Stoked Energy Blog

King of Qin and the Dragon Emperor

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 01:35:00 EST

This weekend "The Mummy" movie series looks toward Asia for what is sure to be a huge summer release (Have you seen what happens when you go to imdb.com to search for movies? krzr). Check out this cool widget (with preview included) that they put together.

We hope to see you in line today to get tickets as the NA premiere is tonight with a little bit of a bonus that the first trailer for the next Harry Potter movie will be at this showing.

Without spoiling anything, the O'Connells travel out to China and come across the 'Dragon Emperor'. Although the film credits him as 'Emperor Han', the Dragon Emperor is loosely (loosely) based on the monarch Qin She Huang who was the first emperor of a unified China back in 221 BCE. If you saw the preview above, King of Qin was immensely powerful and upon his death was buried in a giant mausoleum with thousands of terra cotta soldiers. What is insane to many is that the soldiers and his tomb weren't discovered until 1974 by some well diggers!

King of Qin is sometimes credited as the Dragon Emperor, and how cool is that title! In 'Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb' video game, Indy is in search of the 'Heart of the Dragon' which is housed within King of Qin's tomb. In several book series, King of Qin is referred to as the Dragon Emperor. Even his tomb is laid out like a dragon's body with his body in the location where the dragon's eye would be! That is some mausoleum planning if I've ever heard of such a thing.

If you make it to the movie this release weekend, be sure to take some Stoked with you so you can cheers Jet Li during his acrobatic Dragon-Emperor-kicking battles. Cheers!

O RLY: Get Hero'd

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:36:00 EST

I'm sorry I just had to post this! Torsopants, one of the many cult t-shirt sites out there has release a line of "Band Geek Hero" t-shirts that you can buy in that sort of "strut-your-stuff" way.

That's right, why wear a t-shirt that only represents the typical guitar, drums and mic that will be part of Guitar Hero World Tour, when you can sport your favorite musical instrument...

http://www.torsopants.com/bandgeekhero

My favorites are "Recorder Hero" complete with flames and "Digeridoo Hero" because that is plain cool, however I think that for the true band geek out there, I would go for the "Glockenspiel Hero". Nothing says anything more band geekish than the metal xylophone that you strap to your pelvis and walk around awkwardly in.

Get on it: Final Fantasy on DS, Aerosmith on your five button, UT3

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:02:00 EST

Somewhere between finishing the very successful Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge and today, something happened here called summer. And while it is non-the-cooler to sit in one's air conditioned home theatre playing Gears of War on a Hi-def flatscreen - sometimes the play is better outside.

In the period between announcing the winner of the Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge and today, a lot has gone on. E3 just happened, before that the release of the iPhone 3G, heck even 'Too Human' finally came out. Here's a list of games that have come out of the past weeks...

1701 A.D. Gold Edition (PC)
1942: Joint Strike (PS3, Xbox 360)
Baseball Mogul 2009 (PC)
Beijing 2008 - The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games (PS3, Xbox 360)
Carnival Games (DS)
City Life 2008 Edition (PC)
Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity (PSP)
Coffeetime Crosswords (Xbox 360)
Combat Arms (PC)
Devil May Cry 4 (PC)
Double D Dodgeball (Xbox 360) - not what you think
Dungeon Runners (PC)
Elefunk (PS3)
Fading Shadows (PSP)
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Wii)
Final Fantasy IV (DS)
Ghost Online (PC)
The Golden Horde (PC)
Golf: Tee it Up (Xbox 360)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)
Hail to the Chimp (PS3, Xbox 360)
Hunting Unlimited 2009 (PC)
The Immortals of Terra: A Perry Rhodan Adventure (PC)
Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns (DS)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (DS)
Magnetica Twist (Wii)
Major League Eating: The Game (Wii)
Mister Slime (DS)
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (DS, PS2, Wii)
Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Clue Bender Society (DS)
Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice (PC)
NCAA Football 09 (PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360)
New International Track & Field (DS)
NHL 09 (DS, Wii)
Order Up! (Wii)
Pirates: The Key of Dreams (WII)
Red Baron Arcade (PC)
Rock Band Track Pack Vol 1 (PS2, Wii)
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (DS, PS3, Xbox 360)
SimCity Box, The (PC)
SIREN: Blood Curse (PS3)
Soulcalibur (Xbox 360)
Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes (iPod)
Space Chimps (DS, PC, PS2, Wii, Xbox 360)
Sports Party (Wii)
Supreme Ruler 2020 (PC)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 (DS)
Ubersoldier 2: The End of Hitler (PC)
Unreal Tournament 3 (Xbox 360)
We Love Golf! (Wii)
Wonder World Amusement Park (DS, Wii)
Yamaha Supercross (DS, PC, PS2, Wii)

I'm dizzy. We get most of this list from other sites like gamespot - I should point out that last week they listed their first ever game from the iPod. Looks like the iPhone will be console number number eight to follow (after PC, DS, PSP, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360). If you have a favorite game write in "blog [at] stokedenergy [dot] com". word.

Coolermaster Cosmos S

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:18:00 EST

If you're a PC gamer you know that the best hardware is directly proportional to your performance in-game. You need the best of everything; Processor, Motherboard, RAM, Video Cards, Hard Drives etc. Now in order to accommodate this you need a place to put it all, and that's where Coolermaster steps in. Coolermaster has been making entry and enthusiast level PC chassis, and cooling solutions since 1992, with extremely popular designs such as the Stacker series. Now Coolermaster has a new Flagship: the Cosmos S. The original Cosmos case was featured as Maximum PC's Dream Machine 2007 chassis of choice, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was geared towards the best balance between silence and performance, making it an excellent choice for the slightly less hardcore. The Cosmos 1000 revolutionized space management within the chassis by making a great deal of the chassis' assembly tool-free and modular, but problems remained. The hard drive drawers had little airflow, and the case wasn't easily compatible with enthusiast water-cooling systems. Coolermaster answered back to the cries from the hardest of the hardcore with the Cosmos S, a whole new beast tuned for maximum performance. The Cosmos S is aimed to be the Evo. X to the Cosmos 1000's Mitsubishi's Lancer, a case that can provide the most convenient and cool environment for a top end PC to be housed in. Let's take a look under the hood.

The package:

The first thing you'll notice when you pick the box up is the weight. The Cosmos S has a very hefty 39.0 pound empty weight, heavier than even Antec's p1xx series of cases. The box it comes in is the typical thick cardboard you find computer chassis in with colorful printing, and a list of the case's features on the back. When you first open the box you don't find a case, you find a bag. Coolermaster has included a cloth bag large enough to fit the Cosmos S inside with the case (for what purpose, I'm still unsure, but a nice touch). It felt like I was going through Santa Claus' bag of gifts pulling the case itself out. Once you've dealt with the bag, the case is exposed in all its glory.

The outside:

This case is by no means small, it stands taller and longer than the Stacker 832 at (W) 266 x (H) 598 x (D) 628mm making it totally unsuitable for an HTPC application (like I said before, enthusiasts only!). The case's size makes it very imposing, and the colors help a great deal as well. The case's core is made of aluminum with a dark gray plastic shell to make the case itself look very smooth, and contoured. A metal mesh adorns the front, top, and sides of the case to allow for maximized airflow without having the case actually open. The side panels are made of a brushed gunmetal black aluminum plate that fit in flush with the case as if there was no way to open it. Coolermaster say that they took a lot of inspiration from sports cars to create the styling of this case, and it shows. The case has small features that resemble parts from the automotive world: Ridges on the top and bottom similar to splitters in a car's undercarriage, intakes on a side panel reminiscent of a car's hood scoop, and other small details that make the case quite nice to look at. The runners on the bottom mirror the handles on the top making the case seem poised and elegant, emphasizing the smooth lines of the case.

The top of the 5 1/4" drive bays sports a touch sensitive power button (though no reset button), and a tiny sliding door that hides 4 USB 2.0 ports, headphone and mic ports, Firewire, and an eSATA port. The ports and power button become backlit by red LED lighting upon powering the system on

The inside:

The inside of the original Cosmos was quite inventive; individual hard drive drawers, push button 5 1/4" bay releases, and noise dampening side panels. The Cosmos S only carries over the push button 5 1/4" bay releases due to problems with the hard drive drawers, and a lack of side panel to apply dampening to (the mesh side panel makes it very difficult to improve airflow and dampen noise). So what exactly did Coolermaster leave of the original Cosmos? Upon opening the side panels the first thing you notice is the removal of the Hard Drive drawers that took up the bottom left hand corner of the Cosmos 1000, instead a revamped version of the 5 1/4" hard drive enclosure present in the stacker series makes an appearance. This enclosure is able to hold 4 hard drives and permit airflow between them, unlike the stackers' enclosure. A 120mm red LED fan pushes air between the drives you install. Sadly absent from the Cosmos S is a removable Motherboard tray, meaning you have to install your Motherboard the old-yourhandswillbemutilated-fashioned way. A small cardboard box of screws provides standoffs, and more than enough mounting hardware for any number of upgrades.

The 5 1/4" drive bays have the Cosmos 1000's tool-less installation brackets (press a button, and your devices are secured, press again and they aren't) on most of its 9 bays, so it's easy to modify the front of your case.

On the cooling front, this case is nearly unbeatable; the inside of the Cosmos S sports a single 200mm fan on the side panel above the motherboard tray, a single 120mm fan at the rear to exhaust air from your CPU's heat sink, a single 120mm mount near the power supply to intake air from below to increase pressure within the case, a single 120mm fan in front of the hard disk bays, and finally THREE 120mm fan mounts on the top of the case. I could imagine this case becoming massively noisy, but listening to it now with all but one of the potential 7 fans installed it appears to make less noise than a trio of 80mm fans would. Each of these fan mounts are shielded (in one way or another) by a fine mesh that prevents dust from getting in either by a typical removable plastic filter, or in the case of the top intake a large plastic cowl that comes off from the top of the case.

This plastic cowl not only provides dust filtration, but the potential to mount a 120.3 radiator in the Cosmos S for water cooling (I personally have a 120.2 radiator installed) that the Cosmos 1000 sorely lacked

The Cosmos S features cable routing holes to wire your power supply leads through, so as not to restrict airflow, however these aren't the most versatile options, and there will still be inevitable cable clutter near your optical and hard drives as you can see here.

The Construction:

The Cosmos S is a very sturdy case; the side panels don't rattle, or make a lot of noise. This owes to the absolutely ingenious method of securing them that Coolermaster has used. Each side panel is reinforced by a square frame of aluminum, which doubles as a latching device to attach that part of it to the latch on the case's frame. The bottom of the side panels have a tab that slides into the bottom of the frame securing it there. On the back of the case there is a tab that connects to a rather elaborate mechanism that hooks on to the cases side panel when it is pressed flat against the frame. Pulling the tab up, moves the hooks and releases the side panel. In addition to this, the side panel is cushioned using rubber feet, and gel strips along the frame where it rests to reduce case rattle or noise.

The handles were an initial point of concern for me, because I wondered how securely they were attached to the case's frame. This was literally the first thing I checked after taking the case out of the box, and I was instantly relieved. The handles and runners of the case are secured by screws to the frame of the case itself, not to the outside as I had initially suspected. They can support a large amount of weight, so a heavy computer should be of no worry to a potential buyer.

Conclusion:

This case certainly did not fail to impress; I was already quite impressed with the Stacker 832, but the Cosmos S just takes it to a whole new level. It is very comfortable to work in, and accommodates any potential configurations someone would build in a case like it.

Pros:

Large interior
Tool-less peripheral installation (motherboard must be screwed down)
Very nice looking
Not nearly as loud as it looks like it is
Handles for very easy transportation
Very well constructed
Able to house multiple hardware and cooling configurations
Excellent internal layout

Cons:

Weight (39.0 lbs empty)
Side panels often tricky to close
Cable routing holes in the motherboard tray poorly positioned
No reset button (Have to hold the power button for 4 seconds)
Size may prove a problem for people without much space

After all's said and done, this is a very well put together chassis. All of the features come together and make building a PC that much easier, and efficient. The features added in exchange for the convenience of hard drive drawers is more than enough to make up for that little luxury. The case will run you about $250 Canadian (roughly the price of a Lian-Li V1000) without power supply so it's not terribly cheap; but if you demand that extra bit of ownage for your PC, the Cosmos S is definitely the way to go.

Final Score:
8/10

Happy 4th of July!!!

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 12:14:00 EST

Fireworks, baseball, streamers, flags, and of course hot dogs. Might I mention that nothing washes down your tastiest hot dog quite as well as your favorite, cool, sweet Stoked Energy. Today the hot dog (and veggie dog) rule. It is estimated that 150 million of them will be consumed just today which is insane - that is one for every two people in the states. That's a lotta dog!

Today is a big big day to go outside and hang out, catch a concert, have a picnic or whatnot. Being that the 4th falls on a Friday, for many of you out there that means a three day weekend with plenty of ops for finally getting together and playing 'Rock Band' for the Wii, or teaming up and pwning at 'Battlefield: Bad Company', or slinging back and roaming all over Liberty City in 'GTA IV'. We hope you have the best and don't forget your jumbo hotdog.

Happy Canada Day!!!

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 01:28:00 EST

Tis true that a great many of our greatest Stoked Energy drinkers launch their fireworks north of the 49th parallel and to you on this day, we salute you and wish you a great statutory holiday. May you find a sunny summery celebratory activity today (even if you are traveling to South Wales right now) and be sure to bring some Stoked Energy on ice to your Canada Day festivities.

Thirsty? Hot? Even if you're just wearing board shorts or a bikini, don't forget to carry a few loonies on you and look for us in convenient stores to cool off and liven up.

Not outside today? Running errands and fat bombing your friends? Stop that. It's Canada Day.

Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm) Winners Announced!

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:06:00 EST

Yep, it is that time. After days of finalizing the contest winners (making sure they are real peeps and what not), we have our first ever grand prize winners...cue drum roll.

First things first, there were literally thousands of you out there who entered, some with many final scores in the 100+ which is simply excellent. Big 'em up thanks to all of you who played, all of you who referred friends, and everyone who also played the challenge on Facebook and MySpace. continue drum roll...

Of course I am going to torture you a little bit and make you read on. First here is a list of the top points leaders along with their rank on June 15th. Considering there were 180 questions, the following scores are just plain sweet. This gang pwns!!

Name	Points	Rank
Stuart Ewen	359	Sergeant Major
Nancy Montgomery	271	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Yuriy Melnik	267	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Nancy Fenton	259	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Candice Youngdale	257	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Garnet Leib	257	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Jim Obrien	254	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Cynthia Booton	252	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Andrew Fenton	251	Master Gunnery Sergeant
Dan Roller	251	Master Gunnery Sergeant

Next, a big thank you to those who added prizes to the Escalating Prize Pack(TM): Dailygame.net, Starbucks, Team EG, Propaganda Games, and World Poker Tour.

Okay, and now some meaty bits to the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) winner...

CONGRATULATIONS
MARK HUTCHINSON FROM BRAMPTON, ONTARIO.

THE WINNER OF THE ESCALATING PRIZE PACK(TM) AND THE OTHER GRAND PRIZE IN THE STOKED(TM) ENERGY GAMER CHALLENGE(TM).

FYI, Mark has chosen 'Grand Theft Auto 4' for his game of choice from Dailygame.net. Nice...

CONGRATULATIONS
DOUG FIALA FROM MESA, ARIZONA

THE WINNER OF $10,000 FROM THE STOKED(TM) ENERGY GAMER CHALLENGE(TM).

Doug can now definitely has some cheezburgers, like hundreds and hundreds of them. It goes without saying that as soon as we heard about the winner and things were confirmed, I had to find out who Doug is...check it out.

So who is this pwner of the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge named Doug Fiala from Arizona?
Well, I work as a theatre manager, studying electrical engineering, and learning about cars and racing. But that's not the information you probably want to know.
Is this your first major win of a challenge/contest like this?
Indeed! Though it's not the same for the rest of my family. My brother won a Captain Crunch contest - he got the first gen. gameboy.
Where were you when you found out that you won the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM)?
I was inside a Motel 6 room in California, leaving to be in the audience of "The Price is Right." I kid you not.
What did you do immediately after finding out you won?
At first I thought something like, "Woo, I won something like a game or something." I didn't think too much of it - until I made a call. After I heard that I won $10,000, it involved some running around and freaking out!
What else, besides winning the Gamer Challenge have you been this Stoked about before?
Well, I marched in the Macy's Day Parade for my high school. As cool as that was, its not winning $10,000.
Who was the first person that you told once you found out?
My bros Mitch Manning and Patrick Eddy - we were on a trip in California to go to Six Flags, The Price is Right, and the beach. Mitch was freaking out.
Who is the first person you thought to keep your winning a secret from?
Dude, lots of people. The majority of my family still doesn't know about it. The first person I thought of though... I don't know. The first things I thought of was the things that I'd start talking about.
Who would you like to thank for helping you win? (wait...why did you get help) Any shoutouts?
Well, first I gotta give a shout out to Patrick Eddy, his laptop internet connection gave me $10,000!
And... alright, it's gotta be said. I asked my sister for the answer to a question on the challenge. Shout out to Becky.
What kind of gamer are you (favorite console, type of game, real time strategy, first person shooter, MMORPG, etc.)?
Oh dude, I love fighting games like Tekken and Super Smash Bros. and Marvel vs. Capcom. I also play RPGs like Final Fantasy, and first person shooter games like Halo and Half-Life. Other games include Lord of the Rings Online (I'm Macintyre, look me up. I'm a minstrel - you know you want this), racing games like Gran Turismo and Need for Speed, Super Mario, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Guitar Hero, and Metal Gear Solid. I'm an all around gamer, you know?
What are your favorite games now and in the past?
I actually own all of the Final Fantasy games, so that would be a favorite. I've also found a home with Valve games like Half-Life and Portal. The Orange Box really sprouted my interest in those games.

If I'm going really old school, it's all about Super Mario Bros. 3. That was a freaking awesome game.
If you could blast your favorite game theme song through the city of Mesa while rolling on dubs, what would the people hear?
Probably the Metal Gear Solid theme. It just has that sort of military feeling to it that I like.
Do you drink energy drinks when you play video games?
Yeah - usually on strategy or puzzle games. More often than not, they give me enough juice to think through situations and develop ways to come out on top.
What is your best gaming moment in history!??!?!
It's gotta be knowing the information that helped me win this challenge. Not a lot of people can say that knowing video games gave them $10,000.
So now that you rule and pwn and you won the very first Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge...the big question is: what do you plan on doing with your winnings?
First, probably find a place to put all my games.
Second... I don't know, but it'll be epic.
I'd like to thank you all!
I'm definitely stoked!

Big thanks to the people at Stoked(TM) Energy who organized the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge. Also, big thanks to Doug for sporting us some answers.

Get on it: Battlefield: Bad Company, Guitar Hero and more...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:50:00 EST

Yes, the new game releases this week have picked up, and being a bit old fashioned myself, I ponder if it is because we are entering the summer stretch. Wanna know how I know? Well... we just passed the longest day and first day of summer. Also, Wimbledon is on the tube which means the entire previously cold northern hemisphere is doing some seated exercises, getting warm and moving muscles that don't normally move in the cold months.

"look out or we will pwn you"

And if you are making fun of me now that I've related life to Wimbledon, just note that one of the releases coming out this week is 'Top Spin 3'. So if you need to pwn on the grass courts - please do, just watched out for the guy with two forehands.

I should make a note now that the big release of the week (console wise) is the teaser of a game for this weekend's big movie release 'Wall-E' which is Pixar's big flick of the sum sum about a loveable trash compactor. It's out there for everything playable thus it is huge this week.

Meanwhile, to fill up your temporal lobe quickly before the iPhone 3G comes out, 'Guitar Hero: On Tour' is out so now you can jam to Bloc Party...at the Block Party and solo to ZZ Top in the minivan while you wait for your sister to finish swimming lessons (life is so hard). Equally exciting and musical is the Rock Band for the Wii - a special edition bundle with supposed online functionality which should be fantabulous. Now with the last month or so of hardware for the wii (Mario Kart, Wii Fit, and now Rock Band), I think some people are starting to feel like this...LOL.

List of games coming out this week courtesy of gamespot:

Alone in the Dark (PC, PS2, Wii, Xbox 360)
Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3, Xbox 360)
Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath (Xbox 360)
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)
Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS)
Hail to the Chimp (PS3, Xbox 360)
Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Ninja (DS)
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (PSP)
Operation Darkness (Xbox 360)
Overlord: Raising Hell (PS3)
Rock Band (Wii)
Supreme Commander (Xbox 360)
Top Spin 3 (DS, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)
WALL-E (DS, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)

Which one are you stoked about? write us... blog[at]stokedenergy.com. word. Oh yeah, you can also write a comment below...

How to Survive: the Longest Day of the Year

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:22:00 EST

How to Survive:
the Longest Day of the Year
(June 21st, 3008)

Don't want to wake with the birds? Pull your mattress into your closet for some quality "z's".
Skip your double-double and crack open a dragon-dragon(TM).
Pack 2 lunches. If you live in Alaska, pack 3.
Keep it fresh...halfway through the day flip your underwear inside out.
Hit the salon. If ever there was a need for a Good Hair Day, this is it.
Buy a one day pass for anything and finally get your money's worth.
Take it slow. The average quickie lasts 2.7 minutes - why not go for 4?
Right after, get your second wind with Windchill(TM) and repeat #7
Re-apply sunscreen before dinner.
Finish War and Peace by bedtime.

Have your own tip on how to make it through the longest day of sunshine in '08? comment on below!

Planning Ahead: LiquidCa$h Fundraising

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:10:00 EST

The fine people at Stoked(TM) Energy have set-up a community fundraising program called Liquid Ca$h. Sure...school is over now, but if you looove Stoked (like I do) then how is the time to plan ahead for next year.

