Fuel Up or Shut Up

Fuel Up or Shut Up

Want to log more hours in that RPG you’ve been playing?  Want the precision and focus to get the edge in with that FPS?  Are you tired of being limited by your futile natural energy?  I recently took a journey to see what companies had to offer that would balance my aim, help my focus and give me back those hours I wasted on sleep.  I’ll show you what I found, what works best and where you can get your hands on some of these amazing energy supplies to keep you on top of your game.

Now we’ve come a long way since Mountain Dew and Funions.  Teams of experts are working everyday to perfect the uses of caffeine.  But where can you find these miracles of science?  Most gamers first look for convenience, and where better to find look than a local convenience store?  Most stores will carry a variety of energy drinks such as Monster, Red Bull or Amp.

The problem with common store-bought energy drinks is their focus audience.  Being a gamer, you may find that these drinks work for you but they weren’t designed for your needs.  Ignorance will be your greatest defeat if you don’t know what’s out there.  If you’re looking to wean yourself off of the everyday energy drink, a good place to start is Hot Topic.  They carry a wide range of energy drinks and candies designed by gaming companies.  One of the most popular on the market is Mana Energy shots.  Mana comes in a bulb shaped bottle that fits in your palm.  It’s blue, loaded silly with B vitamins and requires you to be 18 or older to purchase (so you know it’s good).  This shot of energy is popular in electronic stores as well because it supports PC gamers, mainly World of Warcraft players.  After personally sampling Mana, a single sip was the equivalent of a 5 hour energy.  After taking the entire shot, I felt a burst of energy within seconds which slowly evened out but kept me active for over 24 hours, and the taste was pretty fantastic.  Mana makes several other products including a Mana counterpart called Potion, zing.  Potion comes in the same bulb bottle, but is red. It doesn’t match up to Mana in content and the taste only makes you wonder why you didn’t take the blue pill.

A new energy drink popping up in stores comes from the Neuro energy drink company.  They offer several different drinks to help with such things like weight control, mental focus, stress, and even vitamin-enriched water.  Being a gamer, you’re going to want to focus on their best selling drink: Neuro Sonic.  It comes in a sleek red bottle with a pretty sweet twist-off cap.  Each Neuro drink doesn’t just list nutritional value on the back of the bottle, but has a list of main ingredients and why you should care.  We’ve heard of the B vitamins and Taurine and Guarana but there are a few interesting components that help with focus, mental function, memory, endurance and alertness.  Basically you’re going to play harder and longer, and utilize every one of your senses required to be a dominating gamer.  After tasting Neuro Sonic, I didn’t get the same burst of energy as other drinks or energy shots, but a wave of euphoria and alertness.  It was like when Peter Parker realized he no longer needed glasses.  I also felt really motivated.  I could dominate Zeus, make the game winning kill a triple, or ding to level 80.  For a complete list of where to find Neuro drinks, just visit their site: www.drinkneuro.com.


A few of the newest products to come out in the open come from two companies: Makers of Mana Energy and Think Geek.  The Mana people came out with Vampire Blood soon after making Mana and Potion.  This imaginative drink comes in a small IV packet to give it that freshly-nicked look from your local medical center (complete with greedy blood fingerprints).  The interesting idea behind Vampire Blood isn’t just the cosmetic aspect, but the content.  Like real blood, Vampire Blood has potassium, protein and iron.  Don’t worry though, if you get hooked on Vampire Blood it’s not that you’re becoming one of the undead; you just have a new-found taste for human blood.  Gamers liked Vampire Blood so much that Mana released a product for the walking dead as well: Zombie Blood.  Much like Vampire Blood, Zombie Blood comes in an IV packet, but is a pleasant coagulated-green color.  With the trendy blood prints around the bag, it also sports a bio hazard stamp and a few helpful tips, should the product reanimate the dead.  Zombie Blood has the same nutrients as real blood, but has a delicious “Lifeless Lime” flavor.  Vampire Blood was interesting and definitely gave me the boost I was looking for, but if the realistic bloody aftertaste isn’t your thing, I would recommend Zombie Blood.

Mana Energy products can be found at Hot Topic and most electronic stores, but for full access to all their products you can go to their website www.manapotions.com, or visit the wonderfully nerdy conglomerate Think Geek at www.ThinkGeek.com. Think Geek not only sells every product in this article, they also make their own products.  Two competing products I reviewed come from Harco Laboratories, which is in association with Mana Energy, and one of Think Geek’s very own.  Harco Labs released Nuclear Energy Tubes.  These creative tubes sport a 50s fallout-look, and flavors are named after atomic elements such as plutonium, radium, and uranium.  Each tube contains 90mg of caffeine.  After taking a very small palm full of nuclear powder, I was buzzed for more than 5 hours.  This product is very impressive and doesn’t pussy-foot around when they say it will blow you away.  Think Geek made a similar product called Nixie Tubes.  They don’t offer the same glamour or creative advertisement as Nuclear Tubes but they kick it up to a whole gram (100mg) of caffeine.  After trying Nixie tubes, I found myself enjoying the familiar buzz, but those extra 10mgs didn’t seem to make a difference.  So which one should you try?  I’d say either one is fine.  It’s really a question of where you shop and what you’re more comfortable with.

If after trying a few of these caffeinated goodies, you start feeling adventurous for the strange and new, I would recommend lurking the Think Geek site.  They do an excellent job of organizing their products and have a vast selection of caffeinated food, drinks and candy.  A few favorites amongst pro gamers are their caffeinated lollipops, which come in flavors ranging from the simple strawberry to the obscure bacon flavored!  Caffeinated foods are another interesting take, with such products as Perky Jerky that gives the popular protein snack an extra kick without jitters or crashing.  Think Geek offers up several choices in energy drinks but if you really want to sample an exotic wake up call, you need to try their hand picked caffeinated tea and tea extracts.  Did I mention they’re hand-picked by monkeys?  That’s right, I said monkeys.  These damn dirty apes know how to make a mean cup of joe and it’s great for your immune system.

The hunt for the ultimate source of energy continues.  It’s all about trial and error; the listed products in this article will, without a doubt, give you an advantage in gaming.  If you’re looking to boost other parts of your life ,by all means, visit these great websites.  You can buy straight from the site or visit their list of retailers that carry their products.  Have fun, don’t die, good gaming!

Mentioned Companies/Sites

Product Testers

  • Chase Cutler: Gamer, Site Writer
  • Dakota Drew:  Pro PC Gamer
  • Judy Latimer: PC Gamer
  • Mike Villa: Pro Gamer

Thanks To all PR/Marketing who contributed samples

  • Anh Nguyen: Neuro Energy
  • Shane Peterman: Think Geek
  • Aaron Rasmussen: Mana Energy
Posted By:  Chase