5-Hour Energy Attempts Assassination Of A Journalist By Sending Me 24 Bottles Of Gamer Shots (2024)

As someone who spends the vast majority of their working time and personal time sitting down, managing my energy level can be difficult. I also don’t really drink or do drugs, and I kicked cigarettes when I stopped working on film sets (where it was pretty much a job requirement to smoke), so these days if I want to catch a buzz, I’m reaching for caffeine, taurine, guarana, and of course, B12 complex. I don’t know what any of those things are, but I know they make me feel smart, focused, and excited about writing my little opinions on the internet.

I’ve already been at my desk plugging away at this and that for almost eight hours today, yet I feel like I could jump out of my seat right now, scoop up Fay Wray, and climb to the top of the Empire State Building. Is guzzling energy drinks everyday bad for me? Shut up. I’m here for a good time, not a long time.

I love energy drinks. I’ve written about how much I love energy drinks, and I think I’ve got a few good years left before I have to start worrying about things like heart disease and giving up my one vice. Last month, the very nice folks at 5-Hour Energy (who are going to absolutely hate the cheeky headline of this article) hit me up to see if I’d be interested in trying out their new Gamer Shots - a new line of flavors designed specifically to match the gamer lifestyle.

Obviously, I said yes, and a couple of weeks later two 12-packs and a trucker hat showed up at my door. It’s been a week since the bottles arrived and I’ve learned a couple things: 1. 5-Hour Energy makes me feel like a god. 2. I cannot be trusted with 24 little bottles of concentrated energy juice.

The new Gamer Shot comes in three flavors: Pineapple Charge, Rocket Raspberry, and Apple Bash, but before I get into those, I have to talk about the Gamer Shot branding. 5-Hour Energy isn’t pretending that it cooked up a new performance-enhancing formula like G Fuel - this is just a branding play. The logo even still includes a silhouette of a guy running. Not very gamer, if you ask me.

The flavors are intense, in a good way. When I’ve had 5-Hour Energy before I’ve always found them kind of bland. The flavors are so forgetful that you might end up drinking three or four of them back to back simply because you forgot you even drank one. The gamer flavors are strong though, and I especially enjoyed the punch of Pineapple Charge, despite the fact that I usually don’t enjoy pineapple-y things.

5-Hour Energy is looking to break into the gaming and esports scene with new flavors and a new design, but the approach comes off a little out of touch. It’s clearly going for a retro-inspired Ready Player One vibe that looks exactly like what you’d think a lame brand would do to try to attract a gaming audience. It’s all neon and polygons and VR headsets and all the most tired tropes.

If you head over to the website you’ll find cliche copy like, “Are you ready, player? This is your chance to level up your game like never before.” The success of brands like Gamer Supps and G Fuel comes from their partnerships with streamers and pro players, and without that, 5-Hour Energy is going to have a hard time getting anyone’s attention, especially with such hackneyed branding.

That said, I love me some 5-Hour Energy. These little two-ounce shots contain 200mg of caffeine - almost double the amount in a 12oz can of Red Bull - plus a whole bunch of other junk that makes up its 2000mg “energy blend”. 5-Hour Energy hits you so fast it’s unbelievable. All this week I’ve been tossing them back, and within just a few minutes of ingestion my mind is already fully engaged. All the important questions about life in the universe start swirling around in my head, like, what does being successful mean to me? Or, am I already too old to make big changes in my life? And, if I drink another 5-Hour Energy, is that ten hours of energy, or five hours of double energy? Before I knew it my fingers were flying across the keyboard and I was in the zone.

The downside of blasting off on a mega shot of caffeine is the crash that comes after. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a fall off as severe as the one I get from these Gamer Shots. I drank one in the morning last Saturday before playing in a Lorcana tournament - crushed the tournament, obviously - then when I got home six hours later, I passed out so fast that I don’t even remember lying down. I drank 5-Hour Energy four days in a row, and on two of those days I ended up taking a late-afternoon nap, something I never do.

The thing about energy drinks is that, though I love them, I don’t keep them in the house. I drink a lot less of them if I have to go out and buy one, and since getting 24 of these bad boys in the mail last week, I’ve been going a little overboard. I got two of the 12-count variety packs to try all three flavors, and boy have I tried them. I keep trying them. I’m starting to wonder if someone over at 5-Hour Energy read the mean things I wrote about Halo: CE and now they’re trying to get me, but that’s probably just the anxiety talking. I have been drinking a lot of caffeine lately, after all.

You can find all of the new Gamer Shot flavors, including the web-exclusive variety pack, as well as the gamer apparel, on 5-Hour Energy’s website. If anyone wants to split a 12-pack 12 ways to stop me from chugging these bad boys until my blood tastes like Rocket Raspberry, hit me up.