Xtreme Gaming

Almost a year ago, Pickle invited me to check out a LAN Café here in beautiful San Antonio. At about the same time, a friend of mine in Houston, Tx was opening a LAN Café of his own. I began to wonder what was so popular about cyber cafés, what makes them so attractive and appealing? To answer that, I have taken it upon myself to research that very question. Maybe some of you have been to a cyber café, but there are some of you that have not. This will inform you how gaming is affecting your local community. Gaming is huge part of entertainment today, and being able to enjoy yourself outside your room or the comfort of your own home is a great way to build a community of gamers.

The city of San Antonio is blessed to have the best LAN café in North America hands down. Xtreme Gaming Cyber Café located off of the 5400 block of Babcock Road is not your ordinary cyber café. This humble establishment sits between a Greek and Chinese Restaurant in a strip center in the middle of the north side of town. As you walk into the café, you are immediately greeted by rows and rows of top of the line PC's. The cafes décor is covered with movie and gaming posters. On this day like any other day, every PC in the house is occupied. As I stroll around the café, I notice some folks are battling it out in a Halo match, some are playing Far Cry, and some Doom 3. At the other end of café, some are gathered around the counter buying some munchies and drinks. Gaming and sugar go hand in hand at the XG by the way. Not to mention the price for snacks are a steal! Behind the counter we see owner and operator Martin Kruse (aka MrFurious) tending to customers. MrFurious, with a grinning smile, happily and graciously decided to take some time away, to entertain my presence and answer some of my questions.

Pretz: So what made you come up with the idea of starting your own cyber café?

MrFurious: Since I've been in computers all my life, prior to XG, I owned and operated a computer store. Since I was so into PC gaming, I kind of put two and two together. My good friend Patrick Pilgrim (aka Kron) and I looked into the cyber café business. We found out about iGames and started from there.

Pretz: Wow so you and Kron pretty much took care of everything huh?

MrFurious: Yeah we built the PC's from scratch, the tables they sit on, and the counters. It was a ton of work!!

Pretz: Yeah, I bet. So what kind of machines are you guys running?

MrFurious: Well we have 20 PC's, all have over 2 ghz of processor speed, five of those PC's are running ATI 9800 pro video cards, and another one is running 6800 Nvidia GeForce card. The rest are running ATI 9500 pros, most have about 512mb of ram, and some have over a gig of ram. I may be leaving out some stuff, to many computers to remember. And of course we house a blazing fast T-1 connection.

Pretz: Sheesh!! You guys have some hauling machines in there. How many games does XG have to choose from and which ones are the most popular?

MrFurious: Well we have over 50 PC games that range in genre. The most popular games right now are Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield 1942.

Pretz: That's a lot of games. I'm sure you get quite the crowd here. What is it like on a day to day basis and how is the community? MrFurious: Things start to pick up around noon then slows. At around 4 or so that's when it starts to get busy. As you can see we can get busy at times. For the most part the community here is very pleasant; there is a lot of chatter and laughter going on. It's great to see people hang out and game, it's a great atmosphere.

Pretz: Now you mentioned iGames before. What is iGames?

MrFurious: iGames is an organization that provides events and programs to lan centers across North America. We currently are involved in eight leagues a year. We just recently won the Battlefield Vietnam season. Other leagues that are just around the corner are Call of Duty, Command and Conquer: Generals, Battlefield 1942, and Medal of Honor. So it helps building a community and getting people involved.

Pretz: Umm yeah... Remind me again what the prize was for winning the Vietnam Tournament?

MrFurious: It was nothing big. Just all new ATI X800 video cards. I thought it was a nice prize.

Pretz: Yeah nice is not the word I would use! So I take it you're a big FPS fan?

MrFurious: Recently yes, but I have always been into the RPG genre. One of my first favorite games was Ultima One. I played it on my apple computer, but I also had a Commodore Vic 20 and a 64. Good 'ol 4k ram!!

Pretz: WOW!! Those computers came out when I was born!! Dude your old school!! That's awesome though, you're a true classic gamer!!

Pretz: XG usually has a packed house. Are you guys planning to expand or move in the near future? MrFurious: Well I am planning to expand later, moving might be out of the question considering we are under a lease. But it's really encouraging to see a full house, it just reminds me that San Antonio has a huge community of PC Gamers.

Pretz: And I'm proud to say that I'm a part of that community. So what do you love about Snackbar Games?

MrFurious: The food...I love the food... oh wait! Snowcone is my favorite, I think he is so COOL!

Pretz: Thanks for hanging out MrFurious. I love spending my hard earned money here, because XG is a great place to game. I think XG really brings the gaming community together.

MrFurious: It's my pleasure!

If you are in the San Antonio area or maybe you are planning to make it down here, stop by and check out Xtreme Gaming Cyber Café. If you want more information about XG, you can check them out at www.goxgaming.com .

Sep 3, 2004 - 11:27 am | 5 comments
Marco Ortega