The idea is that for your hockey team, your foreign language program, your scouts troop, your marching band, your foodie club, your larping gang, LAN crew, etc. - if you are going to be running a fundraiser, why not take orders for Stoked!!!!! (instead of popcorn, candy bars, you know...the same old). How cool would it be to

I read the info, and it looks like right now things are set-up more for Canada than in the States, but they have a nifty inquiry form incase you are in the States, you can hollar and look into setting things up.

http://www.lbix.com/community/default.asp

I love the name btw LiquidCa$h. booya.

I think there would be nothing cooler than:
- to send you and your homies to an experience abroad in some place like Italy or even Olivia, MN - corn capital of the world! (for educational purposes of course)
- to help you buy your jazz quintet that new keytar that you've been drooling over
- to help send you and your team to a new contest, a new challenge, get new uniforms, try new things...

...all with the help of selling Stoked(TM) Energy as part of the funds.

Now is the time of the year to start planning for next year's fundraisers so jump on it! btw...selling Stoked Energy for new uniforms sooooo beats selling candied pies and frozen pretzels door to door.

Quick look at May Games

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:07:00 EST

One of the big news items that came out was that video game software sales were up 41% year-over-year from last May, which is huge. Although I would argue it's a bit unfair as last May was still early league time for all of the new consoles. The biggest release of that month was arguably 'Mario Party 8' with 'Pokemon Diamond' for the DS selling the most games (331k). Gotta catch them all!

What is important to notice is how things have matured for Xbox 360, PS3, and the wii. While everyone has twisted these numbers for own vantage, here are the results:

Software

Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) @ 871.3k
Mario Kart (Wii) @ 787.4k
Wii Fit (Wii) @ 687.7k
Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3) @ 442.9k
Wii Play (Wii) @ 294.6k
Super Smash Bros: Brawl @ 171.1k
Iron Man (PS2) @ 130.6k
Guitar Hero III: LEGENDS OF ROCK (Wii) @ 116.8k
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (DS) @ 107k
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS) @ 102k

Consoles:

Wii @ 675.1k
DS @ 452.6k
PS 3 @ 208.7k
Xbox 360 @ 186.6k
PSP @ 182.3k

Get on it: Deadliest Catch, Space Invaders Extreme out this week

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:12:00 EST

It goes without saying that when you have weeks and weeks of big releases, there will be a bit of a lull. That's not to say there aren't a bunch of releases this week, but I think that everyone is piled up with copies or rentals of Metal Gear, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Ninja Gaiden, Grantd Theft Auto, even Age of Conan and Boom Blox. I'd like to think the lull is because our major (as Victoria Beckham would put it) Stoked Gamer Challenge has come to a close and everyone needs some recovery time.

Captain Sig pwns

This week brings about, a tv favourite that you can now play from home - 'Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm'. I'm talking about fishing for Alaskan King Crab of course - red gold! Now you can go crab potting north of Dutch Harbor with Captain Sig Hansen.

I have to point out that for a crab boat, they have their act together - check out their website - not to shabby...for...a crab boat.

/p>

Here's preview game play - looks fun, kind of like you know you want to pwn at crab fishing, but you don't have to perish from hypothermia or skin rot. /p>

One other release this week takes some cake, and that is mainly for the props that it deserves. 'Space Invaders Extreme' which is out this week and marks the ~~10th~~ ~~20th~~ 30th anniversary of the arcade release of 'Space Invaders' which was huge in bringing gaming into movies, media, and pop culture back in the day. The developer is still Taito Corp., which keeps the game nostalgic feeling, even though I've heard it's quite a different experience.

List of games coming out this week courtesy of gamespot and shacknews:

Arkanoid DS (DS)
Block Breaker Deluxe (Wii)
Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A. (DS)
Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm (Xbox 360)
Elements of Destruction (Xbox 360)
Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (DS)
Fatal Inertia EX (PS3)
Heroes of the Pacific (PSP)
Imagine Rock Star (DS)
Petz Dogz Fashion (DS)
The Political Machine 2008 (PC)
Requiem: Bloodymare (PC)
Sea Life Safari (Xbox 360)
Secret Agent Clank (PSP)
Space Invaders Extreme (DS, PSP)
Spore Creature Creator (PC)
Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 3 (DS)
Wacky Races: Crash & Dash (DS, Wii)

Which one are you stoked about? write us... blog[at]stokedenergy.com. word.

Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm) comes to a close

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:39:00 EST

As the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) comes to a close, we'd like first to thank all of you who participated. We will have a post later this week announcing the winner, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Just wanted to send out a blip on that so that you don't start thinking that we forgot about the HUGEness that is our challenge.

Now, as a random treat for participating, here are some photos sent in from Las Vegas. Las Vegas is huge, our challenge was huge, and if you tested your gamer knowledge - you are huge too.

enjoy!

On Energy Drink Reviews: Stoked Original Sugar Free

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:19:00 EST

Once again, we were honored to have been reviewed by the Energy Guru, this time for the Sugar Free version of our Original Flavor which was recently noted here.

Firstly, here is our page of info on the dragon we call "Sugar Free". (link)

And here is a link to the review...(link)

I like how there is "no artificial aftertaste, no bitterness, and a real sugary texture to the drink." Especially nowadays where Sugar Free versions often taste like sweetener only (and a watered down version at that) it was nice to get some good feedback on our silver dragon.

BTW - if you buy one of these bad boyz - check out the can. Energy Guru compliments the packaging, and we'd like to add one more thing. If you take a close look at the can...behind the dragon, there are a set of stars. When you link them together it is the constellation "Draco" - how dope is dat?

Final Week of Stoked Gamer Challenge!!!!

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 06:03:00 EST

keep pwning!

Low and behold the three months of Stoked Gamer Challenge (aka...SGC) have passed by like you wouldn't believe.

We've been hoping that you've gotten a kick out of weeks of questions on everything from cakes in 'Portal' to Mario, from Dungeons and Dragons to Mega Man.

There are still the better part of a week's worth of questions and bonus questions remaining, so play on! Keep up with the GC pwnage! Get those points up there because points mean chances to win!

Also, if you are on Facebook playing, don't forget to sign up for our Facebook event here.

Get on it: Metal Gear Solid 4, DragonBall Z out this week

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 06:00:00 EST

Hey, one thing we forgot to mention last week, was the release of Sony's PSP God of War Bundle featuring a very mean looking Kratos who stares at you like you are meat until you open up the purty deep red special edition PSP. I hear it comes with a copy of the game (duh) along with a copy of SuperBad and voucher for a free download of Syphon Filter: Combat Ops (yes free). In the states the bundle is MSRP $199, which sounds to me like a good entry point into PSP if you aren't already running around playing Patapon. What with skype now running on PSP, this seems like the hardware dream of the summer for those of you who already own an iPhone (ooooh burn).

For the bigger, more stationary PS3, this week marks the release of one of the most anticipated games of the year - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot, which means a wicked amount of cutscenes, but this time actually in HD!!!!

List of more games out this week courtesy of gamespot:
Backyard Baseball '09 (Wii)
Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy (Wii)
Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit (PS3, Xbox 360)
Don King Presents: Prizefighter (Xbox 360)
EVE Online: Empyrean Age (PC)
Frogger 2 (Xbox 360)
The Incredible Hulk (PC)
Insecticide (PC)
Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles (DS)
Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor (DS)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
My Pokemon Ranch (Wii)
NASCAR 09 (PS2, PS3, Xbox 360)
Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 (X360)

Which one are you stoked about? write us... blog[at]stokedenergy.com. word.

Stoked about World Poker Tour Canada(tm)

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 06:21:00 EST

World Poker Tour Canada(TM) - the new leg of the World Poker Tour(R) dedicated to Canada - kicked off its inaugural event at the River Rock Casino Resort in Vancouver, BC, May 5th - 13th, and we were there to see it all happen. Stoked(TM) Energy was keeping players buzzed during the nine-day WPT Canada "Coast to Coast Championships" which saw over 2,000 players competing in the tournament for a total prize pool of more than $1.6 million. Players faced pros like Brad "Yukon" Booth, Gavin Smith, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, and "Cowboy" Kenna James and the chance to play in the first-ever WPT Canada televised final table (airing later this year on Rogers SportsNet.)

Most popular flavor was definitely Wind Chill - helping players keep a "cool" poker face. Up Next: World Poker Tour recently kicked off its landmark Season VII and will return to Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, Ontario, October 10th - 16th for the North American Poker Championship. This prestigious $10,000 tournament joined the World Poker Tour in Season V and boasts the largest prize pool in Canada, with last year's tournament prize pool reaching over $5 million. Stay tuned for more exciting news from Stoked Energy and WPT.

Poker Fact: North America has the largest number of Poker players in the world, estimated at over 70 million. The number of on line players is approximately 3 million and growing.

For other WPT news, events and to try your poker skills online, go to www.WPTCanada.net or www.worldpokertour.com.

O RLY - Stoked part of Wired's How-To Wiki

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 12:57:00 EST

Wired Magazine's How-To Wiki is chock-full-o helpful DIY hints, instructions, tips, and tricks. It's been out for less than a year, but has become a great resource for the fix-it-yourself/DIY movement. We checked out the Wiki on "How to become an energy drink connoisseur" thinking we might have some input on that subject. Low and behold, there is a can of Stoked Dragonberry right dab at the top of the wiki. Nice!

On Energy Drink Reviews: Stoked Original

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:00:00 EST

Energy Guru has reviewed and written literally hundreds of energy drinks, so we were honored that he got a hold of Stoked Original and wrote up a review.

Firstly, here is our page of info on the dragon we call "Original". (link)

And here is a link to the review...(link)

Sweet! I have to compliment Energy Guru's palette btw. Having the ability to pull out ginseng flavor is quite impressive. I also liked his attention to detail, checking out our can and ingredients.

Look at Them Purty Floats

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 06:46:00 EST

So, a big part of Mardi Gras, aside from drinking energy drinks so you can stay awake through the whole two weeks of events is the parades. The parades are immense and start days before "Fat Tuesday" and continue, sometimes several in a day, until the festivities end.

The parades are big time productions and just like every production, there is some backing and organization that takes place - enter the Krewes of New Orleans. Krewes are essentially gigantic social clubs of people who come together, put together a parade and a gala and have a grand time.

One of the big parades goes down the Monday before Mardi Gras. It's a "Lundi Gras" parade that is run by the Krewe of Orpheus which was founded by Harry Connick Jr. (not to be confused with Rick Astley). It's a serious parade of over 36 floats, each with a unique theme.

One of the coolest floats down there is a dragon float called "Leviathan" which has run in every parade the Krewe of Orpheus since 1998. It is a gigantic 139 foot float - the first ever to use fiber optic lighting! Go dragon!

If any of you are planning (already) to head down to Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year, be sure to check out the Orpheus Parade on Lundi Gras and the giganourmous Leviathan float.

Back to Basics: Earning Rank (PT 5)

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 06:38:00 EST

It's the Magnus Ver Magnusson of the Challenge. The experience points of our game - the rank system. It's the part of the challenge that sits every day on your Facebook profile page, the part of the challenge that you see everytime you log in to play!

What is it? Well, with two weeks to go and play, it is the game within our Challenge. How high can you get your rank? Will you outrank your pals? Will you be the rank leader! As you can see in the table below, your rank changes with the points you earn playing the challenge. We all start off as Privates and move on up from there.

How do you get points? Read here...

As you gain points, you gain rank. Here's a list to see where you are and what your next rank is...

Minimum Points	Rank Name	Icon
0	Private (aka n00b)
20	Lance Corporal
40	Corporal
60	Sergeant
90	Staff Sergeant
120	Gunnery Sergeant
160	Master Sergeant
200	First Sergeant
250	Master Gunnery Sergeant
300	Sergeant Major
360	2nd Lieutenant
420	1st Lieutenant
490	Captain
560	Major
640	Lieutenant Colonel
720	Colonel
810	Brigadier General
900	Major General
1000	Lieutenant General
1100+	General

Now, a good portion of you are asking "How in the beepers jeepers can I accumulate 1000 points in a mere two weeks?" At 3 points a day max for answering the trivia question and bonus question correctly, you may be bum out of luck.

However! You get five fraggable points for each friend that you refer and who signs up before June 15th. Got 200 friends on Facebook who can play? Booya that's 1000 points right there!

Get on it: Ninja Gaiden 2, Lego Indy out this week

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 06:32:00 EST

Oooh, this week is a doozy. First off, if you haven't read it yet, you have to check out the list of summer LAN events and start planning to check one out. Second, today marks the under two weeks left till the Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge ends! Be sure you play, sign up homies here.

I was dieing to put up a photo (see previous game release post) of the goriest preview rendered shot from Ninja Gaiden II. But...since I'm a bit whimsical, I will just put up this photo of the opposite...

though you can still have a gander at NGII by clicking here... or here. Sooo gory!

Courtesy of gamespot - a list of games coming out this week:

Dracula: Origin (PC)
Fatal Inertia EX (PS3)
GRID (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
The Incredible Hulk (DS, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 (PSP)
Kung Fu Panda (DS, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (DS, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii)
Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360)
Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy (PS3, Xbox 360)
Roogoo (Xbox 360)
Stronghold Crusader Extreme (PC)
Summon Night: Twin Age (DS)

Which one are you stoked about? write us... blog[at]stokedenergy.com. word.

We here are stoked about the fact that summer is approaching (officially the 20th-21st no?), so we are busy doing single leg extensions and rhythm boxing on Wii Fit. Time to get in shape so one can show off their six-pack earned the pwnage way.

Summer LAN List

Tue, 27 May 2008 04:43:00 EST

LANageddon
Calgary Alberta, Canada
May 23-25 2008
This is the LAN made semi-famous on the internet thanks to a showing by the Pure Pwnage guys a few years back. It's hosted in a casual venue, with a few staff chosen tournaments. This year's games are: Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Source, and Defence of the Ancients. Entry is $50 at the door. More info at: www.lanageddon.com
Read coverage of the event which just happened

PDXLAN 12
Portland Oregon, USA
July 18-21 2008
PDXLAN is the USA's premier northwest gaming event. With a 500 person attendance expected it's no small fry. PDXLAN runs a couple tournaments and fun contests in its duration as well as raffles and draws. PDXLAN 12's tournaments are: Counter Strike: Source GunGame, Company of Heroes, Team Fortress 2, and Frontlines. Entry is $60 if you're within the first 400 registered participants, $65 if you're in the last 100. More info at: www.pdxlan.net

Quakecon 2008
Dallas Texas, USA
July 31-Aug 3 2008
Quakecon is North America's largest LAN party, and one of the most anticipated events year round for Quake fans (for obvious reasons). With nearly 3000 attendees each year, and FREE entry it's easy to see why it's such a popular event. Quakecon is also a stage which iD software has used frequently to announce new games, and technologies. Tournaments are ever present, and feature games from the, you guessed it, Quake universe. This year's tournaments are unannounced as of now. More info at: www.quakecon.org

VanLAN 2008
Vancouver British Columbia, Canada
August 4-6 2008
VanLAN is new to the Canadian LAN scene as of this year, and already they are making waves in the community. Their inaugural event this year will play host to the Electronic Sports World Cup Canadian national qualifiers (www.eswc.com) and cash prizes are offered for each discipline of game. The BYOC section of VanLAN has a 500 person capacity, and registration will be a flat rate of $62/person. The tournaments played are nearly countless, but here's a list anyway: Counter Strike 1.6 (Male only), Quake III Arena, WarCraft III, Defence of the Ancients, Trackmania Nations Forever, and a few non-cash prize tournaments including: Guitar Hero III, and Audiosurf. More info at www.vanlan.ca

Fragapalooza 2008
Edmonton Alberta, Canada
August 7-10 2008
Fragapalooza holds the title of Canada's largest LAN party, and in its 12th year running it has a new, larger home. With an expected attendance of at least 700 gamers, Fragapalooza is no small shakes. The tournaments for this year's event are as of yet unannounced; however they are decided by user poll upon registration. The tournaments have hardware prizes, and the event itself has a massive random draw at the end consisting of everything from entire computers to mousepads. Prepaid entry is $80; Payment at the event itself is $90. I've enjoyed Fragapalooza so much in the past that I will be emceeing Fragapalooza, as well as providing play-by-play, and color commentary on the tournaments. Be there! More info at: www.fragapalooza.com

Nvision 2008
San Jose California, USA
August 25-27 2008
Nvision is an iteration of Nvidia's GeForce LAN, only SUPERSIZED. The Nvision event is acting as a forum for ALL people involved in gaming (developers, modders, gamers, manufacturers) to come together and mingle. There is a 1000+ person BYOC planned, and an unannounced Guinness world record attempt planned. In addition to ALL of this it is directly across the street from the Electronic Sports World Cup grand finals. Tournaments planned for Nvision '08 are: Call of Duty 4, and Team Fortress 2. This event is HUGE, Nvidia have taken an immense chunk of downtown San Jose and turned it into a venue for this crazy gig. More info at: http://www.nvision2008.com/

These are all the big LANs in North America that aren't focused only on a single game. Each of these has a niche for both the competitive, and the casual gamer alike with fun activities on the side, and loads of sponsor swag up for grabs. These are THE places to be over the summer. Hope to see some of you there!

LANageddon Recap

Tue, 27 May 2008 01:28:00 EST

LANageddon; Aptly named? Almost.

I've been to a lot of LAN parties since I started gaming; ranging from ones large enough to fill a hockey stadium, to ones small enough to fit into a bedroom. All these combined have never left a really bad taste in my mouth until now.

My Friday started off early, as I headed over to my friend's house to begin the trek to the much anticipated LANageddon. There were a few delays, but eventually after breakfast we headed out of Leduc, Alberta and were on the road.

Our home for a few hours on the road

Got room? We sure didn't.

A hidden treasure.

We watched Futurama on my laptop for a majority of the trip down South, and at the same time watched the weather turn from good, to worse, to absolutely gloomy the closer we got (a sign of things to come?). As it turns out it had been raining consistently in Calgary for the past 3 days, and it wasn't about to change for us.

Finally we reached our destination: The Bowness Sportsplex (bingo hall really), LANageddon's venue. We showed up a bit early, and were initially told that the setup was still underway and we couldn't put our stuff down yet (what?), however that changed after asking a different person and we got our computers plugged in, and ready to go. After playing some Trackmania on our own for about 15 minutes we were informed that the network would be available in another 15. At this point only about 4 people had set up aside from ourselves so we were still optimistic about things. During this period of time a familiar face showed up! One of our Calgarian friends showed up at last to his first LAN event, Andy Sun of Team WarMachine (If you haven't noticed I game with these guys a LOT as I was once their Manager, so I'm involved with them quite a bit at these nearby events and you'll almost always see the team in my coverage of LAN events). After Andy's arrival we were able to access the local network on our sparsely populated group of tables. We were once again told "15 minutes" for complete network and internet access but ignored it for the most part, as the last "15 minutes" estimation was off by roughly 2 hours. We discovered later that the network was causing problems with our computers as well; Trackmania, Call of Duty 4, Steam, and even Windows were all being slowed down or frozen while the network was plugged into our computers. We asked at the head table about this problem and our software was blamed, despite it being an issue on more than just our computers. After a few hours of gaming within the four of us (A few more friends had showed up) we decided to head out and grab a Pizza at the nearby strip mall. Once we returned after about 45 minutes the network situation wasn't fixed, and it was to be a while more before they finally swapped out the switch to allow internet, and full connectivity to the rest of the attendees. At this point the tournaments started and TF2, DotA, and CS:S were all booted up by most of the gamers at once, so going was slow until the next morning. I did however witness an epic chugging contest between two attendees.

The day after, I was waiting for the CoD4 side tournament to start (initial expected time: 10 PM), but I was to be waiting nearly 6 hours after for that to happen. Fortunately for me, the CS:S was entertaining (surprisingly, considering I'm definitely not CS's largest fan) and there were some interesting people around to talk to while the tournament games were taking place. The standings ended up being as follows:

1st place: Keyboard Smashers PUG
2nd place: Flawed Existence
3rd place: Team WarMachine

Definitely some excellent competition here, and well deserved placings to all. Loads of fun was had when Team WarMachine went up against a very low seeded team, and decided to make a tank out of their 5 members (4 as the base, 1 as the turret), and creep down the middle of the map. Needless to say the tank well apart quickly, but they still won the round.

Stoked > Red Bull

At long last, the CoD4 tournament started, and given that it was at that point 3:30 AM it didn't surprise me that half of the teams wanting to play vanished. There were 6 teams including my own ready to play, and competition started. The first team we played beat us on the first of potentially 3 maps by about 2 kills (The tournament was 4v4 TDM, not the typical 5v5 S&D we were expecting). Backlot was a map we had been playing S&D on quite a bit beforehand so it was a bit of a surprise, but we brought it back on Crash with a well put together map control (grab Top A and wait) and we took that map, forcing a 3rd. Lastly we faced off on mp_citystreets, a very close quarters based map where the opponent's leading fragger couldn't make good use of his preferred weapon, the G3 (These guys were hardcore players). We ended up taking a very early lead by using the map to our advantage and it kept growing to a very large difference between scores, knocking them to the lower bracket.

