The Pipe Bit: Game Review: Pipeman Calabashi! Dark Twist Arena

Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, $59.95

     By Chris Rentner           

      I regret interrupting my seventeen-part series on the nomenclature of pre-Transition Barlings, but as long-time readers of this column know, I occasionally review a pipe-themed videogame as a public service.

            The latest installment of Pipeman Calabashi came out last Tuesday.     Going back to the NES, this pipe-smoking simulation has a long history and varied quality; but the series debut on next-gen hardware revitalizes the character of Calabashi.  The last installment, Pipeman Calabashi!:  Tobacco Moon, was a farming sim, and a bit clumsy to play on the Xbox and Playstation 2.  Now, the series has gone back to its roots as a faithful sim.  Calabashi is on a quest to find the perfect pipe tobacco blend—if he can defeat the challenges on his quest.

            I’m also glad to report that for the first time in Calabashi, you can choose the preference of your player:  English or Aromatic.  Your choice of tobacco impacts the cut-scene dialog, as in an early chat with Pipemama, your guide through the game.  If you’re playing as Aromatic, she comments, “The smoking tobacco is rich and sweet!”  As an English smoker, she holds her nose, fans the air and exclaims, “That Latakia tobacco is like a campfire!”

            Character creation, in addition to Aromatic or English, includes customizable pipes (finish, length, bent or straight, Lucite or Vulcanite stem), lighters, and pouches.  While your starting blend is a simple ribbon Burley or mild Cavendish, you of course can gather blending recipes throughout the game.  Matches count as health points, with a penalty for getting holes burned in your shirt.  The open “sandbox” world is the real joy; for example, some tobacco plants can be found growing wild, and you can dry, cure and flavor your found tobacco in addition to creating your own blends.

            The collecting elements in the Calabashi series are preserved here.  This time there are over 75 hidden tobacco tines to discover in the game world, from MacBaren to G.L. Pease to Dunhill to Butera.  Older gamers will appreciate a tin of the original Balkan Sobranie.

            When Calabashi finally reaches the Dark Twist Arena, he has to concoct the perfect tobacco blend.  It’s quite an end battle, involving humidity, dried-out tobacco and a goopy Black Cavendish.  With enough grinding though, Calabashi will have enough XP to be the victor.

            The online component, on the Xbox Live network, consists of the usual multi-player mode but also includes a pipe-smoking contest for up to eight players.  Also available are downloads like Perique (fermenting is not available as a skill in the game), and custom skins for the pipe tampers.

            It’s great to see Calabashi make the leap to the next-gen consoles.  Most gamers will take about 40 hours to complete the main quest, but afterwards there are still blends to experiment with and pipes to clean.

 Fire up your briar and kick back with the new Pipeman Calabashi! Dark Twist Arena.  Uhle’s will, of course, be producing a tie-in blend as a cross promotion for the Special Collector’s Edition.

The Pipe Bit: The Faithful Departed

“I am a part of all that I have met.”

                 –Tennyson, “Ulysses”

     By Chris Rentner           

     If we are lucky, we meet several people in our lives that influence us toward the good.   Here are some people I have been privileged to know, pipe smokers all.

Al Rentner and Sidney Welch:  My grandfather and my wife’s grandfather.  They were older by the time I knew them, but imagine them as younger:  steadfast, faithful and true.  Both were married until death.  Both took excellent care of their families.  And made it possible for me to say that, in fact, my grandfather smoked a pipe.

Peter Stokkebye:  One of the pipe tobacco masters of the last century.  I was lucky enough to have dinner with Peter once, and he was every bit the old-school European (Danish, to be exact) gentleman more guys should aspire to be.  Peter, a major influence on countless people in the pipe trade, took time to share knowledge with me early in my vaunted pipe tobacco career, and I will always be grateful.

Tom Dunn:  Editor and Publisher of The Pipe Smoker’s Ephemeris.  This publication was mailed to to members of The Universal Coterie of Pipe Smokers, a group you could join by writing Mr. Dunn.  The Ephemeris, for decades, covered every conceivable aspect of pipes and pipe tobacco with editorials, cartoons, reviews, and everything else imaginable.  The publication was usually sixty to eighty densely-packed pages.  And the cost?  Free.  Tom Dunn, long before the Internet, wanted to get pipe info to any and all interested parties, at no cost to them but friendship.

Jack Uhle:  The founder of Uhle’s.  He, too, I only met when he as older, but he taught me much about blending tobacco, and gave my then-twentysomething self some much-need perspective.

 

            All listed above are the faithful departed.  I hope their influence lives on; I try to apply it.  I am also lucky enough to have many influences that are still around; I try to let them know, without getting too Mike +The Mechanics, how glad I am they are here.

The Pipe Bit: What We Talk About When We Talk About Pipes

           

            By Chris Rentner

            Poor  Prince Albert.  He’s been on the can for 90 years.

            Now that the most notorious pipe tobacco joke in history is out of the way, welcome to The Pipe Bit, a new regular column here on Uhle’s web site.  I’m the pipe tobacco blender here, and have been since 1994, before most of you were born.

            The Uhle Tobacco Company has been in business since 1939, definitely before most of you were born.  We are one of the six U.S. businesses that survived 2008, which is worth celebrating.  My employer, Jeff Steinbock, has graciously allowed me this forum for, in the words of KRS-ONE, “edutainment.”   I am familiar with pipes and tobaccos, but also know enough to realize there is much to learn.  I hope we can do this together.

            Uhle’s has two layers in its physical plant.   The main floor, upstairs, is the retail store.  Downstairs (yeah, I did think about calling this column “Upstairs, Downstairs,” but then PBS would have sued) are the offices and the warehouse, a windowless cavern with one side only a cement wall away from the Milwaukee River.  I work in the warehouse, where our Uhle tobacco blends are made.  This includes several personal blends, which are shipped to customers all over the world.

            On the writing cred front, I had a column for the original Uhle’s newsletter, which was “printed” on “paper.”  And in the mists of time, I used to post on the legendary alt.smokers.pipes newsgroup, helping a gentleman known as A Sophisticate Like Myself get his thoughts together.

            What we talk about when we talk about pipes is the shared—your grandfather, I daresay, smoked a pipe—and also the individual, like a favorite pipe tobacco blend.  What influences us, and how we think and act and smoke….that’s The Pipe Bit.