Rambling Review: Food Network Cook or Be Cooked for the Wii

Summery: This sounds like a cool idea; a game that teaches you how to cook mixed with the Wii's motion controls! Sadly, it comes out a little under-cooked, bland, and too far from actual cooking to be from a network dedicated to the art of creating food dishes.

There's a few of these cooking games out on the market now. America's Test Kitchen has one for the Nintendo DS, and Personal Trainer: Cooking, plus more (really, the DS is apparently THE PLATFORM to use video games to teach cooking techniques). Apparently these video games are becoming a bit of a trend, like fitness video games. Still, I hadn't played any of them prior to discovering Food Network's Cook or Be Cooked game. My first thoughts were "Damn, that sounds like fun; an actual game with motion controls that let me really chop the ingredients, stir the pots, and all the other items, plus it includes recipes!" We put it into our Game Queue at GameFly and recently had it delivered to our door.

The Story Behind the Game: Food Network personalities magically come through your TV and then WON'T GO AWAY.

Of course, these aren't the Food Network personalities we might WANT to see. I can think of a variety of personalities that I'd love to have magically walk through my TV and help me cook. Bobby Flay, Alton Brown, Guy Fieri, Giada De Laurentiis, Tyler Florence... I'd love one on one lessons from any of them! And for the fun of a video game, who could top Alton Brown, the guy who figured out how to make an instructional cooking show into something like Bill Nye The Science Guy?

Instead, we get Susie Fogelson and Mory Thomas. Wondering who they are? Well, why wouldn't you? Susie Fogelson is basically in charge of product marketing for the Food Network (I'm sure its more complicated than that, and I know her position is VERY important for the Network). Basically, she helps those Food Network Stars get their cookbooks, knife sets, special pots and pans, etc out on the market. She's also part of the selection committee from The Next Food Network Star show; so if you're not a fan of that, you've never heard of her. Mory Thomas? He's a chef in the Food Network Kitchens... and I only know this because of the product description! In other words, he's not a name I recognize or care about.

Now, I understand Ms.. Fogelson being in the game, at least kind of. Food Network-philes were probably considered the target audience for the game, and such people have probably watched AT LEAST one season of The Next Food Network Star, and her role in that show does give her experience judging food... but frankly, she's a corporate suit (as far as I know), so hearing her comment over how fast I chopped the garlic is meaningless to me. And Mory Thomas... I can only assume that the big names (and little) for the network assumed the game would bomb and didn't want their names associated with it, so they stuck, essentially, a nobody in the role. The only problem is, THE NOBODY IS THE ONE GIVING ME MY RECIPES FOR THE GAME.

Gameplay: You chop, you peel, you stir, you preheat... all with the Wii remote!

The game does what it sets out to do. You're given a number of meals to prepare for Susie and Mory to taste and judge. You are scored based on how fast you accomplish your goals, how warm the dishes are when they're served, etc. Various mini-games walk you through the steps of preparing whatever dish you're  working on, and an on-screen display shows the motion you're supposed to use with the Wii remote to accomplish all this. For example, you use a chopping motion with the remote to make the on-screen knife chop the ingredient, stir with the remote, and make flipping motions to use tongs or spatulas. That part's not bad.

The game ALSO requires you to have the nunchuk plugged in. Why? Well, to be honest, BECAUSE THEY DAMN WELL WANTED IT TO. Seriously. There is no function they used the nunchuk for that could not have been used with just the Wii remote. You wave the nunchuk frequently to pull an ingredient out... but they could have just had you wave the Wii remote (or nothing at all, since the FREQUENTLY DON'T REQUIRE YOU TO WAVE ANYTHING). You can press the Z-button to speed up time, but there are plenty of buttons not used on the Wii Remote that could have served this purpose (like the 1 or 2 button). And then at some points the randomly switch into a rhythm-based mini-game where you wave the Wii remote or nunchuk as a topping falls from the top of the screen into a box... which feels more like it belongs on one of the Wii Fit's mini-games!

Scoring is... strange as well. The game won't teach you proper technique for cutting or, well, much of anything. If you didn't know how to smash garlic before you might pick up that trick, or maybe a fast way to dice onions, but Food Network-philes have seen these tricks hundreds of times before. Oddly enough, the game NEVER wants you to de-seed a jalapeno; but magically, only the "pepper" portion of the jalapeno ends up in the bowl. So despite the fact that you aren't learning proper technique you ARE scored based on how fast you chop, whether you hit a target area for pouring or shaking a salt shaker, etc. It's nit-picking, and not helpful to the game's premise of helping teach you the recipes (I don't HAVE to chop that fast to make my food taste good, dammit!). After an element of your dish is finished a meter appears to let you know how warm it is; the longer you take to finish the other parts, the colder that element will be. Hot elements get you a lot of points, warm will get you some points, and cold elements deduct points.

Once you've gotten scored the virtual Susie and Mory will "taste" your food and then comment on it. And frankly, the comments are annoying. They'll award you a Bronze, Silver, or Gold medal (or announce that you've been cooked). You can scroll through the dishes to see what your scores were in each section, but would have been nice was advice to help make the dish better next time (for example, "You need to start your cous cous a little later so it will be warm when you serve the plate", or something like that). And some of the comments are bizarre. If you earn a Bronze, Mory will often say "It's a good thing I'm hungry," a comment that I take to mean that the meal is not good at all, but apparently I still earned enough to get a damn medal!

You can also review individual recipes. This sounds like a great idea "hey, that tuna dish sounded good, how do I make that in real life?" Only there's a problem. Like not including the quantities of ANY ingredient in the recipe kind of problem. Seriously, how can you claim to provide me with recipes if you don't include any quantities?

Combat: If only!

I mean, I have knives, skillets, there are annoying people I want to hit... motion-sensitive controllers.... wait, am I going too far here?

Conclusion: Food Network Cooked or Be Cooked is cold... and I want to warm it back up by putting the disc in my microwave.

Honestly, as my first exposure to cooking games... I hope this isn't the norm. It's a neat idea, at first. It sounds cool, we've got the controllers to let me feel like I'm chopping... but after a few dishes the shine has worn off, and I'm wanting to take a skillet to the virtual "personalities" (who I don't care about) who dare to criticize my "cooking". If Food Network wanted to try another cooking game I'd be open to trying it... but only if I actually had REAL Food Network personalities involved, and if the mini-games were toned down. I'm going to give this one a 2/5 score... and the only reason it isn't a 1 out of 5 is because I think they could build from this and make a good Food Network Cook or Be Cooked 2.

End of Demented Rambling.