Headshot Energy Bar

Recently, I ordered a couple geeky t-shirts from thinkgeek.com, while browsing this palace of the nerdy, I ran across Headshot Energy Bars, I figured, “Why not?” and threw a 4-pack into my virtual shopping cart. 3-5 business days later they arrived. The packaging is an urban camouflage color scheme with a sniper’s crosshairs hung behind stenciled letters that seem to say “I would go great with a marathon session of <ENTER YOUR FAVORITE FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER HERE>”

The… let’s call it “flavor text” on the side of the bar, however, reads with the embarrassingly awkward panache of a marketing executive who has just heard ‘leet-speak’ for the first time and decided that it is the new language of the masses. It reads a little something like this: “Headshot is a candy bar made for gamers by gamers. Feeling tired of owning all those newbs? There is enough energy packed into this bar to improve your game so much, that people will be complaining you have an Aimbot!”

I controlled my laughter long enough to open the package. What I was greeted with looked like a chocolate-dipped granola bar. Upon taking a bite, I confirmed that suspicion. While the packaging touts this as a “Guarana-Infused” snack, I can’t taste that element. It does however have a decent toffee taste, although the texture strikes me as a bit mealy. With all the oats and granola bits in this bar, one could almost think this was healthy. True, it is high in fiber, but one bar also delivers 20% of the RDA of Saturated Fat. I’m not sure that’s something that can be responsibly marketed to a demographic whose unifying characteristic is a sedentary hobby that takes up the majority of their spare time.

The energy boost I got from this was negligible, and not worth the $2.50 I spent for each bar. If priced more reasonably, and marketed less ham-handedly, I’d consider getting these again.