Stoked > BAWLS

The next team we played was a familiar face: The Counter Strike: Source team Achos (Playing under the name Guitar Heroes). The first map was played on Vacant, and we adopted a new strategy. Since the tournament was TDM we realized that if we didn't play aggressively the opposing team would have to come after us, and Vacant was the perfect map to execute this strategy on. We spawned on the Spetznaz side and had to rush to the S.A.S. spawn in order to secure what we knew as the B bombsite's entrances. The setup we had allowed the 4 of us to cover each entrance very effectively, and even if one of the people watching the entrance did die we moved to compensate so the opposing team NEVER took the B bombsite office without us letting them in. We did eventually move so cries of "CAMPERS" didn't ring out, and ended up winning the map in one 10 minute half (score limit 750). Next map up was crossfire, and we knew we had it in the bag. Crossfire is a very open map, favouring snipers as you'll know if you play CoD4 a lot so my alias online started showing in the match. I picked my weapons of choice (R700, Golden Desert Eagle, Flash grenade) and hopped into the strip mall at the top of the map. The rest of the map went downhill from there, since out plan for the map was to post 2 snipers on the top and bottom parts of the map to set up a crossfire (gee, you think) and 2 Spec ops/Assault players to flush the opposing team out of buildings if the Snipers had no more targets. This worked for a good portion of the map, but eventually we had to switch things up as the Guitar Heroes got wise to our plan, and moved accordingly. We won mp_crossfire very shortly into the 2nd half of the map, knocking Guitar Heroes into the lower bracket to play mmnb (the first team we played) in the LB finals.

The LB finals were VERY interesting, as both Guitar Heroes and mmnb were almost identically as skilled as each other leading to a final score that differentiated by less than 5 frags on both of the maps. Mmnb ended up winning, and we faced off against them on Crossfire in the first of potentially 6 maps since the tournament was double elimination. We started out on Crossfire, and the strategy we had used against Guitar Heroes worked very well, since their G3 wielding fragger wanted to use the long road to his advantage. We ended it within one half. The next map was Backlot, and we had discussed what the opponents had done on it last time to beat us, and were resolved not to let it happen again, took both of the buildings with a mounted machinegun, and started wrecking them wherever they turned. They ended up having very few places to spawn where we couldn't hear, see, or pick them off as soon as they appeared, and they remained locked down until the end of the map for the most part.

Dead tired guy in the red shirt at the end = me

Once the tournament ended we hit the hay at nearly 5:00 AM for what was to be an incredibly short period of sleep as the staff started teardown at 9 o'clock or so on the Sunday. When I woke up the venue was mostly deserted, and I was slightly confused since most LANs continue activities into the last day of their planned event. We were to be picked up at noon or so, and by that time there was nearly nothing left of the event (ended at 10:00 AM). When I woke up, I was told to shut down, and move my stuff by a staffer lest I be cut off from the electricity. Rushed morning = grumpy me. Eventually though I was on my way home, and relieved.

Despite the CoD4 tournament being loads of fun, the rest of the event just left a bad taste in my mouth (literally too, CURSE YOU KIN'S CHINESE FOOD), and wanting for a better event to pop up in Alberta somewhere. The network issues, setup/teardown times, and tournament organization left something to be desired, and wasn't comparable to even a MegaFPS event with ~50 people in attendance in terms of how smoothly it flowed. Granted the larger attendance undoubtedly makes it harder to control all the problems that may occur but with over 7 years of running this event, I'd hoped they would have had the kinks worked out of their operations, and their venue. Most of the event was spent playing single player games, or watching others play their single player games, not playing with many people in multiplayer games. Admittedly this sounds slightly folly considering there WERE a few multiplayer games going on, but the networks situation prevented me from easily finding them, and I often just threw in the towel. This event, despite having originally been my first LAN event a few years ago has discouraged me from attending events in the future hosted by the same people. The LAN season is still young though, and I'm looking forward to other events through the summer.

As usual, pictures can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25851483@N02/

Snaked!

Sun, 25 May 2008 02:32:00 EST

Apparently the whole game was programmed, which makes sense...the alternative was several hundred walky talkies and lots of lightswitch action. enjoy!

SNAKE Game in the Student House - The best bloopers are a click away

Rocket to Russia

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:06:00 EST

EG.usa CS 1.6 is on home soil now, after a very imporessive tour de force in Russia. The guys blew away everyone in group play by taking down the likes of Fnatic, and Virtus pro to go on a 4 win streak. In the double elimination bracket, however, they faced off against the mighty SK gaming and unfortunately that streak came to an end. They certainly showed the world there that North Americans have what it takes to compete on the global stage. Check out the coverage here.

EG.usa in Russia!

Fri, 9 May 2008 07:23:00 EST

The guys qualified in January having competed in Las Vegas and are looking to prove themselves on the international stage. Best of luck to Steno, n0thing, chE, NineSpot, and evolution!

Here's a slide show of some photos from Las Vegas @ KODE 5! (coming soon)

Of Lord Stanley and Poker Dogs

Thu, 8 May 2008 01:40:00 EST

This clip is so ridiculous from NHL 08 LOL.

In the NHL, as the best of the west and the best of the east go against each other (starting tonight), we're definitely stoked that the playoffs are underway (maybe a bit sad for some fans out there already). So as we get into the long stretch from here to June, get your pals together, enjoy some wings (that goes for Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Phillie) or some texas ribs (for Dallas of course) and have a stoked! We'd like to remind you at this time of year that Stoked Dragon is always wearing his playoff beard year round just for you. BTW, we heard that Pascal Dupuis has the meanest playoff beard going on. If you're drinking Stoked and you too are growing a playoff beard, send in your photo!

This weekend (actually all week) the World Poker Tour is hosting their Coast to Coast Championships and Stoked is there! Check it out on their site, along with updates here. Poker and video games are like totally classic together and so we are very stoked to be there. We wish all of the participants the best and hope that the Stoked there serves them well as the tournament goes on and on this weekend.

World Poker Tour is huge, so if you see Mike Sexton or Vince Van Patten tell them hello! If you get any good photos - do share! BTW, if any of you are true Stoked enthusiasts and are taking photos - be sure to tag them with "Stoked". If we find them, we'll be sure to ping ya.

I should mention that right now we are featuring a few questions on hockey video games and poker on our Gamer Challenge!

Lastly, I came across this really odd YouTube channel I thought was worth sharing - this guy takes poker chips from all over and dissects them. Strange and kind of interesting. enjoy!

Iron Man!!

Tue, 6 May 2008 03:09:00 EST

image courtesy of cinematical.com

There has been only one movie I've looked forward to this year, and I've just seen it last week... Iron Man! The alcoholic billionaire from the marvel universe on the big screen at last! The movie certainly didn't disappoint. Robert Downey Jr. played his part perfectly as Tony Stark, and the supporting characters were all familiar faces from the comic books, even Tony's chauffer! If you're a comic book fan, or even just a movie fan, this is THE movie to see right now. Funny, fast paced, and exciting... What are you waiting for? Get to the cinema now!

MegaFPS MegaLAN II event Recap

Mon, 5 May 2008 06:00:00 EST

It's been in the works for a while now, but at last the fruits of the planning done paid off for the MegaFPS crew as they held their second MegaLAN event this past weekend of April 18-20th. Being in tune with all things gaming (ho ho) in Edmonton, and having brought Stoked to life at their last event, I just HAD to do it again. My day started at about 11:30 AM after my classes when I had a friend with a van pick me up, so we in turn could pick up the goods at the Leading Brands warehouse here in Edmonton. We loaded up 25 cases of drink including multiple cases of each flavour of Stoked, as well as other Leading Brands beverages such as Infinite Health Water, TrueBlue, and Die Hard with some Stoked stickers, temporary tattoos, leaflets, and some Stoked shirts for a few lucky lan attendees. After that we packed up our gear, and headed over to the venue to help setup. The location was in an office on the second floor of a strip mall just above a 7-11, across the street from a pizza place, and down the street from the best Donair shop in town. This truly was LAN Nirvana, and with free drinks for the attendees it was to be something epic.

At around 1:00 PM the organizer of the event Adam "AlphaDrake" Eliason arrived with the tables, and networking hardware, and the setup began. We started by swiping a desk or two from the office-to-be downstairs, to create the most comfortable place (for us of course, let the other have tables) to spend the 3 days of gaming in. As luck would have it, the venue also had office chairs in a backroom that we as well as other attendees used. We got the internet up and running with very few hitches, although that wasn't the case with everything. The power in the venue was wired very poorly, and we didnt know how many plugs were on what number of circuits for power. The average circuit catem wasn't handle 3, maybe 4 gaming pcs on it, and without having a wiring diagram of the place we would have to fly blind, and find new places to draw power from in case of a lack of power. Another snafu in the system was that the light switches on the floor were ALL hooked into the power, so if one of those was flipped a circuit would lose it's power, and that would be... bad. A trip to Canadian Tire, and several extension cords later and all was well.

People began showing up at around 4:00PM (3 hours early! wow) and soon the place was alive. I had heard a LOT of trash talk about people's supposed "skill" at CoD4, and I was just DYING to see if they could walk the walk. I'd have to wait though, as people were still getting settled in and playing other games. Anything and everything was played; from Quake to Trackmania, and it would remain so for the rest of the weekend.

/p>

In the morning I really wanted to play games but everyone was asleep (almost) so i was more inclined to mischief however again, I decided against it.

/p>

Once everyone was awake things picked up and a majority of people started playing Trackmania Nations: Forever, a free racing game by Nadeo (download here, or on Steam), and the free shooter TeeWars, which I've written about before here. Day 2 was also the only time that consoles were turned on, and played (Rock Band). The members of TeamWarmachine held a little shootout to give away some of their sponsor's gear on Day 2 as well, whuch turned out unusually. The manager of the team got a bit overconfident and told everyone that whoever could get the best score against him in Quake would win a prize, however he didnt realize that there was a highly accomplished Quake player was sitting right behind him. Needless to say he lost by a large margin, and ended up fairly humiliated. Hilarity ensued :D.

I finally got to play some CoD4 on the last day and boy was it fun. Turns out that none of the players could walk the walk to back up their talk and it turned into a gong show. I made some cheese classes and went around throwing C4 at anyone I saw. Things got more serious as mroe people joined, and we split off into teams and played some Team Deathmatch until everyone started leaving (around 2:00PM) it had started snowing again, so everyone was anxious to get on the roads before it got bad. And thus the LAN ended, with many frags exchanged and many drinks drank one of the best LAN parties I've been to came to a close. Good friends, good games, and good drinks make it a recipe for gaming ambrosia. I can't wait for the next one, and I hope some of you in the Edmonton area will stop by. Oh, I also took some pictures. Check 'em out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25851483@N02/

Stoked Loops: What's out and around this week?

Mon, 5 May 2008 05:00:00 EST

List of some games that are coming out this week:

For the PSP
SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1
R-Type Command

For the PS2
SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1

For the wii
Boom Blox
Speed Racer
The Dog Island

For the DS
Speed Racer
Toy Shop
Brain Voyage
Crosswords DS

For the PC
Iron Man
Great War Nations: The Spartans
Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold
Baseball Mogul 2009

Enjoy. Stoked :-p

Blips and Sips: A little GTA4 help, Team Fortress weekend, and more...

Sat, 3 May 2008 06:00:00 EST

pwned. bwled!

This week was all about 'Grand Theft Auto IV'. And while 4 days of trivia questions for GTA IV is over, one thing remains true. The protagonist of this hit game is none other than the beautiful sand-box-like location - Liberty City (today's trivia hint). Sure you can have missions, improved AI like crowds that actually respond to violent acts or cars that actually need hotwiring to steal. But the big winner is the sandbox and your imagination. We hope you've enjoyed at least one or two long nights with Stoked and GTA 4. :-) If you haven't played today's question, be sure to go to stokedenery.com/challenge!!!

For those of you really in the game, be sure to check out the GTA 4 FAQ file - bit of a spoiler alert, but be sure to check out the "secret" here. Also, be sure to check out the google map of Liberty City! IGN and Google teamed up to help out just about everyone navigate the concrete jungle here.

We'd like to send a quick thanks to the guys from Bush League TV for letting us know about their compadre Jim who played 25+ hours straight of GTA 4.

As if this weekend wasn't busy enough with GTA IV, Mario Kart, and Iron Man the movie coming out...there is another thing going on this weekend which is noteworthy. This weekend, as part of the promotion for the new 'Gold Rush' expansion pack, Valve is allowing everyone to play the whole game for free! There are also some interesting "Medic" icons for your PC. Check it out here.

Stoked has been at a few events including the Massive Tech Show in Vancouver and Toronto. There was also the MegaFPS event in Edmonton which we'll have posts on soon! This next week, we'll be at the Coast to Coast Championships - part of the World Poker Tour!!! Check it out here...

One final note, over the last week or so, one of our favorite gaming shows went off the air. Epileptic Gaming closed doors on April 18th. We wish DJ Wheat and team best of luck and hope to see him soon!

Grand Theft Auto 4 out t'day!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:37:00 EST

Now that the Gamer Challenge has been underway for a few weeks, we thought we'd mix up the questions a bit and toss in only Grand Theft Auto 4 questions and Grand Theft Auto Series Factoids the rest of this week.

That's four beautiful sets of challenge questions for four wonderful releases of GTA. So go play t'day!! Also, while you're at it, why not follow Stoked Energy on twitter.

While GTA4 needs more promotion like I need spoil egg salad at the great salmonella picnic... there is so much room for inspiration in what will no doubt be a hugemongus spring into summer release.

Here's the first trailer to enjoy (released March 27th, 2007 - not a rick roll). Very Koyaanisqatsi no?

I think maybe it was Bobby Brown (or ?Britney Spearz?) who once said in his tune "My Perogative" ...

"Don't get me wrong. I'm really not soup."

Translated, I think he meant that he was super stoked for a game like this to come out. Coincidentally, the day that Rockstar released the 4th GTA4 trailer was the exact same day that Rockband released Boston's "More Than a Feeling" for download. How's that for timing. It's perfect.

yeppers that is two (or three) people fighting for a midnight release copy of GTA4.

This Monday I was panicked a bit when I heard with my morning that there was no downloadable content on Xbox Live Arcade this week. Then I was like...duh. It's GTA4 week.

So...we hope a few of you enjoyed long midnight lines (maybe with Stoked there). And we hope a bunch more of your get your copy and play on! Take the gamer challenge this week and enjoy a few rounds of Grand Theft Auto questions.

More CoD4 news from EG!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:42:00 EST

Our i33 videos are finally up (seven of them!) on our website, and consist of a tour of the i33 venue at Newbury race track, and footage from a few of our matches. Check it out at http://myeg.ca/index.php?s=news&id=5841

In other CoD4 news, we've added Deny to our roster! He'll be picking up the Spec Ops class, and the infamous rob-wiz will be picking up the scope hen needed now! I can't wait to see the new team in action!

Audiosurf by TheBestGameEver

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:40:00 EST

Audiosurf scans your songs (any and every bit of audio you have on your PC) and spits them out into a colorufl highway that rises and falls with the music, and speeds up or slows down with the tempo. If you listen to music you'll enjoy this game. No excuses. Download the demo on Steam.

Stoked for Mega LAN

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 07:37:00 EST

Whats up gamers, Django here yet again with another great event coming up. If you live in the Edmonton area, mark your calendars for April 18-20th as MegaLAN is coming to town! I'll be there along with 50+ gamers and a ton of Stoked! Check it out at www.megafps.com/lan. I hope to see you there!

LOLcatz, Guitar Hero III gets shredded, and Yoda Rick Rolls me

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 01:03:00 EST

First up, the best rick-rolled clip I've found after a few days of searching since I was pwned by Google on April Fool's (can you believe it - I also was assigned a dinner date with Anna Kournicova when I clicked "I'm feeling lucky" on Google Calendar - Google so pwns April Fool's). For those of you who have seen the Rick Astley video anytime and remember his outfit - this is soo funny. Yoga totally dresses like Rick Astley. Enjoy...

It's about time! (although admittedly not sure if that is a good idea) The Blendtec guru blends up GHIII - what a waste!!!

OMG, you just have to see this. so cute! not quite LOLcatz, but man is that kitten cute.

so cute!

UT3 lives?

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 11:58:00 EST

If you've been following the community, you'll undoubtedly have noticed that the UT3 PC community has been dying, or (in the case of the competitive community) dead. Epic aims to change this (but they just said that PCs suck and they're going to consoles!) with the second Make Something Unreal Contest. This time around it's got a $1 Million prize pot at stake for the best mods, maps, characters, weapons etc... Check it out at: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=25339642#post25339642

April Fool's Day

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:06:00 EST

I think by now we all know what day it is. Youtube is rickrolling us, Google planning a Mars colony, Blizzard announcing the Bard class Tauren Marine, and WoW for the Atari 2600... Countless other gags await on the internet for you today. Thinkgeek usually has some good ones, and I hear the xbox site has a neat new product as well :)

Got any fun April fools pranks? Share with us so we can use them while the day is still young!

Back to basics: Play on Facebook(r)! Play on MySpace(r)! (PT 4)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:59:00 EST

I think it maybe was the genius of yesteryear who started putting ATM machines (even banks) right inside grocery stores. I mean you go to the market and you need cash, so why not make cash easily accessible. You go to the store for food. You need cash for food. now store = cash.

Stoked Energy has had a MySpace(R) page and a Facebook(R) group (and other pages) for a long long long time. Now with this challenge having launched, it is time to put the similar smarts to this contest.

The same "app" or application that you play on our stokedenergy.com website is adapted for both popular social networking sites MySpace(R) and Facebook(R). With MySpace(R) well over 100 million users and Facebook(R) over 70 million, it is only fair that we make it easy as pie to play and to refer friends to the challenge to bank points.

Click on the image to the left if you use Facebook(R). Now it is super easy to answer daily trivia when you add the Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM) App on your Facebook(R) account. Suuuuper easy to refer friends from your extensive friend list there too - and friends = points.

Click on the image to the left if you use MySpace(R). This is brand new to MySpace(R), but they now have apps similar to Facebook(R). So "install" the Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM) app and play right from MySpace(R)! Apps on MySpace(R) are still in beta! That's some edge :-)

So in this final part four introduction/basics of how to get started playing the gamer challenge, we sign off knowing that you're already trash talking your friends about your score. We sign off - let the April Fool's begin :-).

Back to basics: Error - My confirmation email is in eternal void (PT 3)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:56:00 EST

By the way, the most common feedback in a non-question-format is how cool it is that the Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM) is on both Facebook and Myspace. More on that later.

Is my confirmation email...
LOST (if it were cool with ABC, I would totally insert a wallpaper picture of John Locke from, well, LOST)

The great news is there is a two-prong strategy for getting your registration completed.

1) Common: Double-check your inbox (actually wait a few minutes for it), check your junk mail folder, check your spam filtered emails, check it all.

2) Awesome: A handy-dandy thoughtful link is on the login form page entitled "RESEND ACCOUNT ACTIVATION EMAIL" - simply click this link, enter the email you registered with and go back to step #1 above

Now don your gaming caps and networking sleeves and go have fun with the Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM). Best of luck!

Back to basics: Mastering the Point System (PT 2)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:50:00 EST

A lot of thought has gone into the points system of the Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM). It's no-where near as complicated as credit card reward points - all is designed to benefit you when you play.

+1

It may be too cool for the Hoff, but JUST simply by registering, you receive a point. This means that you could get every single question from now until June 15th completely wrong and you will still have that hearty, healthy, true-to-cord point. Consider it a 1-up from the good folks at Stoked for trying :-p. (seriously n00b).

Daily +1

This is what I'm talking about. Everyday you can log in here, here, or here, and play by answering our Trivia Question of the Day. For every correct question answer = +1 point.
(secret: not sure of answer but want to get stoked points? guggle it. then listen to yer muxtape) The answer is out there.

Daily Bonus +2

A trivia=points system is grand. Probably as old as scan-tron forms. So, Stoked has upped the anty by adding a bonus question to the mix. For most people, this question is going to be tougher (it alone is two points after all). All of these questions are going to be about one extremely hot game out there - Call of Duty(R) 4: Modern Warfare(TM). It's a huuuuge seller, immensely successful and intense which is spot on for a challenge like this. The bonus questions will be a bit more challenging, so it might be time to pony-up and get that PS3 or Xbox or sick PC kit and start playing.
(secret: I fell like 1 out of every 2 people that have a TV and something to play video games on has a copy - maybe it is time to hang out more).

Referral +5

Here's where the good gets excellent. We wouldn't be in line with today's social networking if we didn't reward you for spreading the word (or "wurd" as they sing on your "muxtape"). It's built right into the system - enter your buddies' emails and send them an invite (maybe call them too, can't we all get friendly now). If they sign up, then you get a positive five (like a high five) points added to your account.
(secret: in the good nature of social networking, it is not unheard nor unreasonable to extend your social network through our contest by being the purveyor of said designated gamer challenge) huh? aka...brag and get more friends. Pony up!

A Recap Scenario

So let's look at tomorrow - +1 point for signing up, +1 point for answering the question correctly after you called your friend, +2 points for answering the bonus question correctly after you spent a sunny afternoon on your spring break googling (and tomorrow will be an excellent day to google my friend), and then you got your best mate to sign up too because you were twittering back and forth and why not. That's +5.

You, my Stoked Energy(TM) Gamer Challenge(TM) fiend are now up 9 whole points. There are no negative points (as of time of blog), so those points are yourz. 9 points in a day - that's worth a can of After Burn or maybe Tropical Orange Stoked for sure.

Points = Entry

Finally, to finish out this long-winded blog post, each point you earn is an entry into the draw for two grand prizes. One is $10,000! the other prize is a Escalating Prize Pack(TM) which will grow and grow over the course of the challenge. The more points earned, the higher the chance if my probability classes serve me well.

For those of you who are contest-keen, the refer a friend through email for +5 is a major boost opportunity. For those of you who are just entering to play - we salute you and crack open a cold Stoked Wind Chill to you. mmmm. So go play and stir up friends to play. kthx.

Back to basics: Registering for the Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge (PT 1)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:45:00 EST

So, tomorrow signifies April Fool's Day which normally means all frolick and fancy with staplers in jello, fake phone calls from some collection repo agency (like Dog), remote control pranks, sugar for salt, spicy for surprise, tit for tat, panic for disco, and of course a whole server of blog posts about such acts. Why am I bring this up?

Well...lame segueway, I was just bringing it up so you can start planning your co-worker/school mate/homie's demise tomorrow. Also, it would undermine this post if it came out on April Fool's Day, because I know the lot of you are already starting a blog entry about your pranks.

