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Caffeine, you and gaming
Hotlead Junkie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Simple question, do you drink caffeine or not, and does it effect your gameplay? I do physically require a glass of diet coke in the morning or else I'll be sluggish, have no energy and end up with a headache within a few hours but luckily my body only requires that amount to be happy for the day, I'm not constantly downing it.
Now I'v just put two and two together and realised I have a physical need for caffeine and constantly play demanding button bashers as I have no problem hammering out combos and making split desicisons but have trouble thinking more than a few steps ahead than what is happening at that very moment. I can easily handle an intense, balls to the wall fight but anything along the lines of an RTS where I have to plan several steps in advance I have trouble.
I don't drink caffeine to game, only in the morning and if I really need to stay awake to do something, but how do you handle it and what games do you play?
Now I'v just put two and two together and realised I have a physical need for caffeine and constantly play demanding button bashers as I have no problem hammering out combos and making split desicisons but have trouble thinking more than a few steps ahead than what is happening at that very moment. I can easily handle an intense, balls to the wall fight but anything along the lines of an RTS where I have to plan several steps in advance I have trouble.
I don't drink caffeine to game, only in the morning and if I really need to stay awake to do something, but how do you handle it and what games do you play?
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I then went to the pub with some mates one afternoon on my break from lunch and grabbed a coke. Throughout the rest of the afternoon I had a pounding headache. Same thing happened a few days later when I did the same again.
Turns out caffeine now gives me pounding, incredibly painful headaches and keeps me awake at night so I can't touch the stuff.
And thus ends Mr_Grinch's boring post about his life!
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
They taste better than others, and have a good amount of caffeine. I do find that when I have them I tend to pay better attention to the game, but I always get more frustrated when I lose/ die.
It's really not a great idea, since I spill alot when playing games (can near my feet+ kicking= sticky mess).
Oh well.
Then it's a 4 hour break before I hit the whiskey for a couple of hours whilst playing games before bed. It's all about balance.
I guess I'll drink coffee while playing games during the day at the weekend. I really need one or two cups a day otherwise I'll have bad headaches, but the rest is a sometimes I will, sometimes I won't sort of thing. It's not inextricably linked with gaming. In fact, if I'm gaming or working hard, I'll probably forget to make myself any coffee or not drink it even if I have a mug sitting there.
Yes I know, I drink gay drinks.
They're so tasty though.
Evenings/gaming time are Diet Coke or Diet Coke + Rum/Vodka
I used to not drink coffee and then I started living life as a musician. I got hooked quickly.
I'm going to die a painful, kidney-stone passing death.
I've also been drinking coffee since the age of three, so coffee is a staple of my diet.
All in all, I would say on the weekends I drink less coffee than the weekdays, but I drink it at night to stay up, I only need coffee if I force myself awake, IE every day of work. When I wake up naturally, I don't need it to function. When I got a lot of gaming ahead of me, I like to run to holiday and get a burger and some coffee, can't beat it...
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
No, it's not healthy. I really don't care.
I usually just drink green tea or water while gaming. If I do go for a long night of gaming, then i'll have a Monster drink (the blue one is my fav), diet coke, tea with caffeine or mountain dew.
I try not to drink a lot of caffeine. I used to drink a lot of it in college, coffee mainly, but then I would get headaches if I didn't have any. Now i'm just good with my one coffee in the morning and i'm set.
Whenever I have a day off from work during the week (comp time for shit hours), I have a pretty steady ritual: Drop my wife off at work (since we share one car and she typically drops me off at a park-and-ride), then on my way back swing by a local bagel shop for a ham-and-egg sandwich and a huge cup of hazelnut coffee. I come home, plop myself on the couch and fire up an hour or two of gaming.
On a somewhat related tangent, I've found that certain games can actually help my brain wake up in the morning akin to a cup of coffee. Tetris DS, for example -- it swear it gets my brain moving while on the bus ride to work, and after 45 minutes of nonstop frantic Push mode or Vs. mode I'm far more awake and alert.
But coffee. Just before bed? What?
