Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Grounded 2
  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps
  • Donkey Kong Bananza
  • Switch 2 Starter Pack
Recommended reading
GTA 6 Cal Hampton in a bar by a pool table
Grand Theft Auto Five seconds of GTA 6 footage has convinced me that we'll be running businesses in Vice City – and I'm here for it
An array of glasses, goblets, mixers, and a figurine on a wooden table
Tabletop Gaming I've just discovered that there is a D&D cocktail book, and it's given me a terrible idea
Mixtape protagonists lounge in a sunlit bedroom with purple walls and fairy lights
Adventure Games Nostalgic indie game from publisher Annapurna is a "respite from the current cursed reality" inspired by real-life, dev says: "Ended about as well as you can expect, including a nice scar, and cow s***"
Helldivers 2
Games "We cough up a chunk of our soul": 32 game devs, from Doom's John Romero to Helldivers 2 and Palworld leads, explain what people get wrong about games
Vampire Survivors
Action Games Vampire Survivors kicked off a game development gold rush, but has a legitimately new genre emerged between the cash-ins?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hero Gustave in a striped swimsuit
RPGs Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's deeply frustrating minigames make harsh parries look like a breeze in contrast, and it's all Final Fantasy's fault
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 screenshot of J.J. Hardwell standing with a handgun and looking warily at the shadow of Evil J.J. looming behind him
RPGs Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 is the first "survival horror comedy RPG metroidvania" I've ever played, and that sure is a lot of words
  1. Platforms

If video games and consoles were... cocktails?

Features
By David Houghton published 10 August 2012

Which ones would be habit-forming, and which would taste like crap?

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The phrase "a heady cocktail" is a tired, overused games journalism cliche. It's a cheap, stock, go-to line, used to lazily encapsulate a title with a whole bunch of stuff going on in it, while really only describing it in the most generic of terms.

But it got me thinking. What if it was literally true? What would the industry's biggest names look like if turned into colourful, alcoholic metaphors for themselves? How would they be served? Which ones would be habit-forming, and which would taste like crap? So I had another think, and then I made this feature.

Because you need to know the answers to these questions.

Page 1 of 10
Page 1 of 10
The Duke Pukem Forever

The Duke Pukem Forever

Signature qualities: Every time you're just about to have it handed to you, the barman comes up with a new idea, takes it away and starts all over again. This goes on all night until the bar eventually closes. If you decide that you do ultimately still want to drink it, you have to come back the next day, when a new barman will fish out the dregs his predecessor left out the night before and stick them in a new glass with a bright-coloured but broken umbrella.

Page 2 of 10
Page 2 of 10
The Final Fant-iced-tea

The Final Fant-iced-tea

Signature qualities: The first few you have (usually up to about ten, depending on the individual) are a simulating, exciting mix of eclectic flavours, and tend to incite a heightened level of emotion and wonder along with pleasant audio-visual side-effects (though the seventh can make your vision go a bit cloudy). Down any more than that though, and you'll generally find that while the visuals become ever shinier, your mood will become fairly morose and over-serious. In fact around your 13th, there's a chance you might even start feeling slightly paranoid and trapped. Almost like your life is stuck on some pre-destined path, without any genuine power of free-will.

Page 3 of 10
Page 3 of 10
The Elder(berry) Scrolls

The Elder(berry) Scrolls

Signature qualities: A bitter-sweet blend which uses equally high levels of sugar and alcohol to create a rough but addictive beverage. Doesn't require a great deal of careful blending, and is frequently just roughly shaken together and served without a proper taste test. Sometimes as punishing a drink as it is an enjoyable one, its fans swear by it regardless, on the grounds that if nothing else it's served in a fishbowl, so you get loads of it.

Page 4 of 10
Page 4 of 10
The Red Dead Refreshment

The Red Dead Refreshment

Signature qualities: A long, whisky-based drink, known to incite both aggressive and depressive emotional states in equal measure. It has a vibrant, but slightly one-note flavour, and many profess to getting sick of it halfway through. Worth sticking with though, as the end has a hell of a kick.

Page 5 of 10
Page 5 of 10
The Gin and Sonic

The Gin and Sonic

Signature qualities: Its bright, unique colour blend and summery presentation always makes it look really enticing when you see someone else drinking one from afar, but unfortunately that's only ever because it inflicts such intense memory loss that you always forget just how drastically bad the last one tasted.

Still, maybe the next one will be different. Can't hurt to try, right?

Page 6 of 10
Page 6 of 10
The Gran(d Marniere) Turismo 5

The Gran(d Marniere) Turismo 5

Signature qualities: No-one quite knows what GT5 really tastes like, because no-one has yet sampled a finished one. The problem? Being such a prestige beverage, once you order one you'll invariably find that the barman spends all night sampling other drinks in order to research the perfect flavour combination, gets drunk, and then forgets what he was supposed to be doing in the first place. If you're lucky you'll get your drink served before closing time, by which point your friends will have already nailed six or seven different cocktails of their own. And even then, your perfectionist barman will keep adding and changing bits as you drink, meaning that you're likely to give up and wonder what all the fuss was about long before you reach the bottom of it.

Still, it's nice to look at.

Page 7 of 10
Page 7 of 10
The X-on-the-beach-box 360

The X-on-the-beach-box 360

Signature qualities: Really should be served chilled, but about 50% of bars ruin them by serving them far too warm, if not flaming. Formerly one of the most popular cocktails in the world amongst serious aficionados, but is currently falling out of favour due to a trend for weakening its core flavours and tinkering a little too much with the formula. Usually served with a serviette made out of an advertising flyer for a completely different drink you don't actually want.