So...what is this Challenge?

In my simplest form, it is a daily, yes, daily trivia game. We want you back here tomorrow and the day after, and after, and after, ter, ter, etc. Each day is a brand new question. Because we're Stoked and we looove gamers and all things techy, we're curtailing questions to our gamer enthusiasts. But you don't have to be hardcore to answer these. We want you get some questions right so you can walk with head high.

So...ok, it's a trivia game, how do I sign-up?

Simple - after reading this go over to our main webpage - www.stokedenergy.com. Then click in the top header portion, you can't miss it. I mean that literally if you go to our homepage and have your speakers and especially your sub-woofer on high. If you don't see the top header portion because you're checking out our site from, say, your iPhone, then go to the following URL...
www.stokedenergy.com/challenge. nice. You are already on your way.

The sign-up portion of the contest continues on the challenge page which is where you enter four things:
1) Your Name (duh)
2) Your Birthdate (for legal reasons)
3) Your Zip Code or Postal Code (so we know where you are "hollering" from)
4) Your Email and desired password (which is important for signing in again)

Check a few boxes that you agree to play by the rules and click "submit"

You should promptly receive two things:
1) a note thanking you for registering
2) an email sent to the email you registered with (don't see it? check junkmail, or your jealous brother or evil cat who wants what is "minez")

So...I filled out the form. Is that it?

Not just yet. You have to respond to that registration email to let us know you are warm blooded and stoked to start earning points. Be sure to check your inbox, junkmail box, and spam filter settings - the email will go out, so heads up.

Now just return to StokedEnergy.com every day, login, and play.

Curious about the points system? read here...
Didn't receive your registration email? read here...
Wondering how this could be even easier and cooler? keep reading...

CoD4 Team results

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:08:00 EST

3rd Place!

Might not sound the best, but our CoD4 team came though in a HUGE way over in england. They proved all the naysayers wrong by beating out the likes of 4Kings, and Fnatic. They take home 1500 euros for their troubles, and the respect of the European community. Huge congratulations are in order for ntt, Maven, wombat, rob-wiz, and wiseguy! Way to make us proud.

Team Stoked's Team EG is off to play CoD4 at i33!!

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:55:00 EST

EG's Call of Duty 4 team is off to the UK as the only North American organization competing in the tournament. lot of people think we won't do well, but our team's enormous history, and experience will prove to be an asset with the different rule set. In North American play there are multiple bombs (one on each offensive player), while in European play there is a single bomb much like Counter-Strike.

North America allows the use of all attachments for weapons (Red dot sight, suppressor, ACOG scope), while Europe allows only the suppressor's use. North America has a few perks allowed for use, while Europe has none. This aside, all of these shouldnt be a problem for our boys to adapt to, and place fairly well. Good luck guys!

Finding a theme song worthy for the challenge

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:57:00 EST

But to be honest, I woke up this morning feeling that we need something cool like a theme song to match the Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge - aka SEG-C. The search will not be over any time soon, but just as my heart jumped for joy when I first saw Pata Pon dudes hopping all around chopping down a boar, I am on a quest for great tunes.

I've only been searching for mere minutes when I stumbled across this.

what'yu think? I think this may be a side contest to find a song or performance like this.
I don't know Zack Kim, but how cool is this?

There's more out there and I'll be sure to put up tons (or tonnes) of lovely clips. Meanwhile - start playing the challenge today!! Next post I'll have some instructos on how to get rolling.

Get on it!!!! Stoked(tm) Energy Gamers Challenge(tm)

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:08:00 EST

w00t!

First off, the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamers Challenge(TM) STARTS with a prize of $10,000!!!! As today's press release announces, the prize here is an Escalating Prize Pack(TM), meaning that $10k is just the beginning. Let's allow that to sink in for a bit.

That alone is some serious billz to polish your skillz! Let's see, that is:
25 Playstation 3's ($400 ea) -or-
32 yearly memberships to World of Warcraft -or-
76 Nintendo DS Lites -or-
166 copies of brand new Call of Duty 4 games -or-
200 years of Xbox Live Gold membership -or-
665 Guitar Hero III faceplates -or-
1 million wii points!

So wot's da next step???

1) Keep getting the word
Definitely sign up for future news here. I mean, I'm great and all for keeping you posted about the challenge cause I'm super stoked about this, but if you get yourself on the list for updates, you'll be first to know.

2) Make it bigger
My take on it, is that Stoked is willing to add on more and more gifts to add to this. Why not get in on it!???! Have a custom faceplate signed by Gene Simmons you'd like to throw in the mix? Maybe some gift certificates to your store? -or- maybe something cool - like a back-up generator (playthruoutages)? custom Harley? antique Commodore 64? (that still works) - get your gift in - get some promotion - email your idea/gift to PrizePack@StokedEnergy.com. Let's see the winner get a slew of cool gear and maybe something odd like a hundred chia pets or something. Go Stoked!

I should point out that we reserve the right to accept your donations as well as reject certain donations if they get too weird. Let's all visit the common sense house now - stale old donut holes and broken Xbox controllers prooobably won't make the cut. :-)

3) Spread it like butter
Let your co-workers know. Let your classmates know. Let the guys who work the late shift know. Let your tax preparer know. Tell that person sitting next to you on the bus. How about a friend with a good cause?

Send one and all to www.StokedEnergy.com. Have them sign up for updates and look into prizes themselves! The Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) will begin on March 15th, and then will end during the beautiful month of June (15th) - right in time for summer!

Team EG's CoD4 Team begins play

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:46:00 EST

EG picks up another CS team!
The week of the third was big for Team EG as we acquired the US team eMG to add to our current lineup of players. eMG have proven themselves time and time again in international competition as well as online leagues such as CEVO. All of us at EG are looking forward to seeing just what they can do under the EG name. Welcome aboard n0thing, chE, Ph0bius, steno, and evolution!

Team EG second at NERV LAN
The weekend of the 8th & 9th was huge for us, the first CoD4 tournament (cash prize) took place in Allentown Pensylvania. Despite an 11 hour power outage, our guys stayed resolute, and walked all over the competition until they met team Nexus. Pandemic fell before us, guardians fell before us, x6 fell before us. It was an excellent run to 2nd place, and our guys are ready, willing, and able to take another tournament by storm!

CGS starts up again, CPL kicks the bucket
I've written about both these competitions before, either good or bad and theres news from both today!

The CGS just held it's region 1 draft, and it's fraught with drama oooooo~. A number of very skilled players were mysteriously not drafted, and a number of absolutely unskilled players (for their given game) WERE, and some were even protected so as they gain a higher salary. Even the former members of EG who played in the CGS were split up needlessly, and two weren't even drafted at all! On top of that the CGS has fired a large number of staff (writers and whatnot) for forming a "union" on IRC! Set sail for fail in my opinion.

The CPL has died. It's official now, and a press release from their site illustrates this. After quite a long run it's bittersweet to see this organization die. On one hand they've organized some of the best world tours, and on the other they've absolutely screwed up the same world tours. Check out the post here: http://www.thecpl.com/?p=1920

Gamer Pastimes

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 05:13:00 EST

Me? I was a LEGO kid, as I imagine innumerable other gamers were. Constantly building just for the sake of building, then knocking it all down... Truly great. LEGO's become more and more complex over the hears however and it makes me a bit sad to see them manufacturing specifically shaped parts instead of forcingy ou to put bricks together in that shape, but I suppose it was inevitable. Since I missed out on a lot of fun stuff during my childhood, I've recently gone on a NERF spree. Picked up a NERF Longshot CS-6 at a local zellers and proceeded to modify it to shoot farther. I cant quite grasp why I didn't think of it sooner, because the fun level is off the charts. Check out some NERF (and some lightsabers) Action:

wonder why they're not studying...

The practical applications for a situation like this are unparalelled (keeping the console out of enemy hands) Got a pastime? Share it!

Star Invitational

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 03:45:00 EST

There's a LOT of amazing VODs from the 16 most amazing starcraft players you'll ever see. Check these pros out here: http://gsi.gomtv.com/vod/

ESL Antics

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 03:40:00 EST

Usually crazy bomb defuses are for joke videos, or staged, but this one's exceptional. ESL Pro series team n!faculty stacked themselves up to defuse the bomb through the floor of the upper bombsite in de_nuke with 1200 people watching! Check it out

Leading Brands, Inc. Announces the Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm)

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:30:00 EST

Featuring Activision, Inc.'s Call of Duty(R) 4: Modern Warfare(TM).

Vancouver, Canada, February 26, 2008- Leading Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: LBIX), North America's only fully integrated healthy beverage company, announces the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM), an exciting new campaign featuring Activision, Inc.'s Call of Duty(R) 4: Modern Warfare(TM).

The Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) will run from March 15 through June 15, 2008. Residents of both the United States and Canada will compete to earn points both by answering general knowledge questions, trivia questions about Call of Duty(R) 4: Modern Warfare(TM) and referring their friends. Each point earned becomes an entry in the Challenge. The more points earned, the higher the odds of winning. Void where prohibited.

At the conclusion of the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) one lucky participant will be drawn at random to win the Escalating Prize Pack(TM). Stoked(TM) Energy will initially seed the Escalating Prize Pack(TM) with $10,000 in cash and invite donations from all corners of North America to build its value throughout the Challenge period. Who knows how large the Escalating Prize Pack(TM) will get? Truly, the sky is the limit. You can apply to make a donation of cash, merchandise, gift certificates, just about anything, to the Escalating Prize Pack(TM), at www.StokedEnergy.com.

Contest details and official rules will be published at www.StokedEnergy.com. If you wish to receive an email reminding you to register for the Stoked(TM) Energy Gamer Challenge(TM) on the eve of March 15, 2008, please enter your email address in the appropriate box at www.StokedEnergy.com. Questions change daily, so the more questions that you answer correctly, the more Challenge entries you will receive. Enter early, refer all your friends and play every day.

Stay tuned for more details.

Leading Brands will continue to provide operational updates in its monthly newsletter on the first of most months, posted at www.LBIX.com.

About Leading Brands, Inc.
Leading Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:LBIX) is North America's only fully integrated healthy beverage company. Leading Brands creates, designs, bottles, distributes and markets its own proprietary premium beverage brands such as TrueBlue(R) Blueberry Juice, LiteBlue(R) Blueberry Juice, STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks, Die Hard(TM) Sports Energy Drinks, INFINITE Health(R) Water and Caesar's(R) Cocktails via its unique Integrated Distribution System (IDS) (TM) which involves the Company finding the best and most cost-effective route to market. The Company strives to use the best natural ingredients hence its mantra: Better Ingredients - Better Brands.

About Activision, Inc.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007.

With its popular game franchises including Call of Duty(R), Guitar Hero(R), Spider-Man(R), SHREK(R), Tony Hawk(R) and Quake(R), amongst others, Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.activision.com. Activision Publishing, Inc. is not a sponsor of this Sweepstakes. Activision's name and logo, and/or the "Call of Duty(R) 4: Modern Warfare(TM)" name, logo, and/or materials are used for the purposes of promotion and/or prize description only and such use is not intended to suggest or imply Activision's participation, sponsorship, endorsement, or approval of this Sweepstakes.

Safe Harbor
Certain information contained in this press release includes forward-looking statements. Words such as "believe", "expect," "will," or comparable terms, are intended to identify forward-looking statements concerning the Company's expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, objectives, future events or performance and other developments. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based on information available to the Company on the date hereof. Such statements speak only as of the date hereof. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's estimations and projections are disclosed in the Company's securities filings and include, but are not limited to, the following: general economic conditions, weather conditions, changing beverage consumption trends, pricing, availability of raw materials, economic uncertainties (including currency exchange rates), government regulation, managing and maintaining growth, the effect of adverse publicity, litigation, competition and other risk factors described from time to time in securities reports filed by Leading Brands, Inc.

Better Ingredients | Better Brands(TM)

(C)2008 Leading Brands, Inc.
This news release is available at www.LBIX.com

Charlie Oscar Delta keeps the lead in January

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:17:00 EST

"Soap takes the cake again." headlines read.

This is really an ode to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which, since I started writing for StokedEnergy back at the tail end of last October has been the single buzz game of the era. Sure, Halo 3 was hot news in October still, but ever since you came out, it has been now three solid months of CoD4 - the top software seller in November 07, December 07, and now January of the new year.

I bring this up as January is typically a slow month - everyone is still in a haze over their new games, maybe even new consoles/handhelds, and all of the other trinkets that come about in December.

NPD group has Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as the top selling game of January with 330,900 copies for the Xbox 360 alone, 140,000 copies for PS3. That's close to half a million games for January not including PC software, runner up was wii Play (with wii mote of course) at 298,100. It's clear to me that this game rocks and that many of you have enjoyed hours of heart-racing combat.

Now as we approach February, probably the question you have in the back of your mind: should I go to Prestige Mode? should I sacrifice all the killer weapons I have to start again for some medal. I can tell it's exciting stuff as there are like a dozen videos on YouTube of people filming themselves switching into Prestige.

that's some duty booty - 10 medals in prestige mode - image courtesy of abc2news.com

January also tells a tale of utility, with all of the attention that Blu-ray got in early January, there was growth in the very Blu-ray friendly console, Mr. PS3.

wii was still the frontrunner selling approx. 274,000 units in the U.S. But the big surprise is that PS3 was 2nd and a close 2nd at that withe 269,000 consoles sold in January, beating out solid 2nd spot Mr. Xbox 360. I guess that means the following equation is true.

lower price + supported hi-def format + more titles out = more sales.

And now with last week's announcement that HD DVD is 6ft under, February may be Valentine's month for playstation (er is it sony?). Thank goodness CoD4 is available on Xbox 360 and PS3 - and btw, if you have a smoking 1080p HD Flatscreen hanging on your ceiling along with a PS3 - why are you not playing prestige mode right now?

wii would like the Oscar

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:48:00 EST

Check out this lovely clip while it is still up, before it's fragged :-). Coming back from the commercial break, Jon Stewart was seen playing wii Tennis with talented singer Jamia Simone Nash.

What's the exposure for something like this? Hmm... only about 1 BILLION people!!! (including myself) Other geekiness we were stoked about was that Jon Stewart, ?maybe when he was bored during the ceremony?, whipped out his iPhone. If only Jon was also thirsty for the ever tasty Stoked! w00t!

This in my opinion, could have only been outdone if Miley Cyrus walked down the red carpet playing Pata Pon. Pata Pata Pata pon!

image courtesy of blogsmithmedia.com /p>

In more bummed Oscar news, Transformers, a controversial gamer favorite which was nominated for three Oscars, turned up with zilch. When leaving the show, Bumblebee was overheard coughing out of his stereo "permission to weep".

Team EG picks up a Call of Duty 4 Team

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:41:00 EST

What's up all, some news from Team EG this time, we've just picked up a CoD4 team as well as revamped our CS 1.6 lineup. For CoD4 we've signed The Doctors, one of the best CoD4 teams as well as possibly THE best TF2 team out there. We welcome Maven, w!$eguy, wombat, ntt, northman, and rob-wiz to the EG family. Check out the press release here: http://myeg.ca/index.php?s=news&id=5521

For CS 1.6 we're back to an all Canadian lineup bringing in 2 new members, as well as bringing back Jesse "Quickshot" Stevenson. EG welcomes Halston "Tekn1kal" Bellintani, and Nicolas "chosen" Lalonde to the team. Check out the press release at: http://myeg.ca/index.php?s=news&id=5525

Red Alert, Red Alert, Red Alert!

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:33:00 EST

The Command and Conquer series has been going on for a while now (10 years nearly I think), and the Red Alert titles have been the best (in my opinion). When I heard a 3rd RA title was coming I got pretty excited. Some details have just been released on Joystiq.

This third game has what all game series gone on this long has... time travel! Those sneaky russians have gone and mucked things up creating a third superpower called the Empire of the Rising Sun to take part in a third-world-war showdown between the US, and the Soviet Union. A beta will be available to those who buy C&C3 Kane's Wrath (all the more reason to get it), so get conquerin'!

EG at PDXLan

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:49:00 EST

This weekend EG's UT3 squad will be (mostly) attending PDXLan in Portland Oregon. Annie "Ecstasy" Leung will be in attendance to compete in the UT3 competition. Sean "CombatCarl" Steele will be in attendance but will not compete, and Jason "Stryfe" Dourlaris unfortunately came down with an illness and will not be attending. Good luck to Annie in the tournament, and a speedy recovery to Jason.

League man might be down

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:02:00 EST

Remember that news article on the CPL i did last year? Well guess what? Some drama ocurred last night on the CAL's website, check it out here.

image courtesy of caleague.com

but THEN, the CAL made a counterpost claiming it had been hacked HERE

Fun stuff huh?

Time Turok It

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:30:00 EST

RUN DMC eloquently wrote in their song "It's Tricky"

It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time
It's Tricky...it's Tricky (Tricky) Tricky (Tricky)

Might I sub lyrics from "to rock" to "turok".

Turok is out, and what started as a comic book series now is 2008's first big FPS (first person shooter) game out. Might I add - just in time for Valentine's :-). I won't even pretend to be a game reviewer (cause I'm snot), but Turok is looking way rad. Check it...

ain't that a pretty face. image courtesy of gamewallpapers.com

Questions of whether a Raptor is a form of a dragon do remain. Which is kind of uncool as Turok is actually a dinosaur/mutant/bad person hunter. However, as 2008 new games pick up, we're stoked about Turok!

In other news, Yahoo just said no to Microsoft (can you believe?). Also, we've been informed that many of you out there have fallen victims to the winter flu bug. Your nose is running, so is your fever, maybe your lunch... well here's some nonsensical Michel Gondry magic to maybe make you feel better (or at least make your nose feel more normal).

In Cologne Germany

Fri, 8 Feb 2008 12:17:00 EST

Some wicked esports gonna be happening today in the Intel Extreme Masters in Cologne Germany. A WC3 match and a CS1.6 match from europe of epic proportions. Warcraft SUPERHERO Grubby, going up against the german underdog fire_de. On top of this mTw.Denmark a.k.a. NoA will be facing off against mousesports. Cologne's gonna be lit up tonight!

Annie Still needs your help over at www.gotcast.com/Ecstasy after having been knocked out of the top 10. Show her some love!Quick

Half Life - Full Life Consequences

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 11:53:00 EST

Half Life - Full life consequences, a fanfiction written by a 9 year old converted to video format with a commentary and pretty good Gmod maipulation, making this quite a laugh to watch.

Vote for Annie

Sun, 3 Feb 2008 01:34:00 EST

Top 10 guarantees her a casting opportunity, but what kind of Professional gamer would she be if she didn't take the whole thing? Show Stoked, EG, but most importantly Ecstasy some love at http://www.gotcast.com/Ecstacy

MMO's gone green

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 06:45:00 EST

image courtesy of siliconera.com

It's not that bad guys; Pangya turns golf into a fantasy game with absurd clubs, and special shots that make your ball do fun stuff. The characters are diverse, ranging from an 11 year old pirate to a 41 year old ex-cop. The courses are colorful, and equally as unique form the next (unless they're the more difficult version of a course). The anime art style so common in asian MMOs is brutally present; all of the characters and caddies with a range of clothing, emoticons that not only show up in chat but change your character's facial expression add to this as well. But enough game pimping, register, download, and join me ingame www.albatross18.com

LAN locked with APGaming and Stoked

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:16:00 EST

This weekend I attended a local lock-in event at a LAN center. Not quite as much fun as an actual LAN event but it had it's merits. There was a contest running throughout (10 PM- 10AM) consisting of CoD4 leveling. The person to reach the highest level by the end wins... something (in this case an iPod nano). The setup was a 32 man local server with more dropped frames than headshots due to most of the computers there being pretty old. The server rotated through maps and gametypes, and I retired from the contest when free-for-all came about as did most people.

The CoD4 tapered out at this point, so I went to get something to drink that would hopefully keep me awake for the remaining 6 hours. The fridge was typical netcafe affair, Redbull, Bawls, Rockstar... but then nirvana! On the third shelf of the fridge was, you guessed it, Stoked! I grabbed an Original and went straight back to gaming with some Command and Conquer 3, but that wasnt the event here, CoD4 was.

I thought I'd liven things up by calling everyone in the place noobs (more or less). I challenged anyone (any 2 really) people in the place to a 2 on 2 with my friend and I on a map of our choice. If they could take 4 rounds on us we'd buy them a Stoked. It didnt work as planned 'cause we never lost :< big fat GG there. One close call, but that's about it. The event continued with sporadic CoD4 playing, and some fun HL2DM madness where 9 year old british kids call you names for stealing their flag in a CTF game, many laughs were had. By the time the event was over I was tired, but I had remained awake the whole event, in no small part thanks to that Stoked. I was not to be one of the noobs that fell asleep in their chairs! Thanks Stoked!

Mass Effect Scandal Revisited

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:10:00 EST

Cooper Lawrence the "analyst" criticizing Mass Effect so closely has since apologized for not having her facts straight. She apparently watched a friend play the game for 2 hours before realizing how dead wrong her "facts" were. This isn't the first time something like this has happened with Fox News as the set for the event, however. Earlier such events have had other psychologists fessing up that Fox briefed them on one side of the issue before sending them on-air. Nice.

Pata Pata Pata Stoked

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:29:00 EST

Imagine that you have to leave school or work in the middle of the day (okay so maybe work) and go get a bite to eat. It's brrrr cold (in many places). You can bundle up all that you want, but it's still painful outside. So, some external stimulus is required to walk to the meter to put in more money, or walk to the nearest panda express. Maybe some internal motivation driven by the tribal sound of war drums and chants pounding away.

I found it...check out the clip below. It's Patapon for PSP!!!!

