face it − you’ve gone this far, you might as well load yourself fully.

(Nutritional Facts – Varies depending on items, but it’s probably best not to know.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to TIB reader Hank the Tank for suggesting this feast.)

Item: KFC Fully Loaded Box Meal
Price: $6.99
Purchased at: KFC
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Lots of variety and choices for your taste buds to enjoy and for your gullet to suck down. Comes in a box that you can conveniently weigh on a scale to really make you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. You can probably share the meal and still be satisfied.
Cons: Food can be kind of greasy. KFC’s buffalo sauce is liquid dynamite. Will make you feel like absolute crap. Listening to Linkin Park on those cloudy Mondays in middle school.

Armed with a $50 gift card and a twisted obsession with anything gimmicky, I drifted into Best Buy with my eyes peeled and my mind open. At every corner, I was ambushed by tall and gawky nerds in bright blue shirts who asked me if I was finding everything okay. I eventually replied, “No, for you see, I’m just an caveman. Your wares frighten and confuse me!” which bemused them and eventually got them off my back.

As I made my way towards the center of the store, I literally stumbled upon the giant display of the new Nintendo DS game Guitar Hero: On Tour. After knocking down roughly half of the boxes, I managed to pick them up in time before any employees could come around to shoot me an angry leer. The game certainly looked intriguing enough, and in the end, the box art’s promise of turning me into a meth-addicted white trash rocker was too much to pass up.

Fifty dollars is a lot for a DS game, but it does have plenty of extras included. The contents of the package are as follows: a four-button fret with an adjustable strap that fits into the DS’s Gameboy slot, a plastic “skin” for the device, a pick-shaped stylus that fits in the contraption, an adapter for players with an old DS, and the video game itself. I must warn you that the device is a bit small. Since I have tiny little girl hands, however, I had no problem with the size.

For those uninitiated with Guitar Hero, you simply match your fingers to the notes displayed on the screen and strum at the moment that they reach the bottom. You would typically do this with a guitar controller that looks like a Fisher Price toy, but in this version you move your fingers on the attached frets and “strum” with your pick stylus on the touch screen. It works surprisingly well with near-perfect accuracy, meaning that you have no one to blame but yourself when you are booed off the stage.

The downside, of course, is that you are actually playing a simulation of a simulation. The creators of Futurama have already parodied this paradox, but little did they know that it would come true 992 years earlier than they predicted. You won’t get the enjoyment of pretending that you’re Slash or any of your other favorite drugged up guitarists, but you will get a great portable music game with enough tracks (26 in all) to keep you entertained until your parents kick your slacker ass out of the house.

If you want more info, check out my poorly narrated video for a content and game play demonstration.

Item: Guitar Hero: On Tour
Price: $49.99
Purchased at: Best Buy
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Comes with fun and gimmicky fret controller that is sure to impress the ladies in public. Game works surprisingly well for a portable version. Other than Elite Beat Agents, this is the only good music game currently released for the DS.
Cons: Much pricier than regular DS games, which typically retail for $30. Can’t pretend that you’re actually playing a guitar. Controller might be a bit small for people with adult-sized hands. Overbearing employees.