Ninja Gaiden Sigma with Ayinger Oktober Fest - Märzen

While watching me play Ninja Gaiden Sigma, a friend commented that he rarely sees me getting so angry when playing video games. His observation was accurate. I'll yell at the TV a lot no matter what game I'm playing, but I find this one to be particularly frustrating. It may be the only reboot of a classic series that is harder than its NES counterpart. The game stars Ryu, a ninja who kills a lot of people for some reason. The original Ninja Gaiden was applauded for its cut-scenes that added depth to its narrative. Ninja Gaiden Sigma (which I'm playing on Playstation 3), is a step backwards from this. I have no idea what is going on or why I'm doing the things I'm doing.

Ninja-fighting is awesome, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma can be pretty fun at times. Dicing up enemy soldiers with katanas gives me some satisfaction, but it never takes me long before I start dying. And while I respect the game's developers for giving gamers some old-school punishment, sitting through 5 minutes of load screens every time I die makes things get boring fast. Fortunately, the good lord gave us a delicious cure for boredom called beer.

I chose to drink Ayinger's Oktober Fest - Märzen while playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Getting my ass kicked over and over makes me thirsty, and I thought a reasonably light lager would be appropriately refreshing. The beer is deeply golden in color. It as an aroma of fresh bread and toast with subtle notes of almonds and golden raisins. It is amazingly smooth. Pleasantly malty, it has a subtle sweetness with faint traces of iron.
Every beer I've ever had from Ayinger has been the best beer I've ever had in its respective style. Their Oktoberfest is no exception. I think that it went great with Ninja Gaiden Sigma, but probably just because I like it so much. So let that be a lesson to us all. If you force yourself to play a shitty game in order to drink booze with it so you can write about it on the internet, drink booze that you like a lot so that the experience isn't entirely terrible.

Heavy Rain and a Big Glass of Vodka

My monthly contribution to Tech.li just got posted here. It's a review of my pairing of Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain with a glass of vodka. Check it out!

Mass Effect 2 with a Bunch of Pink Wines

Continuing my trend of writing about sequels to games that I have not played, today's pairing features BioWare's Mass Effect 2. BioWare has been responsible for some of my favorite video games of all time, particularly the Baldur's Gate series. Mass Effect 2 is a sci-fi-themed action-RPG. In the role of Commander Shephard, the game has you fly around the universe recruiting party members for a dangerous assault on a group of aliens that threatens to destroy all organic life.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I have played in a long time, and possibly the most engrossing RPG I've played since Final Fantasy VII. I wanted to find a good pairing for it. Sci-fi games always give me trouble when it comes to figuring out a good booze to drink with them. In the past, I had success drinking a Penedes white wine while playing as the Protoss in Starcraft II. One of my earliest experiments for this blog was to pair Mega Man 2 with a German Riesling Kabinett. This also worked well. Keeping this in mind, I decided to try drinking a rosé with Mass Effect 2. In the game, you can actually go to the bar in your ship's lounge and pour yourself glasses of pink liquid. I took this as a good sign that my pairing would work well.
But why pair a game with one booze when you can pair it with three? My good buddies Nathan and Paul joined me, each bringing a rosé of their own. I supplied a 2010 Muga Rosado, Nathan brought a 2008 Castillo de Jumilla Monastrell Rosado, and Paul submitted a 2010 Les Acanthes Tavel Rosé. The Muga is a pale salmon. It tastes of tart cherry and strawberry, with some floral notes on the nose. It possesses a shimmering acidity that drives a nice, stoney finish. The Jumilla and Tavel are both a bit darker and bolder. The Jumilla smells of raspberries and tastes of cherry and prune. It is a bit juicier and chalkier than the Muga. The Tavel is the sweetest of the three, though it has a reasonably dry finish. With more body and less acidity, it contains pleasant notes of strawberry jam.
I would enjoy playing Mass Effect 2 with any booze known to man. Pink wines made for a particularly good accompaniment, as I can drink them for several hours without severely damaging either my intellect or my motor skills. And after drinking enough of them in the presence of my friends who share my adolescent sensibilities, the wines helped me to remember the true goal of Mass Effect 2: Trying to score with sexy aliens.