Oh, you need to see and hear more that than teaser for sure. This song needs to resonate in your temporal lobe. It needs to get into the tiny nerve endings on the hairs on your neck scarf and nails on your glove (x2) fingers.

Why, this game rewards you for staying true to the Patapon beat. Getting your team of cool creatures stoked to go out and fight by pushing correct buttons to the rhythm! It's just like walking! (only walking is really a two-button game unless you are drama walking) Here's a longer clip of the game.

I mean seriously, when I was fighting the blistering wind (chill *yuck yuck*) walking uphill to get the sub of the day, I was thinking of the following tune - see clip of totem pole below. How can you not be propelled forward by this?

I mean it's probably dangerous go walking around downtown traffic playing this game as it is quite engaging, but that song is engrained. The sandwich is eaten. You can imagine how this song aides with digestion and smoothe muscle movements. Patapon!

One more thing, they game is not just salvage war behaviour. It's also many parts cute. Just check out this ad for Patapon in Japan.

3D TV, whaaat?

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:16:00 EST

My first thought was wow...
the few times I've played Guitar Hero my eyes are pretty googly by the time I'm done. I can only imagine what a 3D tele would do!

He also mentioned that major directors such as Steven Spielberg were
in talks of making movies that support this 3D function. Apperantly there is already a movie made with Brendan Fraser in it, so I looked it up and indeed there is.

It seems that some are concerned however, that 3D movies may more resemble a theme park ride. Hmmm!

People have been asking me if you'll need to wear those funny glasses,
but I believe the answer to that is no. It's amazing to think of how
far technology has come in the last decade. What's next? :P

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on this? 3D TV for gaming and
movies ... friend or foe?

Gaming News... about the news!

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:28:00 EST

The latest media target is BioWare (go canada!) that made Mass Effect. So what's got people all riled up? A sex scene. A sex scene like any other in any movie for the past 10 years, or a sex scene from numerous games before with the same rating as Mass Effect. Now, the "media" has decided to label Mass Effect as a graphic sex simulator... Wha?! The only sex scene the game has to offer is under 5 minutes long out of a potential 30+ hours of gameplay, and its not graphic beyond what you'd see in a rap video.

The media has once again decided to overglorify something that isnt huge. Hot coffee in GTA created such a huge stir, and that wasn't even an official part of the game! The media rage has only just begun, and I can't see this ending any time soon with people similar to Jack Thompson running about (this deal doesnt even NEED the Thompsonator involved to be ridiculous).

In the video you'll see below they mention its an M rated game aimed at young teenagers... now hold on a second while that sinks in: An M rated game thats geared towards... teenagers? Last time I checked M rated games couldn't be purchased by anyone under the age of 17, so how is this despicable? The people act as if 17 year olds have never seen anything near the "graphic" nudity depicted in Mass Effect you'd think a newsperson would be with the times...

Let the Freebies Out

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:12:00 EST

Everyone loves free stuff, whether or not we need it, and there's a pretty neat sounding free game in the pipes. EA games purveyor of many mediocre titles, and monopolizer of sports games has announced that their next multiplayer Battlefield game will be free. That's right, EA not making you pay for a game (initially). The game's free to play, but it'll have microtransactions for god knows what, ammunition maybe? The character building is deep, which makes me think its more along the lines of a pseudo-MMO than a pure first person shooter. It has a matchmaking system fortunately though so n00bs won't get owned constantly by people looking for easy frags.

I think most organizations on earth have tried an educational game, most have also failed pretty badly too. NASA however wants a go now. The North American Space Agency is looking into making an MMO for bright young students to take part in simulated science missions and engineering. NASA's requests for the game include powerful physics capabilities for the support of accurate in-game experimentation and research. Nasa's got roots in Second Life already (they have an island), but this venture seems pretty unique, since there aren't many MMOs that actually require the players to be more intelligent and mature than a 3rd grader. Go NASA!

Intel Extreme Masters finals this year are to be held at CeBIT 2008, Teams will be at the Intel booth to strut their stuff, and give the attendees a show of some of the best esports out there. CeBIT is one of the largest tech tradeshows and the biggest one there is in the ICT sector. Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th of march will be the days this takes place, and I can't wait to see how it goes down.

Mineral Oil Mod

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:33:00 EST

courtesy of geekologie, here is the how to clip

image courtesy of pugetsystems.com

How "cool" *chuckle buckle* is dat? I'm not saying it is worth dipping your XPS 600 Renegade in a vat of mineral oil, nor could I image transporting this to a local LAN hoedown, but still...it's pretty "slick" *yuck yuck*

go Patriots. go Giants. Stoked After Burn tastes wicked washing down buffalo wings btw - even the Morningstar veggie ones. Best of luck to Team EG @ CEVO qualifiers tonight!

Incredible, Interglactic, Immersive Interaction!

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:53:00 EST

In the light, or shadow as it were, of missing out on the fun at CES, I decided not to hide in my sorrows but to drown myself in Mass Effect. I played KOTOR straight through for days when it first came out. I was hoping to get a similar addiction with ME. I was not dissappointed!

Although I would not call it the very best Game of the Year 2007, the NYT bestowed Mass Effect with the honor for its "focus on character development, personal growth and moral tension, all fueled by a graphics system created to evoke emotional empathy."

So 1) grab some Stoked because you won't wanna sleep for days 2) buy Mass Effect because you will spend countless hours on it especially if you do all the side quests then 3) leave a message on your phone that you may be unavailable for about a month due to saving the all living sentient and mechanical beings as you explore & save the mulitverse.

Mods, Patches, and Guns. Oh My!

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:56:00 EST

If you're a CS player, you've likely faced the "which is better, 1.6 or Source" question numerous times. The CS Pro mod team led by EG's own Alex Garfield aims to change the answer to neither. CS Pro mod (CSP for short) is bringing 1.6 style gameplay to the Source engine. CSP has had numerous htiches along the way, and before the first beta was released everyone thought it was a big joke. AFTER the beta release people unfortunately still thought that, as the first public release had numerous glitches bugs and gremlins that hampered the gameplay. 2 patches later now, things look more hopeful as the major bugs have been mostly rectified, and a new partnership has been unveiled. The CSP team has hooked up with Damage inc. Studios for weapon, and character modeling. Although without an animator this is still a big step forward in bringing the best of both CS worlds together. Keep at 'er Alex!

Blizzard released a STARCRAFT patch! After 10 years the game is still getting support from its developers. Shocking isnt it? This patch is essentially a nocd crack from blizzard themselves, which by now is redundant since everyone uses bwlauncher or the iccup client anyway, but still a friendly gesture. Warcraft 3 apparently has a similar patch in the works.

Now if you're like me (which I think a few of you at least are) you'll have enjoyed the pastime of shooting rubber bands at people, maybe even gotten pretty good at it. But now, we've met our match. The finger is obsolete, long live the RBMG (Rubberband Minigun)

CES 2008 Recap

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:22:00 EST

It would have been nice to have written an update while at the event,
though the hotel internet was absolutely terrible, I can't believe
they charge for it! The furthest I got was pulling up Google.com over
a 20 minute waiting period ;)

At the Belkin booth in the South hall the girls were taking challenges
in Unreal 3, and using the Belkin N52te gaming device. We thought it
was really cool that you could save up to three different profiles on
it, so it's quite handy if you play a few different games. Over the
course of the event, the gals put their gaming skills forth and only
ended up losing a total of 3 games which is really great considering
how many people they played. Woo!

I was able to hook up with the EG guys and pick up some Stoked, which
was our saving grace as these events really are exhausting, so having
some Stoked Energy on hand was definitely to our benefit :) Both
RocketQueen and trito had their first Stoked experience and they had a
wide variety of flavors to sample...

Thanks to Stoked Energy for keeping us on our game during this years CES!!

One Console Revisited

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:00:00 EST

Back in December we were blipping about Dennis Dyack's quest for a single-console world. I recently found this article repping the other side of things - why one console is crazr.
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/why-david-jaffe.html

How to keep track of your Stoked

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:37:00 EST

oh crumb. you pulled out DB. I pulled out DB. gonna have ta duke out Virtua Fighter style

But things are getting more complicated. You LAN parties are growing as are your hangouts, your pow-wows, your shin digs (man these are not cool words to describe your peeps). The point is that you may soon find yourself in a situation where you have a ditto flav. So here is some Stoked Energy can smarts. Let's pick a popular flavor - WindChill. Now let's say you and three of your WoW crew are all thirsty - oopsie, you all grab for the WindChill.

set yourself like so...(notice gimpy wrist due to micro)

This is U

then it's tab time, everyone go crank that how they want

This is U buddy - Thumbs Up Right

This is U other buddy - Rock On Left

then when your n00b friend stops by, feel free to set them up as such...

n00b-style. Show your n00b love.

Now all four of you are set. No mono. No pink eye. No worries. and your n00b friend will have the most fun, but tell him/her not to eat tab. Spread the info, and send us in your n00b-style photos. Don't want to pass along the n00b c00ties.

Oh, and if you've got five friends drinking the same Stoked flavor together in the same sitting? Dude. email us. We should be there.

Stoked about MacBook Air

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:14:00 EST

image courtesy of Rodrigo :)

MacWorld 2008 keynote has brought us the thinnest laptop in the world and even though many of your are uber PC for gaming, it is still a sick whip. yes, time to process here.

I kid you not I will never think of interoffice envelopes the same again.

Team EG UT3 squad

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:34:00 EST

Joining our ranks now are Jason "sryfe" Dourlaris, Nick "Tex" Borrelli, Annie "Ecstasy" Leung, Sean "CombatCarl" Steele, and Bryan "Elix" Stowers. With this EG has the best UT3 lineup in North America. Stryfe is a huge name in the community since his dominance in UT2k3/2k4 being nearly undefeated at LAN events. Tex and the others follow the same vein, having been on the same team for a number of years before now. Annie "Ecstasy" Leung is a relative newcomer to UT, although it doesnt show. Stryfe has instructed Annie well, and she is more than capable of playing with the big dogs of the UT world. with this new talent on board, EG will really flex it's gaming muscle in '08, and I'm absolutely Stoked to have these amazing players on board.

O RLY - Conan O'Brien jamming to Rock Band

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 05:55:00 EST

why... he played Rock Band of course!

Rock on!

update - looks like got pulled, happens. here we go again.

/p>

Django - Back on Games

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:19:00 EST

What's up gamers, time for more random information from around the net pertaining to what really matters: Games.

First off, CEVO's "Finish the Fight" Call of Duty 4 tournament/CEVO-P placement league is almost done. Only 4 teams are left, and it'll be one epic battle from here on out.

I wrote about the CPL before, and it seems that a few other writers are as well, and it's spawned a battle (if you will) between some of the most recognized names in esports media. Michal "Carmac" Blicharz left the GGL recently for SK gaming's news squad, and has published an article related to the issue and to GotFrag's apparent coverup due to their partnership with the CPL. Trevor "Midway" Schmidt of GotFrag quickly published a rebuttal that almost-but-not-quite cleared it up by posting the article Carmac had submitted to GotFrag, and apologizing in one of the most beat around the bush way possible. Then Rod "Slasher" Breslau joined the fray in support of GotFrag that reiterated some of "Midway"'s points, and turned the argument towards Carmac once again for publishing an anti-GotFrag article. Most of the credibility lost on Carmac's part was due to the fact that he didn't get quotes directly from players about the CPL's "treachery", however the situation is such that those who haven't received their prize money never will if they go on record slandering the CPL itself. As stated in my previous writeup on the issue, a participant in the last World Tour informed me that a great deal of notable players are still in the hole as far as prize money goes, but holding out hope, they remain anonymous... I for one hope this gets resolved one way or another, but we shall see.

Teewars has another patch out, for those of you that grabbed the game when I introduced it here a while back, this patch reduces some lag, and changes other small things in the game.

Crysis is emerging as a competitive game! It's pretty shocking, but at the same time not too unexpected. Crysis is the most graphically advanced game to date, produced by Crytek and published by EA. It brings top end computer systems to their knees, and makes people with 2 videocards cry. Cry, Sys.... get it? Hahaha... Aaannnnyway, the ESL has announced a 1v1 cup for crysis hot on the heels of two other Crysis tournaments after the game's release. In short this means that Crysis is getting more competitive action that Unreal Tournament 3, the 4th installment in one of the most successful deathmatch franchises of all time. This is unexpected because its Crysis, the game itself seems to be much like Half Life 2 was, a showcase of new technology with a story attached. The other surprise is that it's becoming more popular than Unreal Tournament 3. The reason that ISN'T surprising though is because Unreal Tournament 3's players have been weighed down by an innumerable number of bugs, and an absolutely abysmal game out of the box. There's little to no support from Epic on the matter, and the steady flow of patches we saw near the launch is nowhere to be found... Crysis for WCG '08? Maybe...

That's all for now, have a great weekend!

O RLY - Of 2007 Time

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:49:00 EST

How cool is this? 2007 Word of the Year... (you'll have to read it yourself)

http://www.m-w.com/info/07words.htm

CES from Green to Blu

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 02:03:00 EST

image courtesy of crunchgear.com

With Warner Bros. announcing last week it is hopping over to Blu-ray exclusively, the big message from CES is clear - that Blu-ray is the 800 lb. gorilla and with HD you can see the man in the makeup. Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, WB. Hmm...That PS3 is looking mighty tasty to my retinas now!

The color has been painted so clear at CES (last day is tomorrow), that rumours have already abounded of Paramount feeling Blu too. Perhaps even Microsoft, home of course of HD-DVD - perhaps.

Total sidenote, but if Blu-ray is on your brain as it is mine, you should check out the contest with our blueberry cousins at www.winwithtrueblue.com - they've got a contest going on with the grand prize being a Samsung LCD HDTV and a Blu-ray player. Yes, I'm selling out on this one, but that is some sweet gear worth mentioning.

Speaking of gear... how about a 150" (five zero not zero five and there is a one in front) plasma screen tube.

image courtesy of tvpredictions.com - watch out! that bear will seek frags with it's paws.

yep, and now back to black... Stoked Energy is at CES. Both Team EG and girlz 0f Destruction have members down there playing in Kode5 tourney. If they get to preview Little Big Planet on that 150" screen, or play Unchartered on some crazy HD surround glasses, then paint me green again. I'm jealous.

image courtesy of g0d. g0d*Trito on the floor @ CES with Stoked

Cheers to Las Vegas, CES, tech and how Stoked it makes all of us gearheads.

Django - Back from the Holidays

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 12:37:00 EST

Welcome back from holidays Stoked lovers! I hope all of your holidays were great and involved as much gaming as mine did!

Now that it's a new year, there's of course new games to be released on any number of system. Metal Gear Solid 4 for PS3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii, and Grand Theft Auto 4, for just about every system imaginable, so I cant wait to see what this year has in store for us.

In Las Vegas the CES is underway showing the best of whats new in technology (gaming or otherwise). Stuff is popping up all over the place that seems obnoxiously expensive, and equally as desirable (some more than others of course) and this means that gaming can surely only go up from here.

However there's more than just gaming technology being displayed at CES. The CES is also host to Kode5's north american qualifiers, and EG is in attendance with a new lineup. Ian "ian" Royle, and Jesse "jstv" Stevenson were unable to attend the Kode5 event, so a pair of replacements was in order, and on Sunday is was announced that Erik "da_bears" Stromberg would rejoin the EG lineup, along with Anthony "m4gic" Coriale to face off against the other teams in attendance; Team X3O, eMazing Gaming, and PherenetiK . Our begin play today, at 10:00AM Vegas Time, and then again at 2:00PM, best of luck guys!

Welcome Back w00t!

Mon, 7 Jan 2008 12:46:00 EST

2008 + Stoked = feels like home. image courtesy of craphound.com

For many, many of you out there, this week marks a return to school-work-gigs-contracts-babysitting, holiday-guilt-driven diets (sugarfree Stoked), strange new year behavior.

It also means that you've just wrapped up, well here's my take on it...

Top 5 things that may have happened to you over the last two weeks:
5) What you thought was a box of socks turned out to be a DS/Phantom Hourglass combo and now that it is Monday you're realizing that this game is long! Oh, and now you have a beard.

4) You shared some laughs with friends glancing over a copy of "The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Man"

3) You, your younger cousin you see once a year who smells like carrots, your neighbor who happened to "stop by", and your crazy cat aunt spent a surprisingly wonderful all day playing wii bowling. Oh, and you lost to your younger cousin...who is learning how to read and tie his shoes.

2) After you installed Firefox on their computer, set up their new smart phone, provided instruction on how to use Bluetooth headsets, you tried to explain what a n00b is to your folks which led to conversations that haunt you to this day.

1) You plugged in your brand new Xbox 360 on Christmas, hooked up the kit to go live, and...

Thanks for checking us out in and throughout 2007! We hope that now it's the new year, you are stoked about all the games you just accumulated (or that your neighbor accumulated) over the holidays. Game on!

No High Fructose Corn Syrup on Facebook

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 11:29:00 EST

Check this out...

look familiar??? maybe kind of like
pretty cool no? Well a growing group on Facebook is dedicated to discussing the use of HFCS, including some of the negative things about it (both tastewise and healthwise).

Well, I thought I would just point it out as Stoked is a No HFCS energy drink. Maybe this is a good segway into looking into being healthier in the New Year...wait, it totally is! We've heard many over the past few months give us great feedback on the taste of Stoked and also on the lack of "crashing" when drinking Stoked. Reworking a nelly tune - "Hey, it must be the lack of HFCS!"

On a typical-tangent-sidenote: Deion Sanders also wrote a song with the lyrics "Must be the money". Check it below! O RLY!??

enjoy and in your brain keep replacing "money" with "lack of HFCS".

Happy New Year!!!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:35:00 EST

I just have a feeling that '08 will be my year to shine! I cant wait to break out and kick butt in tournaments, and show the world what the girlz 0f destruction is all about in console gaming! Woot! girlz 0f destruction is gonna take over in '08!!

Happy New Year ya'll!!! I'm feelin Stoked right now!!!

Paper Mario DS on Paper

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:51:00 EST

enjoy!

One Console to Rule Them All

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 08:02:00 EST

Reported on 1up here, Back at the Games Convention 2007, Dennis Dyack, President of Silicon Knights - a game developer based in Ontario, presented the idea of uniting all gaming hardware (PC's, Xbox 360, PS3, wii, Dreamcast?) into one machine by the next generation of console tossing the focus on gaming software. EA has since jumped on the ideer and a platform is present - should there be one console to rule them all?

What are your thoughts? Obviously, both opinions above are from developers with stories (Silicon Knights and their Too Human battles with Epic Games' Unreal 3 engine to get product to Xbox 360 platform, and EA, who produces the same games across, in some cases, all platforms). However, with strong PC games like Unreal Tournament 3, looking weak in sales for PC and stronger in sales for PS3, the question remains open!!!

If you have input - write us or comment!

Boxing Day

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:45:00 EST

What did you score?

The 2nd half of December is an insanely quiet month in gaming because all of the goods were out weeks in advance, all of the reviews churned out, all of discount items bought and shipped. So, what did you get for the holidays? Xbox 360? Unreal Tournament? PSP Slim? Do tell, do tell, post it on our homepage under the "What are you STOKED about?" Did you get hits on your wishlist? Do tell.

Here's one "discover the dragon" gift, not quite gaming, that caught my eye. Check out the commercial below.

t's the Flytech Dragonfly!!! Looks killer and how funny that the controller looks xBox-ish. eee-nice. "Inspired by Biology, Powered by Technology"

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:44:00 EST

check this out...w00t! Cheers from the gang and Stoked!

Pictures for the Winter '07 CPL

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:52:00 EST

Hi, I said that I would put up some pics of the Dallas CPL and lo and behold..... tada here they are!! Check out how well Stoked went over at the event!

www.flickr.com/photos/22223901@N08/

The Water Horse

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:46:00 EST

image courtesy of yahoo! moviesI

Sooo much to be stoked about, and one of the things I'm groovin' on is The Water Horse. It's a bit of a stretch here since this type of dragon (if you will) likes water, has flippers, and lives in a lake - TUB - tomorrow is the release of the movie The Water Horse. Previews are looking great.

Check out the trailer here.

Teh flick has a great creds with the same fx team as on LOTR, King Kong and Narnia, acting from the likes of Emily Watson, screenwriting from the same guy who wrote the screenplay for Chocolat, and a wicked soundtrack. I'm thinking that even though Crusoe, the loch ness star, starts out looking more like a seal than a dragon, that this flick will be a holiday hit!!! Bonus round is that it is PG, so you can take the whole family. Their movie site also has online games and a vlog! boo ya! Oh, and btw, unlike Rockband, The Water Horse is starting tomorrow in theatres both in Canada and US!

Opening December 25th!

image courtesy of movieposteraddict.com

And cherry top, check out this video blog of the director and producer chattin' with Sinead O'Connor, who wrote the title song of the pic. krzr.

CPL finals

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:47:00 EST

Having been my first tournament not as a journalist or video host, I had never stayed until the finals. I was usually in the hustle and bustle of it.

Come to find out, people leave after they get kocked out of the competition. Makes sense. I just didn't get to meet as many people as I had wanted. I suppose I had most wanted to interview Lil Poison www.lilpoison.com/ who had started competing when he was 4 years old. In the unraveling of our days though, Tunesha *CHICKAMUNGUS* Davis and I were swamped with stuff to do and just didn't get around to it.

