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| Cooking With Wii
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| Tuesday, March 18, 2008 |
Cooking With Wii
by Michael Y. Park
on 03/18/08 at 09:43 AM
Last week, in what I'm sure will eventually be used against me as evidence that I'm 12, I borrowed a Wii from a friend and ended up playing it for two and a half days straight (that is, until I nearly threw my arm out). I justified all the Wii time by telling myself that I was doing Epicurious research. You see, one of the games I borrowed was called Cooking Mama: Cook Off, the videogame where all you do is cook. And this ain't no Burgertime: You're actually taking part in a reasonably accurate cooking simulation.
It's the ideal game concept for the Wii, where you actually go through the motions of dicing onions, shaping meat patties, and even flipping foods in the pan. I can honestly see non-cooks and kids learning a lot of the basics from some of the moves you've got to master.
And they don't skimp on the preparation, either. No frozen pre-made patties here. If you want hamburgers for lunch, you've got to grind the meat yourself. A nice touch is that you get to personalize your meals at the end and decorate it just as you want it, arranging the lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and pickles on your hamburger bun to your heart's content, or sticking two fried eggs and a hot-dog "flower" garnish on right on top of your Salisbury steak, if that's what you're into.
But there were a couple problems with the game, some major, some minor. Worst things first: The controls are hesitant and jerky, which is a big no-no with any Wii game. Cracking eggs, for example, was nearly impossible for me, and my flipped foods always ended up on the countertop. Some of the actions you were supposed to perform made absolutely no sense even by the second day I was playing the game. The timed stovetop-cooking minigame, for example, always ended up with me burning everything to a crisp because I had no clue what I was supposed to do, and because the order of the ingredients didn't seem to add up (raw beef really cooks through faster than minced onions?).
Other issues I had weren't as serious. Young or not-very-bright kids might take the grabby-hands icon in some stages literally and think it's OK to take casseroles out of the oven without mitts on. There are only 55 dishes from various countries, and the selection from each was pretty limited and stereotypical. The American menu, for example, consisted of popcorn, hot dogs and hamburgers, period. And there's that peculiarly Japanese sensibility about foods that doesn't always translate well. According to Cooking Mama, one key ingredient for the "French" dish of scrambled eggs is dried squid.
So if Epicurious readers want to indoctrinate their children early to become foodies later in life, does it make sense to buy them Cooking Mama: Cook Off for the Wii? Not at the list sticker price of $49.99, it doesn't. Wait for the game to hit the bargain bin. Better yet, wait for Majesco Entertainment to work out the kinks in their controls and add more depth to the recipe book in a sequel. That's when Cooking Mama will be the truly fantastic Wii game it ought to be.
Anyone care to relate their own experiences with the game, or comment on the idea of cooking videogames in general? Also, did anyone who has the game figure out what the point of the Managing Your Kitchen section is?
Source: epicuriousLabels: Cook Off, Cooking Mama, Nintendo, Wii |
posted by Perimbean @ Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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