When Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created the first issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984 as an indie parody of superheroes, they couldn’t have anticipated that forty years later, they would still be on everyone’s lips with an amazing comic book collection, a new animated movie, several video games on the market, and an intense fanaticism for characters that were never intended to please the mainstream audience. And yet, here we are, with four Xbox controllers, one for each turtle.
Master Splinter’s scent
The curious thing about these controllers isn’t just the graffiti or their designs based on the characters in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Madness,’ but the fact that they have a delightful smell… of pizza. Yes, pizza! Have you ever wanted to munch on your controller while gaming or keep your favorite pizzeria’s tab open just in case you crave a double pepperoni slice? Well, now you can, thanks to an included aroma diffuser that resembles a slice of the most popular food in the New York sewers.
The downside (and at the same time, the fantastic part) is that they can’t be bought for now; they are only available as prizes in a contest and will likely be worth thousands of dollars in the future as a rare nostalgic item. That is, of course, if you don’t end up using it while gaming and enjoying the constant aroma of pizza!
This isn’t the first time that smells and flavors have mixed in an improbable way with video games. Let’s remember, for instance, that all Nintendo Switch cartridges are coated with a substance that, when licked, tastes revolting to prevent accidental ingestion by children. And if you’ve never tried licking one before, we know perfectly well that you’re probably doing it right now. Indeed, it tastes like pure disgust.
This isn’t the first experiment of its kind either: in ‘Earthbound,’ Nintendo Power released a scratch-and-sniff card that hid various scents, including, of course, pizza. Something similar was done with the seventh installment of ‘Leisure Suit Larry,’ which provided a smell card with the purchase of the game. Whether you’d want to smell that particular game is another matter, of course. Additionally, the disc of ‘Gran Turismo 2’ smelled like tires when touched, and it’s rumored that ‘FIFA 2001’ did the same with the freshly cut grass of a soccer field. So, it’s safe to say that Xbox hasn’t invented anything new in this regard… even though we love to believe they did. Cowabunga!
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