The top 16s were exciting and fun even though Tunesha and I didn't make it that far, we had gotten to know some of the people who were in it. In fact, all the guys I was cheering for made it to top 8s and 3 of them to the top 4.. maybe I should ask for a good luck charm tax- however, I think maybe the endless hours and magnificent skills had more to do with their scores :)

The final 4 finished : 1st Ogre 2, 2nd StrongSide (the guy in my 1st match!), 3rd neighbor and 4th was Activ. (real names were posted here www.xboxusersgroup.com/content/view/4072/151/ ). What made the finals so intriguing was that Activ was an unknown in that he was just an ordinary guy! How cool is that! Although going into the competition, I didn't know anyone, it didn't take long to spot the pros. It was also fun to see that some of the guys who had volunteered to help train me beforehand were some of the pros in the match! Like LEGEND FOR REAL. But knowing that ayone with the hours to put in and skill could rise out of nowhere and be in the top 4 made the event especially fun. I can't wait to get off this laptop & on my 360 to go play right now! so ttys!

oh wait! I also found out from the director of photogrpahy that we should be getting some footage this week. So keep your fingers crossed. I will also pull out some still from those tapes. Tunesha has some pictures too... so check back to see it in picture form. I was talked into being especially cutesy for the last day- I'll tell you why later. But the anime chicks had nuthin on me that day... though I don't know if that is a compliment or not. hmmmmmmmm.

The CPL wrap up!

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:04:00 EST

Well, the fun is over. I made it to the second round, but got knocked out. I was sad, because I felt like I didn't get much practice without bringing my own monitor (you couldn't practice on the tv's at the hotel). But I felt so much better when Yvonna came up to me and told me that I was the only girl to make it that far!! So yay for me!! Watching the pros in motion, actually helped alot because I got to watch their style, and see what makes them so good. I'm not too far off. The final 4 were Strongside, Ogre 2, Neighbor, and Active.

I also met so many cool people! After I got knocked out the second round, I manged to get a few more interviews, and even an offer for my own website! It's really cool meeting some of the people that you only know from online. I only wish there were more girls!

Oh and Stoked went so well, and fast, at the event. I loved the Wind Chill and the Orange!! It was so hard saving one for myself, because everyone kept coming back asking for more! Everyone wants to know when and where they can get em', so I just let them know that they were coming soon to the USA! I've gotten some really great pics of how well Stoked went with all the gamers at CPL Dallas! I'll have to post them.

This was my first event, and I have so many good memories. I'm so Stoked for the next event already!

Day 3 CPL

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:16:00 EST

Hey, this is Tunesha, aka g0d CHICKAMUNGUS. Right now I'm feeling so pumped about my first match at the Winter CPL! I placed second in the first round, so I get to move on to the next bracket, which will have gamers with ridiculous skill. My match was so close. One of the gamers, who's tag was "Lowkin", had some crazy skill. I did very well for my first time at a tournament, and I've met some really cool people, girls and guys alike. It's so different from anything that I'm used to because I've never even been to a LAN tournament before. I've been learning so much here; just getting to see the skills of the Pro gamers and getting to hear how they got so good, makes me feel like I don't have too much further to go until I get up to their level.

Tonight or tomorrow morning I'll be playing my second round, hopefully I'll keep my mojo going and pwn again so that I can place in this tournament! I've already feel like I've accomplished so much for my first time. So 'll just do my best and have fun with my team mate Yvonna cheering me on, I've been having a blast and I don't want this week to end!!

Djangos pre-X-mas Post

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:10:00 EST

Happy Holidays gamers! I'm sure you're all looking forward to x-mas and the new year as much as I am.

Unfortunately I don't have a ton to post, since news has been rather slow, but its not like I have nothing :)

Firstly an apology for not posting this sooner, but I failed to mention who actually won the CGS finals. Chicago took carolina core apart in the finals and made themselves the first CGS champion franchise.

For you Call of Duty 4 players on the good ol PC theres a new patch out that adds a christmasy map to the game, along with a few other fixes. You can grab it off of InfinityWards site here.

If you liked worms, soldat, and quake, youll love this next bit of information. A new version of TeeWars is out! Teewars is a side scrolling 2D shooter that takes elements from Quake Worms and Soldat, and improves on them. Your characters will grappling hook their way around maps hunting fown your opponents and distpatching them with an array of weapons. The newer versions also introduce CTF gameplay to teewars. Check it out www.teewars.com

That's all from me. I had the good luck to get sick just before the holidays started so Im gonna curl up in front of the fireplace. Merry X-mas gamers!

DAY 2 at the CPL

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:55:00 EST

Today started out kinda startling with a phone call at noon from Angel Munoz, the founder and president of the CPL, asking for a favor. Now you may be asking yourself, "why is that startling?" Well Tunesha and I had been treated to dinner at Riccardis last night. We ate like Princesses... really hungry ones with Tiramisu and Creme Brulee for dessert ^_^ After dinner, there was practicing until the wee hours of the morning. So we were beyond dead tired.

However, Angel asked me if I wouldnt mind playing at 2:00 even though I was not scheduled to play today. How could I tell him, "no". Little did I know at the time I would be put in a bracket with some of the top Halo players in the world! This is still rather new to me... first tournament, first game to play multi-player against real people and not bots, and first public kill. I gotta admit, I like it LOTS!

The clock chimed 2:00 way too fast but I was excited nonetheless. The leader was Strongside followed by another awesome player Elamite Warrior, both of whom were exceptional in the match and just all around great guys. The 3rd guy in our 4 man match was Powell. Even though I didnt wipe the floor with these pros- I was able to score and ended up with quite a crowd of people cheering me on with each kill. So a big ol Texan "THANKS YALL for the McLovin!" ^_^

shameless product placement- but i cant help it- its good & I needed the energy!shameless product placement- but i cant help it- its good & I needed the energy!

After playing, Tunesha and I got to be the bearers of good greetings by handing out some Stoked Energy Drinks to the BYOC. We then interviewed Ogre, Girl Next door, and L337 Lauren with whom I had just played in Montreal in the Miss Video Game finals.

Tomorrow Tunesha has her match at 1:00 so we will keep you posted on how that turns out. She should have a pretty decent turn out also because everyone who meets her just adores her.. but how could they not ?! So check back to hear about the match, the concerts, interviews with some developers and more pictures. Oh ya... we will also be posting some fun videos shortly too. Wish you were here!

Time Magazine Top Games 2007

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:42:00 EST

image courtesy of time.com

Yep, you probably guessed right that the #1 game was Halo 3 for 2007. The latest stat Ive heard is that over half, 52% of all Xbox 360 console owners have this in bay or leaning up in some fancy IKEA shelf next to their copy of Superbad. Thats 4.1 million people which is comparable to the population of New Zealand. As Django wrote about it, Halo 3 cleaned up 7 awards at the Spike TV VGA.

onward forward_ lets see the list yo

Halo 3
The Orange Box
Rock Band (which hasnt even come out yet in Canada)
Super Mario Galaxy
BioShock
Call of Duty 4
Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass
Mass Effect
Ace Combat 6
God of War II

Thats only one portable game and one PSII game - me thinks this was the year to get a new console! Wed like to salute Bowser, aka King Koopa, aka Koops who made it onto #4 game and even though hes more turtle-like reminds a bit of a dragon-like nemesis.

CPL day 1

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:12:00 EST

We are unpacked at the wonderful Hyatt Regency (thanks to Stoked!) and ready to go. At first, I gotta admit, we were a little dissappointed that the only thing on the agenda today was to get our badges and check in... then we realized it was a great idea. We got to get all kinds of kinks worked out (like there is no way to hook up the TVs in the rooms to the Xboxes!). Tunesha had made friends with some people when they were setting up the BYOC. She found someone who would let us practice on their screen! Yay for Tunesha being absolutely adorable. However, the best part of the day was getting to meet the other competitors and talk to some of our friends we had met online. We also got to meet up with our camera crew to plan out the rest of the week and do some interviews. Sorry this is just a glimpse into the day- but Id like to get some practice time in before manana :) I will definitely have pictures and/or videos tomorrow!

Gaming news episode 4

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:04:00 EST

Last post was definitely not episode 3 but oh well, I cant count so sue me. Today Ive got a little writeup on the CPL. Last post I wrote about a CS team in CAL or the Cyberathlete Amateur League, well the CPL is its (for definite want of a bettwer phrase) big brother the Cyberathlete Professional league. In the past the CPL was known as rival to WCG, WSVG, and ESWC (acronym soup!) but now its reputation is less than sparkly. A year ago or thereabouts the CPL lost a great deal of sponsors for some reason, and was floundering. To make matters worse for the CPL numerours major players in the CPL were not recieving their prize money, even into 6 digit figures. Recently, the CPL is taking on the reputation of a joke league that wont pay out amongst the competitive scene, and amtters were made even worse for them recently.

The run up to CPL winter was dotted with little fireworks of attention from the community. First off they announced that both CS 1.6 and CS:S would be played, and that the winners of those two games would play each other to determine the best cs team around (clearly didnt include the very skilled CGS teams). Next the G7 boycotted the CPL. The G7 is an organization of the e-sports superpowers outside of Korea; Teams like Fnatic, MYM, 4kings, PGS, SK, Team3D, CompLexity, WNV, and miBR refused to attend the CPL spearheaded by fnatic representative Sam Matthews over a claim for unpaid winnings. This was a drop in the water, as people thought G7 were being babies about the CPL, unfortunately for the CPL however a great deal of the competitive community shared that or another opinion that made attending the CPL an impossibility, including Team EG. The next CPL spark was the announcement of a $1,000,000 (one million dollahs!) Halo tournament. This caused the biggest storm of all; where did the CPL get the money? Were they good for it? Rumors bouncing around like a ping pong ball all over, but in the end this firework was more of a bad thing once people read the fine print. The entry fee for this tournament was $475. This was fine and dandy when you had a shot at one mill. right? Wrong. The next firework practically ended the CPL in my, and many others eyes. A zero was suddenly missing from the Halo pot. 90% of the prize money had vanished, and those who had already registered were wondering "what now?" (though Im sure in more vulgar language). The CPL promised ANOTHER 1 million dollar tournament in their SUMMER event NEXT FREAKIN YEAR. Those who wanted out were told "no refunds" and were promised "special seeding" for the summer tourney. As it stands now if you show up to the tourney and lose all of your games youll get $250, but thats a small portion of the initial registration, plus travel, plus accomodation to attend the event in the first place. Not ideal at all. People lost money before the event began, and now that its starting Im interested in seeing how it goes.

I know g0d has players in the Halo tournament, and I wish them luck.

Counter-Strike 1.6
Prize Distribution:
1st: TBD - $7,500
2nd: TBD - $5,500
3rd: TBD - $4,250
4th: TBD - $2,750
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250

Counter-Strike: Source
Prize Distribution:
1st: TBD - $7,500
2nd: TBD - $5,500
3rd: TBD - $4,250
4th: TBD - $2,750
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250
5th~8th: TBD - $1,250

Halo3
Prize Distribution:
1st: TBD - $30,000
2nd: TBD - $17,000
3rd: TBD - $10,000
4th: TBD - $5,500
5th: TBD - $4,000
6th: TBD - $3,000
7th: TBD - $2,500
8th: TBD - $2,000
9th~12th: TBD - $1,500
9th~12th: TBD - $1,500
9th~12th: TBD - $1,500
9th~12th: TBD - $1,500
13th~16th: TBD - $1,000
13th~16th: TBD - $1,000
13th~16th: TBD - $1,000
13th~16th: TBD - $1,000
17th~32nd: $500
33th~64th: $250

New girlz 0f destruction Logo

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:15:00 EST

unveiled on their website last week, the girlz of destruction are very busy sending four members down to Dallas for the CPL event starting this week.

check it out here. we wish them luck!

Stoked about Holiday parties

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:53:00 EST

This year, don't make out like a DDR bunny, that's so last year! Introducting some wicked dance moves courtesy of Flux, the dance club in Mass Effect, recently ranked #8 top video game of 2007 by Time magazine. Check out this clip and tell me if it doesn't 1-up your "groove thang" at your next office/school party.

clip courtesy of IGN Nate - LOL!

Have fun!!! Don't forget to bring a case of Stoked!!!

Gaming News Episode 3

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:33:00 EST

I'll start with the thieves and work my way to Ninjas, Some bandits made off with a truckload of Rock Band setups! If you've been living under a rock recently, Rock Band is similar to Guitar Hero except with more instruments; mic, bass, drums, and guitar. It happened in California where a truck carrying over 1,000 copies of the game got hijacked. The truck pulled over at the directions of the hijackers for SOME reason, and "removed" him from the truck blindfolded and at gunpoint. These guys could be in for life for kidnapping since the driver was held against his will. With that much equipment the thieves could have their own tour, and leave their gear at every stop. Authorities say this was an inside job as well... *cue suspence*

From thieves to Terrorists, I'm gonna hop over to Counter-Strike. The Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL)'s playoffs are underway, and one of my friends' teams is taking part in the intermediate playoffs for the pacific division. I got a chance to check them out in action, and it looked like they were in a league of their own. Congrats to iJAG for advancing.

In other CS news Team EG still needs your votes for the ESEA Steelseries King of the Hill tournament. Show us some love, and head over to http://esea.steelseries.com/?a=teams&tournamentid=808 during a voting week and we'll show you just how evil we are.

From terrorists to gladiators now, Unreal Tournament 3's competitive community recieved a boost recently with the release of CustomUT 1a. CustomUT is a modification that adds competitive elements to UT3 such as, hitsounds, and brightskins. It also adds stuff that should have been in the game originally, like customizable crosshairs. This means that the competitive community is now somewhat happy (except for ctf guys), and we'll see more and more tournaments coming up soon, and hopefully some offline leagues picking the game up for play. To get CustomUT, head over to http://www.unrealna.com/customut.php to partake.

Now onto ninjas. I blogged about the CGS a bit back, and the finals are still udnerway, but there's been an interesting development. The creator of Dead or Alive challenged the two top players from both sexes to a match against each other. Ryan "OffBeatNinja" Ward against Vanessa "Vanessa" Arteaga each with their staple characters Ein, and Hitomi. The winner of this gets a trip to Japan, and a personalized Katana. The match took place last night, and according to the CGS, the Canadian OffBeatNinja emerged victorious. Congrats Ryan!

That's all for now guys and gals, see you next week!

Stoked Tropical Orange

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:18:00 EST

Ok I'm hooked....the Stoked Tropical Orange drink has won me over.
I've been trying to figure out for DAYS where I've tasted this
specific flavor before. After days of racking my brain, drinking a lot
of Stoked, and going absolutely nutty playing a heck of a lot of
Halo...I finally came to the conclusion:

Stoked Tropical Orange tastes like an orange freezie!

I have not had a freezie since I was a kid, which is probably why it
took me days to determine the connection. Some of you may wonder, what the heck is a "freezie"? Urban dictionary had a good explanation:

A cold treat akin to a popsicle. Freezies are made of a
slushie-like juice that has been frozen in a long plastic wrapping.
They come in many sizes, such as "jumbo," and the most popular brand in Canada bear(ed) the Mr. Freeze (pronounced "Free-zee")
label.

Often, the best part about eating a Freezie was tipping the package
upside-down and drinking the melted juice that was left at the bottom,
when you'd finished eating the frozen part.

You could get a jumbo Freezie for, like, 50 cents at the ball park
when I was a kid.

The point of this story? If you love orange freezies then definitely
try the Stoked Tropical Orange flavor. It's yummy!

Spike Videogame Awards

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:37:00 EST

image courtesy of gaming today online

If you get SpikeTV and are a gamer this was an event you couldnt have missed (and if you did, shame on you). The Spike Videogame awards are held on a yearly basis to decide the best of the best games much like the Oscars or the videogaming industry. The awards were doled out as follows:

Best Multi-player game: Halo 3
Viewer voted Most Addictive Game: Halo 3
Studio of the Year: Harmonix
Best Rhythm Game: Rock Band
Best Soundtrack: Rock Band
Best Military game: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Best Shooter: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Best Action Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Best Wii Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Best PC Game: Orange box
Breakthrough Technology: Orange Box
Best RPG: Mass Effect
Best PlayStation 3 Game: Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Best Handheld Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Best Individual Sport Game: Skate
Best Team Sport Game: Madden NFL 08
Best Game Based On A Movie or TV Show: The Simpsons Game
Best Graphics: Crysis
Best Racing Game: DiRT

I'm gonna give you my take on these whether you like it or not, and hopefully some of you agree with me on these (but i know a lot of you wont).

Best Multiplayer game: Halo. Okay this is the only time I'll agree with an award given to Halo, the game is amazing on splitscreen/system link played with friends locally (in one room), but online it turns into a racist, discriminatory, 12 year old, bag of no fun at all.

Studio of the year: Harmonix. These guys gave us Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, and now Rock band. Possibly three of the most fun rythm games ever, and with Rock Band's co-op dimension a definitely worthy award.

Best Rythm Game: Rock Band. See above, Rock band takes Guitar Hero and puts it on steroids adding a drum kit, a bass, and a mic to the usual guitar used to play games like this making it diverse and fun.

Best Soundtrack: Rock Band. I personally think this award is a crock, since everyones music tastes differ. Rock band has a wide variety of songs and thus parts to play but by no means does it deserve a global "best soundtrack award"

Best Military Game: Call of Duty 4. This is a no brainer, with Infinity Ward back behind the wheel Call of Duty can only come out on top.

Best Shooter: Call of Duty 4. I was so happy that Halo didnt get this award, it's the same game it was when halo 2 was launched. Call of Duty makes the modern warfare genre of games FUN. Multiplayer is epic fun with friends, and has a level of intensity and excitement that I've never seen before in a multiplayer game.

Best Action Game: Super Mario Galaxy. I can't really comment on this, or the next award (Best Wii game) since I dislike the Wii and have no desire to play SMG so it's best I dont say anything for these ones.

Best PC Game: Orange Box. This is flawed, since the Orange Box is 5 games. Which one do they mean?! I can't really agree with any of the games in the Orange Box being Best PC game of the year. For me, the best PC game shares the Best Shooter award: Call of Duty 4.

Breakthrough Technology: Orange Box. This as well is flawed since theres nothing new and creative in The Orange box. Portal was great, but there have been see through portals in games for years now (Prey, UT'04 mods), once again which game are they talking about?

Best RPG: Mass Effect. I can't disagree with this one, Mass Effect is just good.

Best PS3 Game: Ratchet & Clank. If DLC counted as a full game I'd demand that Gran Turismo HD was in this place. But as it is, until GT5 comes out this is fine...

Best Handheld Game: Phantom Hourglass. This is tough to agree with, but there arent many truly GOOD portable games that were released this year :(

Best Individual Sport Game: Skate. They made skateboarding indoors fun again, huge props.

Best Team Sport Game: Madden 08. No arguments here (though I'm more of an NHL Fan)

Best Game Based On A Movie or TV Show: The Simpsons Game. Probably the only film to game adaptation taht didnt suck this year, it was zany and hilarious just like the Simpsons USED to be

Best Graphics: Crysis. This isnt even a competition.

Best Racing Game: DiRT. Easy winner here, DiRT is the most fun I've had with a driving game since I found out you could do barrel rolls in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Encompasses all of the offroad racing "breeds" and is just a ton of fun for anyone who likes going fast.

Flame away!

Freddy Wong at WSVG Dallas

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:55:00 EST

this is just rulez!

CGS Grand Finals Underway

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 12:04:00 EST

Big news in competitive gaming going on for the next while, The CGS or Championship Gaming Series world finals are underway in Los Angeles! There are 11 teams taking part for a 1st place prize of $500,000 and $5000 per player if they come out on top in their respective game. If you're lost up until now, here's a brush up session on what the CGS is.

The CGS started earlier this year with an american draft and 6 original teams: Carolina Core, Chicago Chimera, Dallas Venom, LA CompLexity, New York 3D, and San Fransisco OPTX. These teams were the first North American teams running with player salaries of $30,000 per season. These teams were to face off in five arenas: Counter Strike: Source, FIFA '07, Project Gotham Racing 3, Dead or Alive 4, and a female Dead or Alive 4 league. The CGS was to be aired on TV as the first North American gaming series on the tube and to accomodate that they had to change the rules for some games, namely CS:S. There was a huge uproar at first about the CGS' rules but now it seems they've integrated themselves with the community rather well with people scrimming using CGS rules, and even some CAL divisions using them for competition play. The player draft earlier in the year kicked up some dust as well with some odd descisions on drafted players as well as two Counter Strike teams that could not be drafted first round due to some GMs calling dibs on them, namely Dave Geffon aka moto, and Jason Lake aka 1 calling no draftsies on their former teams of Team3D and CompLexity. FIFA players were amazed at the first pick for their game: Stermy. Stermy is an accomplished Quake player and nearly nobody had heard of him even playing FIFA before and cries of "he was picked cause he's a pretty boy" were pretty quick to arise with names like mojo being picked as taxi players only after the draft was over. The CGS isnt all bad, although I personally think its the WWE of competitive gaming the way it's been designed for TV. Anyway, enough of history to the finals!

The 12 teams competing in Los Angeles are as follows: Berlin Allianz, Birmingham Salvo, Carolina Core, Chicago Chimera, London Mint, Mexico City Furia, Rio Sinistro, Seoul Jinhwa, Singapore Sword, Stockholm Magnetik, and the Sydney Underground. Quite a few of these teams are pretty Stoked in one way or another. The Berlin Allianz's DOA4 female palyer is also g0d member Liefje, Carolina Core DOA palyer OffBeatNinja visited the Dragon's Den at WCG '07, Chicago Chimera's CS team formerly sported the EG tag and their DOA player BlackMamba visited the Dragon's Den at WCG this year as well, and Singapore Sword's counter strike team was present every night the Dragon's Den was available! Pretty sweet huh?

The first round of competition is half over though, and it's likely that all the teams that I mentioned being Stoked will advance (most of them have a BYE :x). Good luck to all players, and teams! I personally will be cheering on the Chicago Chimera and the Carolina Core, play hard guys!

Gamer Nostalgia - Double Dragon Cartoon

Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:23:00 EST

How's this for oldie meets goodie?

Billy or is it Jimmy chops that tree up like carrots yo!

Yep I'm talking about the short-lived early nineties cartoon series "Double Dragon" which lived for about two seasons and was loosely (uber-loosely) based on the Technos Japan Corporation's hit arcade game of same name. Just wanted to share a bit of dragon m33ts game culture.