If given the option, I would drink multiple 2 liters of Pepsi a day, just because I like it. Fortunately the rational side of my brain doesn't allow me to do this.
As far as gaming, I'll drink a soda while I'm gaming, but it's just casual, not required to up my game or anything.
For overnighters, I drink Bawls. Which I have no found in Target, no less, in 16oz cans (vs. 10oz glass bottles - which are so much cooler) and only $1.50 or something like that vs. $2.30 for the bottles from 7-11. Bawls and Monster (works better than Bawls, but will tear me up later for it - Bawls is gentle) are the two energy drinks that really keep me up and alert. None of the others really has as much of an effect on me for some reason.
I do get headaches occasionally if I don't get my soda, but they are usually a small dull pain that is easily ignored.
As for games, I'll play anything from fighters to racing games to RTS to FPS to RPG. I will play anything that is interesting in the slightest.
As for games, at home I play RPGs and FPS (mostly on the PC - Halo is one of the very few shooters I could play well with a controller). Once in a while, an RTS will catch my fancy, but that really hasn't happened since Warcraft III, as much as I've wanted to like some of them.
I drink a lot of juice though. The healthy kind too!
However, if I know I'll be gaming all night, then I sometimes make the effort to walk to a fairly distant gas station for a big slurpee and back. The exercise does me good, especially if I know I'm going to be inactive later.
In closing, I don't like coffee, and I've never tried energy drinks.
Alcohol for gaming.
If I go more than a day without it, I start to get bad headaches. So I'm pretty sure that's from the caffeine. Funny enough, I have a bad headache, as soon as I take a swig of Pepsi, it's the equivalent of lifting an anvil off my head.
Though the opposite works just as well!
I don't do caffeine. Coffee in the morning, and then whenever I get tired during those long nights, I do a good couple pushups and I am good for another hour.
Thanks for that message of hope.
Indeed - Down a couple and then play something requiring smooth movement and focus - Burnout, Soul Calibur, etc.
Is that why your career driving a schoolbus never really took shape?
See personally I've cut caffeine nearly totally out of my diet, and although there are no more 4AM CS:S marathons, I feel a lot better, so I guess that's an improvement. I tihnk the worst time for me was back in college I had to do a 3 month projec in the space of 3 days*, and I had already agreed to do extra shifts on all of those nights, and I still had normal college hours. So I took an awful lot of Pro-Plus. Every day. And didn't sleep for 4 nights solid.
On the fifth day, during my shift (but after I'd handed in a damned fine project) my body entirely shut down, and I just stood at the counter with a weak grin unable to do anything. They had to send me home where I slept for 26 hours straight, suffering hideous nightmares.
I was planning on having a funny punchline, but there really isn't one.
I rarely drink coffee in the evening, never with gaming. For weekend gaming I'll do a couple of Red Bulls or a 16 oz. Monster (the blue: non-carb tastes a lot better) and beer. I like the combo for a long evening of gaming on Fri. or Sat. night.
Ng Security Industries, Inc.
PRERELEASE VERSION-NOT FOR FIELD USE - DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
-ULTIMA RATIO REGUM-
Yet I never feel it. Too much caffine, no longer helps
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
it works beyyer!
You know what's even better?
Alcohol for gaming
Alcohol for work.
Now I just reserve it for times when I really need a boost. Before a test, before a late night class if I'm dragging ass, or a crazy gaming session. I just don't drink it on a daily basis so I still get really nice effects from just a cup or two of the regular stuff.
Caffeine is a horrible addiction. I was seriously addicted in high school, and on and off ever since. It's very easy to fall into the pattern again and again and barely realize it, because caffeine is everywhere and in everything. There's a coffee pot in every damn room at work, most fast food places here have self-serve drink fountains, and even chocolate has a tiny amount. Not enough for most people to notice, but a large dark chocolate bar can be enough to give me cravings again.
I still drink it (probably too much), but I don't keep anything in the house. I don't like coffee, so my caffeine intake is limited to my vending machine budget.
If it does have an effect on me, I don't notice it.