Page 8 of 10
Page 8 of 10
The DisarrayStation 3

The DisarrayStation 3

Signature qualities: Not a terribly popular drink with either customers or bartenders when it first appeared, being overly rich for some tastes and requiring a few too many expensive ingredients for very little flavour advantage. It still takes a lot of work from a highly skilled barman in order to blend correctly, but has over recent years made a resurgence through a combination of increased bartender experience and the invention of more affordable variants of the recipe.

Page 9 of 10
Page 9 of 10
The PC Gone Mad

The PC Gone Mad

Signature qualities: The first one of the evening is quite expensive, but stick with them and they'll get progressively cheaper, actually saving you money over the course of the night. In that respect it's a bit like taking advantage of the free drinking in a Vegas casino, only with the big financial outlay at the beginning of the night rather than the end. Unusually though, while this drink is technically made up of many of the same ingredient combinations as the Xbox 360 and PS3 variants, its flavours are somehow sharper and more vibrant. And it's definitely a hell of a lot more potent.

Page 10 of 10
Page 10 of 10
CATEGORIES
PC Gaming PlayStation Xbox
David Houghton
David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.
See more Platform Features
Read more
GTA 6 Cal Hampton in a bar by a pool table
Five seconds of GTA 6 footage has convinced me that we'll be running businesses in Vice City – and I'm here for it
An array of glasses, goblets, mixers, and a figurine on a wooden table
I've just discovered that there is a D&D cocktail book, and it's given me a terrible idea
Mixtape protagonists lounge in a sunlit bedroom with purple walls and fairy lights
Nostalgic indie game from publisher Annapurna is a "respite from the current cursed reality" inspired by real-life, dev says: "Ended about as well as you can expect, including a nice scar, and cow s***"
Helldivers 2
"We cough up a chunk of our soul": 32 game devs, from Doom's John Romero to Helldivers 2 and Palworld leads, explain what people get wrong about games
Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors kicked off a game development gold rush, but has a legitimately new genre emerged between the cash-ins?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hero Gustave in a striped swimsuit
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's deeply frustrating minigames make harsh parries look like a breeze in contrast, and it's all Final Fantasy's fault
Latest in Platforms
Alpha Response police officers walking in a line with guns aimed
"If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now": OG Counter-Strike co-creator 'Gooseman' "kind of regrets" leaving Valve, says he "made some poor business decisions" but grew as a dev
Donkey Kong Bananza DK looking confused and surprised
Donkey Kong Bananza doesn't use Switch 2's frame rate-boosting DLSS tech, joining Mario Kart World in dodging what we thought would be one of the console's defining features
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered gameplay showing the emperor looking at the player in their prison cell
Studio behind beauties like Oblivion Remastered and Metal Gear Solid Delta is reportedly facing heavy layoffs in the games industry's latest demonstration that hits will not spare you
The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature fairy
The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature is here, but fairies aren't the only new feature to come to EA's life sim – so is rapper T-Pain
Fortnite Fortress of Solitude
Fortnite Fortress of Solitude: Where to find it
Destiny 2 Dark Academia side quest entrance with hologram
Destiny 2 Dark Academia quest walkthrough
Latest in Features
Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Five questions I hope Fantastic Four: First Steps answers
Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Starlord (Chris Pratt), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Drax (Dave Bautista) in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
I've watched all the best James Gunn movies and TV shows, and this is how I'd rank them
One of the new Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4
Borderlands 4 is releasing in just under 2 months, so I'm revisiting the 5 best Gearbox games while I count down the days
The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature screenshot of a fairy, a ghost, and a mermaid looking scared
After 400 hours in The Sims 4, I've finally met my match: an occult-only household riddled with phantoms, house fires, and dead plants
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild screenshot of Link cooking over a campfire
The Legend of Zelda and Red Dead Redemption 2 have whetted my appetite, so I've found the 7 best cooking games to tuck into
David Corenswet as Superman fighting back flames
I’m tired of MCU post-credits scenes that go nowhere, which is why Superman’s organic world-building is such a breath of fresh air
  1. DK and Pauline look surprised in Donkey Kong Bananza
    1
    Donkey Kong Bananza Review: "Destruction isn't just a flashy gimmick for the Minecraft generation, it's one of the best inventions Nintendo has had in years"
  2. 2
    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 review: "A nostalgic, must-play hit for fans"
  3. 3
    College Football 26 review: “Thanks to rivalries and dynasty, this is the greatest show on turf”
  4. 4
    Mecha Break review: "This mech battler makes up for lacking customization with a varied roster that lets me live out my Evangelion fantasy"
  5. 5
    Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: "This tarpunk delivery epic is more Metal Gear Solid than ever, for better and worse"
  1. David Corenswet as Superman inside the Fortress of Solitude in James Gunn's Superman.
    1
    Superman review: "A triumphant reinvention and a promising start for the DCU"
  2. 2
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  3. 3
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  4. 4
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  5. 5
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  1. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in Squid Game season 3
    1
    Squid Game season 3 review: "A staggeringly excellent final season wraps up one of the greatest Netflix shows ever"
  2. 2
    Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"
  3. 3
    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 review: "The show's most assured run of episodes to date"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...