Django Gaming Newz

Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:14:00 EST

Whats up internet? I'm no Freddy Wong, buts that's gotta be one of the best introductions of all time. I've posted here before, and I'm sure at least some of you read my recap of the Mega FPS Winter Wonder LAN, but for the site newbies I'm gonna re-introduce myself. I'm Stu, alias "Django" (the D is silent) from Team EG, and I've been assigned to let all of YOU know whats up in the gaming world. So from today on, I hope to be able to write a bi-weekly post on just what's up out there in the big scary place we call the internet.

I'm gonna start with some corporate stuff that might change gaming as we know it. All you guys who follow the gaming news sites like glue will know this already: Blizzard/Vivendi has merged with Activision. A deal this huge has to cause some ruckus somewhere, and boy did it ever. Some people were angry claiming that Starcraft would be ruined (what the) by activision or that we'd see World of Callofduty4 in a few quarters, but the two companies arent going to be merging into a blob of flubber to spew out sequels like the other giant (EA) every four months making gaming pretty monotonous. The two companies' original goals stay intact according to the the CEO of the Blizzard half of the company. We shall see.

More corporate jibjab, but this time about the Console War! For the first time ever in Japan, Sony's "underdog" Playstation 3 has outsold both the Wii and the Xbox 360. Personally I think its bittersweet, I'm a PS3 fan, but the americas dont exactly have a trend of following Japan's lead except when it comes to Final Fantasy, and Mario. This could also mean another thing: Nintendo has a Wii in the residence of every single gamer in Japan (which probably isnt too far off as it is), and that the big back monolith that is the PS3 is just catching up due to lack of demand overseas. But hey, who knows maybe Japan's just leading the way.

Enough with the big stuff, and on to the stuff most of us care about: The games. I've been playing Call of Duty 4 recently as I'm sure a lot of people have, and I'm blown away by how good it is. Even better still I watched some coverage of a tournament run by Xfire and it looks like an incredibly solid competitive platform for you up and coming pro gamers out there. It's like Counterstrike + Battlefield @ on speed. Somehow it's just a fun game, and I wish i could explain it. I've played a bunch of "modern warfare" games and none of them can compare even remotely to Call of Duty 4's amazing-ness. The singleplayer is fantastic, and the multiplayer even more so. It's noob friendly, pro friendly, and every kind of friendly in between and that's probably illegal somehow. My point is: GET COD4 NOW! It's really that good.

Unreal Tournament 3 just came out recently, and already the first tournament is over Epic's been stopping a lot of large tournies from starting up due to lack of an anti-cheat system, but this one snuck through and it gives us an idea of who's in the upper echelon of north american duellists. 1st place went to de'pain, a UT99 player who dabbled in 2k3 and 2k4 briefly before scurrying back to his original calling. A very close and almost arguable 2nd went to Stryfe, probably one of the most prominent 2kx duellists out there who took de'pain 4 rounds to 0 losing one afterwards, and the final game by 1 frag even after de'pain hid on the map... twice. 3rd went to flux. flux is an area51 gamer, and if that doesnt tell you enough about him then im hoofed, cause I dont know that much about him either D: This should set the stage for Ut3's competitive scene, but theres still a big unknown: Europe. Those guys have been smacking us around at deathmatch forever, and they might continue to do so, with names like Zaccubus, Lauke, ForresT, and even Toxjq readying up for UT3's pro scene. EG's own DaHanG and Chance are preparing and I'm confident they'll put up one hell of a fight.

That's all for today guys and gals, see you on friday. gg.

Movember Stoked Stache

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:28:00 EST

Movember!!!

So look closely...Stoked Dragon totally has it's 'stache goin' on kthx.

I'm not sure which type of moustache dragon has, but it rules, no?

I don't see "george parros" in there. image courtesy of decaffeinated.org, something stoked is not :p

If you spent November growing a moustache, and you have a (hopefully) empty can of Stoked - send us your Stoked 'Stache'.

O RLY - discovering DragonForce on Guitar Hero III

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:51:00 EST

photo courtesy of DragonForce's myspace page

First off, you have to be an uber rocker on guitar hero III to even see the song. The song is unlocked by finishing Career Mode which is a task in itself. Physically, you probably need Body by Jake(R) endurance and cougar-like agility in your index and thumb. I'm sure some Stoked wouldn't hurt either. Check out this clip of the song on expert mode - it's straight-up sick!!!

As reported on wired.com, one of the cool side effects for DragonForce, is that sales of their song "Through the Fire and Flames" have gone up 183% over previous week sales.

Find Us Add Us Stoked

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:55:00 EST

1) Stoked Energy Website
2) Facebook (brand new) - we also have a group set-up there "Did you know I drank Stoked?"
3) Myspace
4) YouTube
5) Flickr
6) Twitter
7) Technorati

You can also find us checking out our Team Stoked pages
Team EG & girlz 0f Destruction

Got a place we should be online? Hook us up - blip a comment or shoot us some email!

Stoked about the ending credits song of Portal

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:46:00 EST

But we're jumping on the bandwagon that says this ending credits song remake for the Portal - one of five games in the Orange Box - should be a top 10 pop downloaded tune.

here's a video of the song... so catchy!

*lyrics*
"Anyway this cake is great.
Its so delicious and moist"

15 seconds of team stoked blitz

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:25:00 EST

g0d*trinelin is a neuroscientist in her free time
Chance and DaHanG played Quake 4 at i32 in England
g0d added new member Chickamungus who is hard at Halo 3 Xbox 360 style
Team EG's Counter-Strike 1.6 team hard at work at CEVO Season 7
g0d*trito is totally into film cameras (like non nub kams)
Team EG's WoW crew is heading to the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge at Dreamhack in Sweden - their plane takes off today! we wish them luck!
a bunch of the g0d girls are simultaneously heading to CGS in LA - good luck to them too!

Super Mario Galaxy made me think of After Burn Wind Chill

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:23:00 EST

photo courtesy of 1up, check it mario is skating ice on liquid fire!!!

one of the highlights of Super Mario Galaxy is the &quotFreezeflame"... galaxy, which are several planets where you skate around on water on half the planet and then avoid rising lava in others. I just couldnt stop thinking about Wind Chill and After Burn (especially after reaching mission 3 &quotHot and Cold Collide" where Mario eats ice flowers and skates on lava - cold, hot, cold, hot!

Much like...

After Burn and Wind Chill!!!

*mushroom-up noise* Delish!

thats After Burn in the left bucket, Wind Chill in the right. bet bowsers jealous nark.

wii-kend turkey turkey

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:23:00 EST

er is it wii-kind turkey turkey?
I think we all sat dreaming about playing a game like dees...

Actually, Thanksgiving is great - mucho food, time to sleep in, time to catch up on homework ($tewdent), and also time to run down into the basement and GAME! I mean it is kewl hanging with Aunt Giblets and Cousin Infrared, but who doesn't have memory of high-tailing the braised spinach for some mariokart smack talk.

I'll admit for myself, I spent a good summons drooling at all of the ridiculous number of games out there!! What did you play over thanksgiving kthx?

I made like half a million of you out there this last week and got my hands on Super Mario Galaxy! Check out g0d* Trito's video if you haven't had a chance here.

I played much SMG and drank much Stoked - word. More on that later, first here is a belated thanksgiving day clip to warm your hearts (turn up the volume first).

As you enjoy turkey sandwich leftover bliss (if you're lucky enough to still have any leftovers), shoot us what games you played over the weekend. What DID you play over thanksgiving kthx?

A look at Super Mario Galaxy

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:34:00 EST

My teammate trito has been plugging away at her new game for the Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Galaxy. I haven't owned a Nintendo system since the N64, but there's always a special place in my heart for anything Mario related! Therese "trito" Andersson has put together a cute little movie clip and tutorial of the new game and watching it gives me a feeling of nostalgia....it makes me want to play it!!

Although I don't own a Wii system, I really can't wait for more games to come like Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart. What game(s) are you stoked on?

Black Thursday on Amazon

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:21:00 EST

Look to the left for heft. This ad courtesy of amazon.com

Heres the vote spelled out:

Nintendo Wii for $79

Sony Playstation 3 for $139

Xbox 360 for $99

The key here, and the reason Im rushing to get this post out, is that the voting ends at 6pm PST today. Amazon will be selling 1,000 of the winning console at the ridiculous prices above, but additionally if you vote you may get a chance to buy the console at a discount. So castaway castaway. And after you have your $79 wii or $139 PS3 that you can brag and brag and brag over team speak, get yourself set-up with some Stoked with the pocket change you just saved. kthx

Stoked Energy on Official Xbox Magazine

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:25:00 EST

Senior Editor Dan Amrich and Managing Editor Corey Cohen of Official Xbox Magazine took a breather, or is it a "beverage recess", from their extraordinarily busy day at OXM to give Stoked Energy Original a swizzle.

First things first, a bit of boasting, but I'm sure for the next day or so you have to clickity on their main page.
http://www.oxmonline.com/
We're smack in the middle under featured stories! However, as OXM writes more stories,

here's a link to see their review.

It is uh, well odd to be writing about a review (cause isn't that a review of a review n00b!). However, I give lots of credit to Dan and Corey - they even fashioned a picture of Stoked Energy Original in a tasting snifter (or is in sniffy snifter). I like that Stoked boosted Dan's Rockband guitar-playing focus on "Flirtin' With Disaster" by Molly Hatchet in expert mode - nice! They pour out all the stops, even giving non-crashing credit to the better ingredients inside Stoked, so check it out.

S-note: LOL. A lot of their editorial staff is playing the gargantuan 6.74 GB Mass Effect (it is Offi Xbox Mag afterall). Also, you have got to go to their homepage...read about Stoked...then scroll down to the bottom right corner and click on the link "Don't Worry About It"...riiiiiiight.

Dell Canada Says

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:00:00 EST

yes I'll say it, this banner courtesy of dell canada

I think it may be the gravitational black Friday coming up but I woke up this morning with a feeling in my itchy brain that this season of getting hooked up with good gaming at home is just going to be ill. Off da hook ill! So I'm being a bit overly commercial with this post (I know I know balderdash) - BUT! Dell Canada has 5 days of Deals - this one the Gaming Edition going on starting today (only 4 days left!!!)

here's a link

(as if your inbox isn't crammed with this already).

And to be totally smashingly jannock in terms of not pushing one particular console over another for the holidays...all three are being dell dealed, bundled with extra games, controllers, HDMI cables, you name it. Do get Dell dilled! Get dilled!!! It's just another way we at Stoked share our enthusiasm for gaming with you (at least for those gamers and curious n00bs in Canada).

One more thing... I hear dat shipping is free so howzabout them dill pickles? dilled!

O RLY - threadless tee winner

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:04:00 EST

now THAT is a gamer face on the right there - image courtesy of threadless site

here'sum background - Threadless Nude No More, which is like total comfort food really in terms of URL's, threw a month-long contest starting in September, ending in October. The task at hand was to design a t-shirt that rang true for the inaugural "E For All" expo which was taking place mid October in LA. The EFA expo, a "public" video game event and newbie cousin of E3 is past us, and we heard there was Metal Gear Solid 4 (booya) there along with plenty of Rockband performances.

Well, it brought tears to the eyes this week when threadless posted the winning design. check it out below. it's unreal.

again, image courtesy of threadless.com.

w00t! 148 designs came in and were voted on and through democratic process the end result was this design entitled "Hero Within" designed by winner Mikko Walamies who won a new wii and a trip to E For All.
I bought a shirt immediately in its very Stoked jet back with the art screend in metallic gold ink. so sweet & so stoked.

There still may be a few shirts left, but I'm guessing that in the next few days (if dat), the shirts will be all gone. gone daddy gone.

World Diabetes Day

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:09:00 EST

In support of World Diabetes Day, I thought it might be a good day to plug that we have a sugar free dragon as part of our line-up. Not just low sugar, reduced calorie, or lo-carb, but actually zero sugar...just a kiss of Splenda(R).
Check out the 'gredients for the spellout - us & cdn

And then also when thinking abou types of sugars, all of the other Stoked flavors were chosen to be made with real sugar - no High Fructose Corn Syrup. You're getting better fuel, you crazygonuts gamer, so you're not crashing when you're deep in the realm of the Orange Box or Call of Duty 4.

on eBay Netherlands

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:00:00 EST

The other day I came across this link from eBay...
check it here

Not too shabby, definitely humourous (since it's a bid von die Nederlands) and a good point brought up. I sooo love that it is "RARE".

Stoked is totally rocker awesome for an energy drink collection. If you have an energy drink collection, then think about it, currently there are 6 flavors = 6 cans (PLUS) since it is available in Canada too, that is 6 x 2 = 12 cans to add to your collection! That may equal an entire 20 minutes of entry work into a collection notebook or photo database. For a display shelf, that may equal an entire glass shelf with tiny dragons and knight figurines and maybe a cool blacklight!

If you have all 12 varieties of Stoked, OMG, you should so boast to your friends and let us know too. Shoot us an email or something! You are totally stoked-ti-fied! If you are on your way then cheers to you valiant one!

And to spell out what it is like to have 12 varieties of Stoked? Let's look at what it would be like to have 12 varieties of a Gaming Console. Here we go with Nintendo since they've been around for a while...
1) NES
2) Super NES
3) N 64
4) Game Cube
5) wii
6) Game Boy
7) Game Boy Advance
8) DS
9) Game Boy Advance Color
10) Game Boy Micro
11) DS Lite
12) Virtual Boy (who remembers this?)

Reasons I'm stoked...

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:44:00 EST

Anytime Christmas is in the works I always get excited as, after all it is my favorite holiday of the year. I've had a really great spring and summer in Phoenix, my best friend bought a brand new jetski, and it just happens to be the fastest one on the market (250 horsepower). I'm a little sad that summer is over, and I'll be going back to Vancouver next week to brave the cold weather...though I won't fret, as I know when I get back I will be able to drink some After Burn, the warming energy drink thanks to Stoked Energy :D.

I'm also looking forward to seeing my friends again, as I haven't seen them too much over the past months and we've booked a 3 bedroom condo in Whistler, which is the #1 ski resort in North America and oh so conveniently close to Vancouver. I haven't been there in years and it's so beautiful so I'm definitely 100% Stoked to go!

As far as gaming stuff goes, I'm really happy that my team, girlz 0f destruction just turned 6 years old. I think that's really great we've been together for so long and have made lifelong friendships through playing together. With all of the latest console rage, we've decided our team should be multi-platform and will now play and compete on both the PC and Xbox. I've just been informed that for Christmas, I'll get an Xbox 360 Elite...wooo! I can't wait to try it out. I'm also hoping I can have it airbrushed with the Stoked dragon logo, because the ones in Seattle looked waaay cool...it gave me a wind chill just looking at them :P

Coochie Dimes is currently at the Arcadia Gaming Festival in Montreal, reppin the girlz 0f destruction as out of thousands of entries, she was selected as one of the final 5 to compete at the grand finals. Best of luck to you Yvonna! <3

Speaking of playing on the Xbox...we just picked up a new member, Chickamungus from Atlanta, Georgia. Her main game is Halo 3 and I'm hoping she'll be going to the Winter CPL with Coochie Dimes to compete in that nice 1 million dollar tournament. Once I get mine I think we will be playing a lot together...though I've never been good at Halo, hopefully I'll be able to work on that and get in a lot of practice with my own machine.

You can see more about our new member Chickamungus by heading over to the g0d website. So there's a few things that have me excited....now what are YOU stoked about? ;)

Stoked for MegaFPS Winter Wonder LAN

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:07:00 EST

November is usually around the time it starts snowing here, but the Guys at MegaFPS decided to heat things up a little by hosting a Winter Wonder LAN. I've been a frequent attendee of these events going on a year and a half now, and I always look to make an impression there, but this time around I think was unforgettable. Before the LAN started I was trying to get some Stoked to bring along, however with the clock ticking down the last remaining week before the network went live things looked grim until I got a phone call on the morning of the event from Stoked themselves. Their Pure Pwnage screening had some difficulty here seeing as the theatre was on the 3rd floor of a mall and they couldnt get the goods there to set up, so I was put in contact with "The Truck". "The Truck" wasnt so much a truck, however it did have an EPIC amount of Stoked within, and I wound up with 22 cases of heavenly liquid in my posession to stir things up a bit at the LAN. The rest of the day was spent distracted from schoolwork, and thinking of a way to make people WORK for this stuff (not too hard of course this is a LAN we're talking about). Eventually an idea popped into my head and the plan was set in motion.

A few hours passed and I was all packed up to head to the LAN with a friend when a challenge presented itself to us. How do you fit 2 computers, 2 monitors, bedding, a guitar hero controller, and 3 people into an '08 VW rabbit along with 264 cans of Stoked? It was a game of tetris for a half hour thereafter (and people say gaming has no real life applications HAH) but at last we all fit in. The venue was on the opposite end of town form where I live, and I felt secure knowing in a crash that I would die from drowning in Stoked rather than the impact into another vehicle, though such a demise waws not in the cards for me and we made it to the event. Unloading the Stoked was a bit of a laugh, since the organizers knew I was coming with SOME energy drink in hand, although they didnt know how much. 6 trips between the car and my table later there was a mountain of epic taste sitting on the table which would be my home for 3 days to follow (we moved it to a fridge later). The first cans of Stoked were downed at the hands of Team WarMachine a local multigaming team, who thought it wise to crack jokes and at the same time down an Afterburn in one go. Needless to say a bit (just a bit i swear) ended up on the floor amidst wild laughter. As people arrived and started playing I made an announcement over the building's PA system that would change the attendees sleep schedule for about a week. The announcement was as follows: "All right people, I've got 264 cans of Stoked energy drink in the fridge in the back, and it's a free for all if you want some on ONE condition; you have to put a Stoked sticker on your case." After that there was a minor stampede towards the stack of stickers I recieved with the Stoked, and people went to work decorating their cases with Stoked stickers. Within 10 minutes only 2 cases remained un-Stoked-ified (they had brought their own redbull). The rest of the LAN was filled with very early morning (no rest for the wicked) Enemy Territory: QuakeWars games, Battlefield 2 shenanigens, Unreal Tournamen 3 duels, and extremely metal Guitar Hero showdown between the LAN attendees. In the middle of the LAN, it started snowing, making MegaFPS' weather predictions 2 for 2 (their last LAN was called FrozenLAN, and boy was it ever cold) and impromptu snowball fights began outside. All the flavours ended up making their rounds (even the sugar free!) and by the end of it all there were 3 half-cases remaining so I made another announcement over the PA system making the final cases up for grabs. Much like the initial announcement there was a mini-stampede of gamers scrambling over each other to get ahold of the last remaining cans. I hope the next LAN will be bigger, better, and even more Stoked than the last. I also hope some of YOU drop by if you're in the Edmonton area.

Big thanks to MegaFPS for hosting this event (www.megafps.com), and of course to Stoked energy for making it epic (www.stokedenergy.com).

Really enthused fan says

Fri, 9 Nov 2007 02:18:00 EST

00t! Stoked w00t! click play click play. look how schnazzy that can is - it rulez!!

Now that is some real-deal-hollyfield feedback. So... now that we have some fans lovin' Stoked - methinks is a good time to let the peanut gallery know where to find us in this 'ma.

In Canada, look for us at 7-Elevens alllllll over. Then in western Canada, check us out at Mac's as well. In Quebec, look us up at Couche-Tard. It's all about convenience baby. Check out our "where to buy" section of the site too.

And if you're going to 7-Eleven, grab me some of those pink-frosted Simpson's donuts. delish!

Check out the flyer we were handing out after Pure Pwnage 15...

Pure Pwnage Episode 15 Canadian Premier

Mon, 5 Nov 2007 10:38:00 EST

Q: Where in the RL world can you comfortably meet strangers on the street and in thirty seconds have them showing off like this?...

two fans pwning the big screen

Why... at the Pure Pwnage Episode 15 screening of course! And we had stoked folks on Granville St in Vancouver and at Pure Pwnage headquarters in Toronto (North York) handing out free Stoked and stickers in support of what is a hilarious show about gaming. I mean they call themselves "teh best show evar!" and their fans so know it.

We had Stoked all over the place, hitting up most of the fans. In appreciation for free drink, PP fans broke out serious photo poses such as their beloved "micro", or their "pwnage" - it was mad fun. Here are some great snaps.

these guys rocked - hardcore pwnage fans

showing us some micro love

we even saw some gamer army recruits - maybe a bit incognito

totally Stoked pwnage

Check out more at our flickr gallery here.

We met this really nice guy from Sweden (Sweden -holla!) who cracked open his very first can of Stoked right on the spot, and then gave us his raw first impresssion on camera - check it.

quot;tastes like a sports drink?" LOL n00b

What was rad is that he actually came back ten minutes later and asked that we film him again - he was a changed man! - looove it! Thanks to him and his international crew (his mates were from Netherlands and the States - now that's some hardcore fanage).

quot;less chemicals than red bull" pwn!!!!

Stoked @ Episode 15 was a blast! BTW - Episode 15 will be on Pure Pwnage's website on the 10th, so check it out there if you missed the screening and your chance to get some free tasty Stoked. Also, check out a Pure Pwnage forum posting on Stoked here.

Hey, if you were at the event, show us some love. Send us a comment (some of you have already - score!). Tell us what you're stoked about. And if you totally rock, and you want to relive the magic, make sure you check out Episode 15 with some Stoked! luv u kthx.

Stoked-o'-Lantern

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:19:00 EST

Now of course, be careful - the thrill of making any "o'-lantern" is that you get to stab something, cut it up and then light a fire in it. Sounds dangerous? could be, so proceed with caution.

In this case, I'm starting with an empty can of Stoked Original (it's the darkest), a pair of pointy shears (joyce chen kitchen scissors), an exacto knife, and any votive candle (in this case a scented gift from a friend).

