The Greatest Cereal Box Giveaway of All Time
Words by Conor Woods for Levelhead Gaming
A whole game. In a cereal box. For free. Not a sticker. Not a maze. Not a weird glow-in-the-dark spoon that barely worked.
I’m talking about a full-blown, disc-based copy of Age of Empires, tucked neatly inside a box of Nutri-Grain like it was no big deal.
It wasn’t just a freebie.
It was a portal.
A defining moment.
The greatest cereal box giveaway of all time.
The Prequel Trilogy: Bionicles, MSN and the Birth of a Gamer
Before the disc. Before the empire rose. There was just me, desperate for a family PC.
It was late 2001 when I discovered that Bionicles — the greatest LEGO species known to man — had their own website. The site itself? A bit underwhelming, if I’m honest.
But it lit a fire in me, and I launched a months-long campaign to convince my parents we needed a computer. Eventually they cracked. We got one. And that changed everything.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of childhood firsts — quick shoutout to my older brother’s mate Harley, who, via MSN Messenger, showed me my first bit of sexual imagery.
A four-frame GIF ... Mum was standing behind me at the time. Cheers, Harley. You absolute donkey-muppet.
The Golden Era (aka 2002)
It’s 2002. So Fresh CDs are everywhere. Beyblades are flying across schoolyards. And there I am, flipping open a box of Nutri-Grain, not realising I’m about to receive a gift from the gods.
A disc. A real game. Age of Empires. No strings. No microtransactions. No dodgy install wizard. Just pure, strategy-soaked brilliance.
We’d gather around the family computer like it was a wartime radio.
History came to life — even if we didn’t fully grasp how to build an economy or what “loom” meant. We weren’t just kids anymore. We were emperors.