Gaming Fuel: 4-way Shootout

Neil Yates writes "It is 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. You have been up all night, fragging away in a Quake3 clan match. Your early morning schedule wore you out and you never had time to take a nap. The server is resetting between games, and you are starting to get a little sleepy-eyed. Milk is not going to do one bit of good and regular Coke or Pepsi are too run of the mill. The last thing that will keep you awake and at the top of your game is some pansy sports drink. Which of these four energy drinks do you reach for? Pepsi Blue, Vanilla Coke, Dr. Pepper's Red Fusion, or Sobe's Mr. Green?" What's wrong with plain old Mt Dew? It did represent 80% of my intake by volume from age 15 to 22.

Drink of choice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tea.

"All night?"

[kiscica]

Sorry, being up at 2:00 AM is *not* "being up all night. :-)

Those aren't even energy drinks!

[CounterZer0]

Not only is Mt. Dew missing, but so is Jolt, Bawls, and all the other Highly Caffeinated cans/bottles of goodness. If you are relying on sobe or Dr. Pepper for a late-nite energy infusion, you may as well drink Cold Water ;)

Since when is pop an energy drink?

[RevAaron]

Pepsi Blue? Dr. Pepper? Vanilla Coke? Since when are these in the category of "energy drink?" They're pop/soda for chrisstakes! Sick of run of the mill coke or pepsi? Look elsewhere, it's not like these will make much of a difference.

I thought that just maybe this new Sobe drink was energy-ifious- but nope. Looked at the FAQ [mrgreen.com] and it's just plain old pop. 37 mg per 8 oz. Claims to have some ginseng, but just being a soda, I doubt it contains more than what is required to claim that it is "flavored with ginseng."

This "news" site was probably bought off by Coke and Pepsico (which owns SoBe) to do an "article" about their "energy drinks" in exchange for a few cases of each of these drinks. I can't say I blame them for looking out for No. 1, but puuuleeze.

Why not evaluate Red Bull and shit like that? Or make your own whacky cocktail of Water Joe, nicotine water, and crushed up adderals?

Ignore All Four... Tea is the Answer

[nathanh]

Tea tastes good. It's good for you. It keeps you alert. Drinkable with or without milk and with or without sugar. Low cost. Socially acceptable in all circles. No plastic wastage. Drink it icy cold in summer or piping hot in winter.

Why waste money on carbonated sugar water? Sure, Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew can be nice once in a while. But if you need copious quantities of a tasty drink then tea is the answer.

Get up later?

[Gaima]

If you really want to stay up late, why not just get up later? :)
I was up around 2pm yesterday, and I'm still awake now (6:19am), ok, so I'm at work, but hey :P Got another hour here too, before an hours drive home, urgh :(

As for the caffinated drinks we have here in the UK (RedBull, V and the like), I tried some V once when I had to stay up all night to get a train for a 2 hour journey for a 9am job interview, it had squat all noticable effect, and I don't drink coffee! The sms's with the missues had a much more noticable effect :)

Re:What did you call them?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The last thing that will keep you awake and at the top of your game is some pansy sports drink"

he meant to call gatorade and propel pansy sports drinks. note the period separating sentences.

Seriously, what is the point of "energy drinks"?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was young enough to not have to worry so much about stressing my body, we had a little thing called amphetamines to keep us awake. And shocking as it is, we actually had the intelligence to keep our doses low enough to be little different than a slightly more powerful 12-24 hour caffeine buzz. And the willpower to not take it often enough to become addicted. Despite the war on drugs propaganda machine, at reasonable doses it's not going to make you into a raving psychotitc writing your name a hundred times on your exams, unless you're the kind of person who would normally be doing something like that sober.

I swear, this is the generation of socially acceptable weak willed drug addicts who don't want to admit their situation to themselves. I'm posting this anonymously because I can already hear the indignant shouts of the crowd screaming that because their drug of choice is in liquid form, it's not a real drug. Try going a week with no caffinated drinks and tell me it's not a drug. If you don't want to go the route of illegality, at least have the honesty and forsight to take time released caffeine pills or better yet modafinil if you can find it, instead of rotting your teeth and turning your body into a ball of fat with all that sugar.

Even better would be to do what someone else has already suggested, and give up these empty calories, and drop your recreational drugs completely in favor of a good exercise routine. You'll be one heck of a lot healthier, and you'd really be surprised on how much less sleep you'll need and how much better you feel constantly than you did while getting a little buzz from mountain dew.