STEP 1) add some pretzels to the equation. you'll appreciate the snack as you toil over your beautiful stoked-o'-lantern.

STEP 2) stab just above the base of the Stoked can with the scissors and then cut off the base.

STEP 3) take the exacto knife and notch out the eye of the dragon.

STEP 4) grab matches or a lighter and light the votive candle (note pretzels missing replaced by matches). Place the can over the candle and...

w00t!!!! You now have yourself one excellent looking stoked-o'-lantern if I may say so myself. Happy Halloween from Stoked.

Guestbook

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:46:00 EST

gamers rule!

We tagged up our guestbook and passed it around the lounge starting the 2nd night.

Here are some favorites:

nicely put - couldn't have said it any better than this!

entry all the way from azerbaijan

Actually, this guy "QuiDxPredatorAze" was great, he stopped by the lounge every night. He showed up at the WCG event with Stoked stickers on him.

Then a guestbook signing by the 1st, 3rd, and 5th place finishers in Dead or Alive - Jeremy (top corner), Carl "Perfect Legend", and Ryan "Offbeat Ninja" Nice!

Upcoming - Pure Pwnage Canadian Screenings

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:07:00 EST

pwnage, uncomfortable - photo courtesy of zurgo

On Saturday, November 3rd Stoked will be out in full force at the screening of the new episode of Pure Pwnage (along with episodes 13 & 14) -- "teh best show evar" in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and North York. Come by after the movie and get Stoked and some swag!

Vancouver: Empire Granville 7 Cinemas, 855 Granville Street Vancouver (604) 684-4051
Calgary: Empire Studio 10 McLeod Trail, 16061 MacLeod Trail SE Calgary (403) 974-0470
North York: Empire Empress Walk 10 Cinemas, 5095 Yonge Street Toronto (416) 223-9586

Check out their previous episodes on their site purepwnage.com.

Stoked Lounge at the Player's Village

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:49:00 EST

w00t! Stoked at Qwest Field. photo courtesy of steve martin

The World Cyber Games 2007 tourney ran Thurs-Sun, so since the games were essentially in our 'hood' (in the scheme of the world, Seattle and Vancouver a duplex), we ran down with our van a whole slew of Stoked and the geeky guts to get out and show some love. Even if that meant being totally hated upon by other sponsors there.

So how do you show love to the worlds worth of gamers? You set up a cozy lounge with free pizza on the hour, unlimited Stoked (of course - derrr), and some phatty xBox 360's. And you let them chill out after a day of exhausting tournament.

And it was exhausting!!!! van damn! Buses left as early as 8 in the morning and came back as late as 10 in the night. I could not think of a better opp for Stoked to be right there providing some energy, some oomphf, some mana, some hit points.

stoked barrel cooler hovering over nessy's summer vacation lagoon at the doubletree

I mentioned that we set up some phatty xBox 360's - these were brand new and we did what was ever-so-natural. We got some street artists to tag them up with Stoked.

how sick is that? lots of compliments on our grafitti'd up xBox's

We had two of these set up LAN-party style (so 4 on 4 Halo 3 - which had JUST come out) and I can't tell you how many people were asking about them. I mean, there are faceplates, which are cool, but these xBox's ruled the nation. Comment or Email us if you dig it.

look that that minifridge shelf - bout to bust!

And by set up, we made sure to set things up real nice with PLENTY of Stoked.

ice diddy daddy

walls o' Stoked

yep, even that - you never know

We did up flyers, which we pass around till they were out.

we were up in the hotel news (for a while) and posted up info on myspace and facebook ahead of time
So... what was the consensus?

two gamers glued to halo 3 4 vs. 4 in the lounge

See for yourself - here are some links from the event...

check out the Stoked Energy flickr page here

ms. x had a picture post on esreality here

and a blog post here

and then another blog post on the girlzdestruct site here

Trinelin blog post on the girlzdestruct site here

more girlz0fdestruction photos on their flickr page here

the lounge got covered by ggl!!! (thanks to Mahmood) - check out the video here

we had a guestbook (more on that later)

Stuart from GGL holds up our Stoked guestbook

how bout some "vibe" clips?

look! I got so excited at one point I pulled a total n00b camera move.

Big-up thanks to everyone who helped set-up the lounge (stevers, jo, eric, slinger, r&j) and everyone who stopped by and brought people by. In the end, we received great feedback from gamers ALL over the world. People were raving about the taste and the lounge stayed open late - lots of energy to keep us awake. Special thanks to Team EG and the girlz 0f Destruction for hanging with us and supporting us throughout the event.

check out the stoked faces - "say stoooked"!

Man there were some great people we met at the games. Of course starting with Team EG - thanks to Alex and his Counter-Strike team. Then there were the wonderful duo of Alana and Elin from g0d who drove out at least twenty minutes each night to hang with us.
We got to meet Stuart, Rance, and Mahmood of GGL media. Randy and Reuben from Team Titans.

Some big US and Canadian players came by like DOA's "Offbeat_Ninja", 3rd place "perfect_legend" and 1st place "black_mamba". Jonathan, Nick, Martin, and Adrian also of Canada. We saw Team eMg from New York just outside Qwest. Team "fnatic" and "SkatanMilla" from Sweden (2nd place DOA), team "Halcyon" from New Zealand who hung out even though their home team lost in rubgy and they were very depressed. Plus all of the gamers from Mexico, Spain, India, Australia, Austria, Finland, Singapore, Korea, Azerbaijan, and Luxembourg just to name a few. Thank you all!

One more thing - if you were some of the gamers and staff that saw us by the buses Friday morning - hope you enjoyed some Stoked - eyeah!

If you were at the event and you want to hollar our way, shoot us an email, hop to our myspace page, join our facebook group. We want to hear from you!

Q What is a video game tournament like

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:28:00 EST

Just a quick blip, because I know for some of you reading this, you're thinking...what is gamer tournament play like? What's actually happening at the WCG?

Here is a tournament area, one of the nicer ones, for the game Gears of War which happened to be set up for xBox 360 console play (notice no keyboards, mouse). You have two teams of five players each that go head to head - so these five guys are teamed together against another team of five. Each team is set up with some nice headphones, where they can rally back and forth to get the opponents. And it's intenze.

video footage of this same team playing

Other tourmanent areas staged PC games like this sorry-my-flash-is-weak set-up for FIFA Soccer 07

and while they are playing FIFA, those guys in the ref stripes? They're not playing soccer for real *chuckle*, no they're judges, other skilled players that know the games inside and out and make the calls on close calls & keep the cheaters in their place (least most of the time I heard).

When the tourney gets down to the finals, games are shown up on large screen, with commentary which is a huge help to us newbies. I was told to try and catch the starcraft final - which put "CN-PJ" from China up against the favorites "Stork" from Korea. Here's a clip.

mind you that the audience is screaming! intenze!~
There is tiered winnings for the top finishers, just like any sport competition out there. Almost half a million in prize money going out this year at WCG finals alone. These teams and individuals practise almost daily, very hardcore when compared to your average gamer. But that is part of the beauty - they push the boundary of game play - that's why fans love them and look up to them.

this is about as close as we could get without starting a fire.

So what about the event itself? Well, it was a bit of a bummer for Team EG - scheduling changes put the team up for battle ahead of planned time, and the Team was eliminated day one. Hey, that's the nature of tourney play.

While I didn't get to hang with them too much at the tourney, I hope they got to burn off some steam at the event itself like this here roller derby rat mascot on Guitar Hero III!

The event itself wasn't half as packed as I imagined. To be fair, I was expecting something crazy like an international CES, or gamer Coachella or even a burning man scenario. Don't get me wrong - there were impressive displays from Samsung, Circuit City, xBox (of course - it is Seattle), Razer, and a few other sponsors. However, foot traffic was surprisingly low.

they did have cheerleaders though - w00t!

There also was this theme song, actually the theme of the WCG - called "Beyond the Game" which I think I heard a bajillion times - imprinted in my brain. Here's video of the song for your enjoyment.

what happens when you DO go beyond the game?

but let me not sound like a curmudgeon here, even though the event wasn't what we were expecting, there was awesome awesome tournament play...more on this here.

Team EG and girlz 0f destruction

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:53:00 EST

Team EG's CS squad - (l to r) "jstv", "evaN", "ian", "Tekn1kal", and "blackpanther"

Team EG's Counter-Strike guys were 5 of the 700 who made qualifiers, prelims, etc. to be entered into the World Cyber Games. Quick intro - these guys play 5 on 5 Counter-Strike (PC based). They are one of the strongest teams in all of North America and totally pwn in Canada.

And yes... that is them rallying round the table, hanging in the Stoked Lounge drinking Stoked! (more on that later)

Team EG's CS squad is comprised of all Canadians, so we had to come down and show some national love (this is the olympics of eSports btw). We got to meet Alex and the Counter-Strike gang - Jesse, Robert, Evan, Ian, and Halston. Congrats to them for making it to the WCG baby!

girlz 0f destruction's (l to r) "Trinelin" and "Ms. X"

The girlz 0f destruction, an all female gaming team, were also coming up for the World Cyber Games. We've been chatting with Alana, aka "Ms. X" for months now so it was nice to hang with them in person. Quick intro - these two ladies are duel-style gamer FPS pwners! - Trinelin in Unreal Tournament and Alana in Quake 3.

Seriously...I watched Alana play Quake for a good solid half hour and she was undefeated - even against other pros! Unreal Tournament and Quake weren't on the WCG's roster of games, so they came up to help promote and frag some poor helpless boys.

Sidenote: I got to meet Alana's mom too, very sweet lady. She mentioned that Alana was undefeated out of 144 plays over a previous tourney like this. Did I mention she pwns?!??

Check out some footage I grabbed...

now that is some serious gaming!

Rewind - The Great Canadian Video Game Competition

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:20:00 EST

Stoked at Vidfest 2007

Summer was busy for us. Like waaaaay busy. First off we launched an entire line of Stoked Energy across US & Canada back in June (yes, as in this past June). Then we added two totally revolutionary, interactive flavors to savor on top of that - After Burn and Wind Chill. Both got heavy coverage on the PR tip, but one event kind of slipped under radars and I thought it uber-important to blip about it.

Back in June, we found out about "The Great Canadian Video Game Competition" or GCVGC, which is a nationwide competition to find a dern good video game developer out there. Canada's top emerging video game companies were as busy as we were developing games in a democratic-style competition to win some rec and moolah and to get their games developed and out to the world. 70 companies (70 developers!!!!!) were narrowed down to four bigun's - Big Blue Bubble of London, Ont., Cerebral Vortex Games of St. Catharines, Ont., MindHabits Inc. of Montreal, and Hothead Games Inc. of our hometown Vancouver.

In July, the voting started, and we thought to ourselves - let's totally support these game developers (what without there would be no games no?). They are working endlessly on their games in a competition of video games, so we knocked on each of their doors and dropped of case after case of Stoked Energy in support.

winners MindHabit - photo courtesy of vidfest

Then on September 22nd, at Vidfest 2007 in Vancouver, we stopped by with some Stoked Energy for some of the brightest and trendiest minds in new media. Our very own CEO helped present the people's choice award that went to HotHead games "Swarm" and gave them a year's supply of Stoked! (news 1, news 2). In the end, MindHabits Inc won the GCVGC for their handheld winning game "MindHabits Trainer"! w00t!

Leading Brands Inc. Adds Two Revolutionary New Functional Drinks to its STOKED Energy Drink Lineup

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:29:00 EST

VANCOUVER, CANADA - July 30, 2007 - Leading Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: LBIX), North America's only fully integrated healthy beverage company, is pleased to announce the addition of two revolutionary new functional drinks to its lineup of STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks: Wind Chill(TM) and After Burn(TM).

In keeping with their respective names, Wind Chill(TM) delivers a cooling sensation while After Burn(TM) causes a temporary burning feeling at the back of one's throat that can only be properly quenched by drinking more After Burn(TM): all this in two great-tasting, unique flavors. Due to anticipated demand, Wind Chill(TM) and After Burn(TM) will initially be available only on allocation to the Company's distributors and existing STOKED(TM) retailers. Check out STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks at www.StokedEnergy.com. "Bet you can't drink just one!"

Leading Brands Chairman and CEO, Ralph McRae said: "These are much more than two flavor extensions. I don't believe that the soft drink industry has ever seen anything like Wind Chill(TM) or After Burn(TM). There is certainly nothing in the energy drink category to compete with these innovative new products. Wind Chill(TM) and After Burn(TM) are truly in a class by themselves. Our in-house R&D team is to be congratulated for creating two great tasting functional beverages that each delivers a unique physical impact."

Mr. McRae continued: "Now with six distinctive offerings, including Original, Sugar Free, Tropical Orange and Dragonberry, STOKED(TM) can command a more important and impactful retail shelf position. As with the rest of the STOKED(TM) lineup, Wind Chill(TM) and After Burn(TM) are formulated with Cane Sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup."

Wind Chill(TM) and After Burn(TM) should be available for shipping in both the US and Canada before the end of Summer. Please contact your Leading Brands sales representative immediately to register your orders. First come, first served.

Leading Brands will continue to provide operational updates in its monthly newsletter on the first of most months, posted at www.LBIX.com.

About Leading Brands, Inc.
Leading Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:LBIX) is North America's only fully integrated premium beverage company. Leading Brands creates, designs, bottles, distributes and markets its own proprietary premium beverage brands such as TrueBlue(R) Blueberry Juice, LiteBlue(R) Blueberry Juice, TREK(R) Natural Sports Drinks, NITRO(R) Energy Drinks, STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks, INFINITE Health(TM) Water and Caesar's(R) Cocktails via its unique Integrated Distribution System (IDS) (TM) which involves the Company finding the best and most cost-effective route to market. The Company strives to use the best natural ingredients hence its mantra: Better Ingredients - Better Brands. Find out more about Leading Brands at www.LBIX.com.

Sponsorship Agreement Between STOKED Energy Drink and Telefilms Great Canadian Video Game Competition

Fri, 6 Jul 2007 01:14:00 EST

VANCOUVER, CANADA - July 6, 2007 - Leading Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: LBIX), North America's only fully integrated healthy beverage company, is pleased to announce a product sponsorship agreement between Stoked(TM) Energy Drink and Telefilm's Great Canadian Video Game Competition. Through its iconic and interactive brand, Stoked(TM) Energy will connect its products and partners from the explosive video game industry to energy drink enthusiasts across North America.

Telefilm's Great Canadian Video Game Competition announced on March 21, 2007, that the original 10 teams competing in this innovative competition had been short-listed to 4 Canadian-based game development firms. These four firms have each been given $250,000 to work through to the September deadline creating playable prototypes, which will be judged by a jury of industry mentors.

In addition to their cash prize, these four companies have also received a three month supply of Stoked(TM) Energy drink to inspire minds and fuel bodies through the creative process and to assist these elite game designers in seeing their dreams through fruition.

The four Round 2 winning companies are:

Big Blue Bubble, London, Ontario
Cerebral Vortex Games, St. Catharine's, Ontario
MindHabits Inc., Montreal, Quebec
Hothead Games Inc., Vancouver, BC

About Telefilm Canada's Great Canadian Video Game Competition
The Great Canadian Video Game Competition provides a needed opportunity for Canadian game developers to build their own capacity and original intellectual property. Competition information, including company profiles, is available at www.telefilm.gc.ca/game. The Competition is made possible through Telefilm Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada New Media Fund and the sponsorship of industry partners Electronic Arts, Radical Entertainment and Ubisoft.

Developing and promoting the Canadian audiovisual industry
Telefilm Canada is a federal cultural agency dedicated to the development and promotion of the Canadian audiovisual industry. Telefilm provides financial support to the private sector to create distinctively Canadian productions that appeal to domestic and international audiences. The Corporation also administers the funding programs of the Canadian Television Fund.

Announcing Multi-Year Sponsorship Agreement Between STOKED Energy Drink and Video Game Champions TEAM EG

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:53:00 EST

VANCOUVER, CANADA - June 26, 2007 - Leading Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: LBIX), North Americas only fully integrated healthy beverage company, is pleased to announce a multi-year sponsorship agreement between long-time video game champions: Team EG and STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks.

Team EG is comprised of 20 of the Worlds top video gamers. Established in 1999, Team EG is one of the most recognizable brands in the fast growing, competitive video game industry. They are the undisputed Canadian champions in Counter-Strike(TM), Quake 4(TM) and Halo 2(TM). Their Counter-Strike(TM), Quake 4(TM) and World of Warcraft(TM) teams rank consistently in the top 3 in their respective fields in North America. Find out more about Team EG at www.myeg.ca.

Millions of people are actively involved in the video gaming worldwide. It is one of the fastest growing activities of any kind, anywhere. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 69% of American heads of households play computer and video games. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. 38% of all gamers are women.

Through Stoked(TM) Energys iconic and interactive website and brand, Team EGs players and accomplishments will be profiled to gamers and energy drink consumers across North America.

Team EG will represent the Stoked(TM) brand online and on tour while annihilating their competitors in events. Working together, these two world-class brands will share a common goal: global recognition and undisputed industry dominance.

Leading Brands Chairman and CEO, Ralph McRae said: "Team EG will be an important aspect of our launch of STOKED(TM) Energy Drinks. They have had long standing success in an industry that is really still in its early stages. They have a proven and consistent record of success. As a Premium sponsor, STOKED(TM) will have a constant presence with Team EG and its members. We also hope to be able to bring added recognition to their continuing efforts to be the best at their craft in the World."

Leading Brands will continue to provide operational updates in its monthly newsletter on the first of most months, posted at www.LBIX.com.

About Team EG
Firmly embedded in the evolution of eSports worldwide, Team EG has been competing for over 5 years, making it one of the most established professional gaming organizations in the world. They continue to dominate on the world stage as the undisputed Canadian champions and ranked in North Americas top 3; having swept every major Canadian event since their inception. Team EGs unique combination of talent, stability and professionalism allows them to serve as ambassadors of both competitive video gaming and Stoked(TM) Energy.

Stoked Energy Blog

King of Qin and the Dragon Emperor

O RLY: Get Hero'd

Get on it: Final Fantasy on DS, Aerosmith on your five button, UT3

Coolermaster Cosmos S

The package:

The outside:

The inside:

The Construction:

Conclusion:

Pros:

Cons:

Final Score: 8/10

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Canada Day!!!

Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm) Winners Announced!

CONGRATULATIONS MARK HUTCHINSON FROM BRAMPTON, ONTARIO.

THE WINNER OF THE ESCALATING PRIZE PACK(TM) AND THE OTHER GRAND PRIZE IN THE STOKED(TM) ENERGY GAMER CHALLENGE(TM).

CONGRATULATIONS DOUG FIALA FROM MESA, ARIZONA

THE WINNER OF $10,000 FROM THE STOKED(TM) ENERGY GAMER CHALLENGE(TM).

Get on it: Battlefield: Bad Company, Guitar Hero and more...

How to Survive: the Longest Day of the Year

How to Survive: the Longest Day of the Year (June 21st, 3008)

Planning Ahead: LiquidCa$h Fundraising

Quick look at May Games

Get on it: Deadliest Catch, Space Invaders Extreme out this week

Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm) comes to a close

On Energy Drink Reviews: Stoked Original Sugar Free

Final Week of Stoked Gamer Challenge!!!!

Get on it: Metal Gear Solid 4, DragonBall Z out this week

Stoked about World Poker Tour Canada(tm)

O RLY - Stoked part of Wired's How-To Wiki

On Energy Drink Reviews: Stoked Original

Look at Them Purty Floats

Back to Basics: Earning Rank (PT 5)

Get on it: Ninja Gaiden 2, Lego Indy out this week

Summer LAN List

LANageddon Recap

Snaked!

Rocket to Russia

EG.usa in Russia!

Of Lord Stanley and Poker Dogs

Iron Man!!

MegaFPS MegaLAN II event Recap

Stoked Loops: What's out and around this week?

Blips and Sips: A little GTA4 help, Team Fortress weekend, and more...

Grand Theft Auto 4 out t'day!

More CoD4 news from EG!

Audiosurf by TheBestGameEver

Stoked for Mega LAN

LOLcatz, Guitar Hero III gets shredded, and Yoda Rick Rolls me

UT3 lives?

April Fool's Day

Back to basics: Play on Facebook(r)! Play on MySpace(r)! (PT 4)

Back to basics: Error - My confirmation email is in eternal void (PT 3)

Back to basics: Mastering the Point System (PT 2)

+1

Daily +1

Daily Bonus +2

Referral +5

A Recap Scenario

Points = Entry

Back to basics: Registering for the Stoked Energy Gamer Challenge (PT 1)

So...what is this Challenge?

So...ok, it's a trivia game, how do I sign-up?

So...I filled out the form. Is that it?

CoD4 Team results

Team Stoked's Team EG is off to play CoD4 at i33!!

Finding a theme song worthy for the challenge

Get on it!!!! Stoked(tm) Energy Gamers Challenge(tm)

w00t!

So wot's da next step???

Team EG's CoD4 Team begins play

Gamer Pastimes

Star Invitational

ESL Antics

Leading Brands, Inc. Announces the Stoked(tm) Energy Gamer Challenge(tm)

Charlie Oscar Delta keeps the lead in January

wii would like the Oscar

Team EG picks up a Call of Duty 4 Team

Final Score:
8/10

CONGRATULATIONS
MARK HUTCHINSON FROM BRAMPTON, ONTARIO.

CONGRATULATIONS
DOUG FIALA FROM MESA, ARIZONA

How to Survive:
the Longest Day of the Year
(June 21st, 3008)

1) Stoked Energy Website
2) Facebook (brand new) - we also have a group set-up there "Did you know I drank Stoked?"
3) Myspace
4) YouTube
5) Flickr
6) Twitter
7) Technorati