Obsessively Cataloging Video Game "Pop" Culture
Escape from Ever After turns fairy tales into corporate drudgery, so naturally Ever After Inc. keeps a couple of vending machines around to keep its storybook workforce caffeinated and quell any anti-capitalist uprisings. Thanks for the screenshot, siverwrites!
This Pepsi vending machine texture was included Half-Life’s prototype Build 725 (a.k.a. Beta 12 or Net Test 2). I don’t think it appeared during gameplay (Valve had switched to its generic soda machines by that point), but the texture is still tucked away in the files.
Notably, other pre-release Half-Life prototypes featured Coca-Cola vending machines.
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We’re all about completionism here at the Video Game Soda Machine Project, and this screenshot from Final Fantasy XIV adds a few additional soda machines not currently in the archive. Thanks for the screenshot, Norah!
Jugger-Nog soda is back in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, and it’s eggier than ever! Or, perhaps you’d prefer a refreshing Der Wunderfizz…
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This soda machine from Transfer Point, a throwback Macintosh point-and-click adventure from friend-of-the-site robotspacer, is guarded by one very angry egret. And I live my life by a simple motto: “No egrets!”
Thanks for the heads-up on this one, Michael!
Who needs a floating robot butler serving cocktails when there’s a perfectly good beverage vending unit nearby? a 1992 graphic adventure game for DOS? I don’t know a lot about this game, but if it’s a graphic adventure game from the 1990s and it has a soda machine, it can’t be that bad!
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SHODAN may have taken over Citadel Station in Nightdive Studios’ 2023 remake of System Shock, but at least Snacktron is still here to dispense drinks and snacks.
Transform your family’s rundown laundromat into a gaming hotspot in Arcade Paradise. And with all that retro joystick jockeying, customers will definitely need some refreshment. That’s where this Fizz vending machine comes in.
Notably, the same Fiz vending machine also appears in RoboCop: Rogue City. This suggests one of two things: either Arcade Paradise is set in the RoboCop Cinematic Universe, or the Fiz machine is a stock 3D asset. I choose to believe the former.
I’m a huge fan of Beneath a Steel Sky, so it’s a treat to find this Spankles the Clown vending machine waiting in the dystopian future of its sequel, Beyond a Steel Sky. Spankles™: Explodes your mind!
Thanks for the outstanding screenshots, Martin!
Want to see our protagonist hack this machine? Click below to watch a video.
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The Mystery Shack is a little old place where we can get together and drink Pitt Cola in Gravity Falls: Li’l Gideon Shrinks Back! You can see the vending machine tucked away on the Shack’s starboard porch in this level-select screen.