Uncharted 2 and Sierra Nevada Ovila Saison: The First of My Contributions to Tech.li

I recently met a gentleman named Edward Domain. We both happened to be enjoying fine craft beer at one of Chicago's fine drinking establishments, and we got to talking about our websites. Mr. Domain founded Tech.li, a website dedicated to putting the spotlight on tech-related innovation and entrepreneurship. I told him about this blog, and he asked if I would want to contribute a monthly article to his site. I couldn't turn down a chance to further spread the gospel of conscientiously pairing video games with booze. The first of my reviews for Tech.li was posted here this morning. Check it out!

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

I started playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves a couple days ago. As I've mentioned before, I like to play through a good chunk of a game before I pick a booze that I'm going to pair it with. That's not to say that I don't drink any booze at all while I'm playing through the early stages of a game. I just like to get a feel for the game in order to help me choose a suitable booze. That rhymed! Anyway, I haven't had any great ideas yet, so chime in if you have any suggestions.

L.A. Noire and Leopold Brothers American Small Batch Whiskey and Redemption Rye

This post has been a long time coming. It took me a while to get my hands on L.A. Noire, and like with most epic games I discuss on this blog, I wanted to get into the meat of it before I reviewed a pairing. Tonight I finally sat down with two fine American whiskies to investigate their pertinence to L.A. Noire.

Rockstar Games' L.A. Noire looks like a sandbox game, though it is fairly linear. You are put in the shoes of Cole Phelps, a veteran of the Second World War and a rookie detective for the Los Angeles Police Department. The game has you investigate crime scenes, interview witnesses, interrogate suspects and fight the occasional gun battle. Set in the late 1940's, the game does an amazing job creating an immersive environment. The music, graphics, and script all draw heavily on historical fact. The game is dark, and many of the crimes that Cole investigates are on the grizzly side. Grizzly crimes call for strong booze.

I had a bit of Leopold Brothers American Small Batch Whiskey on my shelf. I also had a bit of Redemption Rye. The Leopold Bros. whiskey is based on pre-prohibition recipes for America's favorite liquor. This struck me as being inappropriate for a game inspired by the noir genre. Noir is characterized largely by post-war disillusionment. After World War II, the liquor industry was not purveying pinnacles of craftsmanship. Characters is Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett novels drink bourbon, and sometimes rye. Redemption Rye, therefore, may have been a more historically appropriate choice, but since I only had a little of it left, and since LBASBW tastes pretty damn good, I decided to try them side-by-side while playing through a case called "Manifest Destiny."
L.A. Noire drives players through scenery both shocking and mundane. An analogy of Jekyll and Hyde may be a bit dramatic, but the two whiskies I drank with the game exhibited a similar polarity. LBASBW smells of black tea, prune and pear. It is not exactly mellow at 86 proof but it is well-balanced. It is distilled from corn and rye, and a subtle graininess comes through, along with a faint hint of confectioner's sugar. Redemption Rye is a substantially more brash whiskey. It smells spicy, and it tastes spicier. Clove, nutmeg and cinnamon dominate this rye. A bit of pear and citrus come through, but this is a 92 proof whiskey that burns the tongue. Neither of these whiskies has the degree of toasty vanilla that bourbons do. I liked them both, though I especially appreciated the more balanced LBASBW.
I'm not sure I've ever had a whiskey that wouldn't go well with L.A. Noire. For most of the case that I played through while researching this post, I preferred drinking the Leopold Bros. But towards the end of it, the action heated up, and the plot started twisting in surprising ways. At that point I started to reach for the stronger stuff. The combination of whiskies helped me develop a new strategy during gun battles that I call "Always empty your entire clip when you shoot at someone." It works pretty well.
In conclusion, whiskey is good.

People Who Know What's Up

Some people know what's up. Some people don't. My man Kesith at Kesith's Gaming Rants wrote a post on drinking Dogfish Head's Chateau Jiahu while playing Chrono Trigger. Kesith know what's up. Another person who knows what's up is my man Erik, who recorded my band playing at the Red Line Tap back in June. We've just posted three tracks from the show here. It's got little to do with video games, although it does have something to do with booze.