Chipotle's Atari-Style 'Taste Invaders' Game Takes Aim at Artificial Ingredients

Shoot down food additives from a foil-wrapped burrito.

Need a new way to procrastinate at work? Chipotle's got your back. The burrito slinger just launched Taste Invaders, an Atari-style online game it describes as a "galactic battle against artificial ingredients."

Players have to avoid falling missiles while shooting projectiles — from a foil-wrapped burrito, natch — to destroy various chemical-filled flasks and mysterious molecules, as well as flying junk food like pizza and burgers. Fail to defend your burrito and you'll get a message of defeat like, "You got polysorbate 80 (sixed)" or "You just silicon diox-died."

Chipotle is well-known for its loud battle cry against artificial additives, conventionally-raised pork, and GMOs, although their position on the latter is currently in contention: The chain is being sued for allegedly serving GMOs after declaring its food to be 100 percent free of them.

Retro arcade-style games seem to be all the rage for #brands lately. As part of its recent hipster-friendly makeover that includes casting Saturday Night Live alumni as Colonel Sanders, KFC launched an absurd online game called ColonelQuest that sends players on strange quests like bouncing babies off trampolines and participating in a "Courtroom Brawl" to win golden drumsticks.

Taste Invaders isn't Chipotle's first foray into spreading its all-natural propaganda via games, either: This summer it launched Friend or Faux, in which players had to identify whether ingredients were used by Chipotle or its competitors (and earn a free burrito in the process).

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