Confessions of a professional gamer

GR: What is the best breakfast?

Laurent Keoula: Currently, the best breakfast for me is a recipe I got from Manya from the Berlin team. You mix 2 eggs, 2 bananas, some milk, and some honey in a blender and you're good to go.

Mike Stanowski: Bad question because I'm health and fitness fanatic. You asked for it! 1st breakfast: Banana, chocolate whey protein shake with milk, and instant coffee. 2nd breakfast: Four eggs on two whole wheat cinnamon raisin English muffins, 1 big bowl of oatmeal with fruit and milk. If you didn't notice, I've been eating a LOT lately.

Garett Bambrough: The best breakfast is at this place I go to in Stouffville, Canada. There's one dish with four eggs, three pancakes, three pieces of bacon, three pieces of ham, two sausages, potatoes, and bread. Oh man, it's good and cheap!

Chad Neil: Don't get me started on breakfast! It's my favorite meal of the day. My breakfast of choice would have to be classic. I like eggs over easy, bacon, sausage, sourdough toast, hash browns, and maybe some pancakes and waffles. Gotta love breakfast!

Chris Harris: Usually I don't eat breakfast because it makes my stomach hurt, but if I do eat something, it will be cereal or some type of granola bar. I don't really eat much in general because everything seems to fill me up.

Alessandro Avallone: Italian ham and cheese toast.

Vanessa Arteaga: I like having scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon. It's the most delicious breakfast ever.

Yazan Ammari: What is the best breakfast? I normally eat nothing for breakfast. I know. Bad, bad clown.

Above: Yazan "clown" Ammari looks pretty pumped for someone who didn't start his day off with bacon and eggs or some crazy Rocky protein shake

GR: Any tips for improving your kill/death ratio in Counter-Strike: Source?

Laurent Keoula: There are many things you can do. If you need to improve your aim you can play some CS deathmatch and work on your weapon control. If you need to get more experience, you just need to play pickup games with other players at your skill level.

Mike Stanowski: The best general advice I can give is to pick one facet of your game and work on it individually. Isolating pieces of your game and perfecting them one at a time will ensure that you get the maximum output in the shortest amount of time. Also, if you want to improve in general, take some time to play the game with a 100% focus on improvement. At that point, fun is an afterthought but if you really want it, you have to grind it out.

Above: Mike "Paradox" Stanowski suggests focusing on improving one facet of your game at a time if you want more frags

GR: Who is your best Dead or Alive 4 character and why?

Vanessa Arteaga: I would probably say my best character is Hitomi because she was the character I had used for so long and have the most experience with.

Chris Harris: I would say Gen Fu and Hitomi are my best characters. I am comfortable with them and won't panic if something goes wrong because I know how to deal with all the situations that come with it.

GR: Are there any characters that competitors seem to pick more often than others?

Chris Harris: People have been picking Gen Fu. But before that there wasn't a character (offline at tournaments) that people picked more than others.

Vanessa Arteaga: I'd say Kasumi is a popular choice - and Gen Fu - because they are fairly simple characters and it's easier to pick up wins.

Above: Vanessa "Vanessa" Arteaga's best character is Hitomi. She's also one of the only OPTX members without a totally l337 alias

GR: What's your favorite track? What are some your best lap times?

Chad Neil: My favorite CGS track would have to be Inland, Taipan. My best time around there would have to be 57.9 in the stock TVR Speed Twelve. The car isn't as easy to drive as you think.

Kevin Uribe: My favorite CGS track is Inland, Taipan. It's a fictional track only used in Forza. It's a great track all around with lots of turns.

GR: Can you share some tips for shaving down your times?

Chad Neil: Try to carry as much speed into the corners without going off the track. It's very important to come into a corner with speed while also getting good exit speed. Try to cut into corners as tight as possible too.

Kevin Uribe: Racing in manual is a huge advantage. Racing manual in almost every racing game is faster than automatic, so getting used to it should be a top priority if you want to contend. Chad and I did some CGS track walkthroughs that should be on www.sfoptx.com very soon.

Above: Kevin "SACKAMONJARO" Uribe tears up a track in Forza Motorsport 2

GR: Hey Alessandro, we understand that you grew up in Andora, Italy. What are some of the differences between soccer fans here and football fans there?

Alessandro Avallone: It's really different. Football in Italy is the national sport. You grow up as a kid watching football matches with your dad and it's almost impossible that you are not going to cheer for the same team as your family. If you pick a sport when you're a kid, 90 percent of the time, you will choose to play soccer. It's just crazy here. Fans go to the stadium from every part of this country just to support their team by singing the team songs during matches and so forth.

In America there a lot of other sports way more mainstream than soccer, and the fans are not into the whole thing as much as the people here. But I have to say, since Beckham started playing for the Galaxy team, some people actually know what's going in Major League Soccer, which impressed me.
GR: Are Italians really better lovers?

Alessandro Avallone: Ask the ladies!!!

GR: Any tips on how to improve our game? We're Americans, so we almost never play FIFA

Alessandro Avallone: The best tip I can give is to watch the players play and learn what they do. You can see all the matches from the 2007 and 2008 season on www.thecgs.com.