Food Network Cook or Be Cooked Wii Review

Food Network Cook or Be Cooked

Wii Review
Namco Bandai Games
Released: November 2009

Food Network Cook or Be Cooked has aimed to appeal to the aspiring chefs out there who own a Nintendo Wii. Did they succeed, or did they end up with one cold dish?

Food Network Cook or Be Cooked consists of 30 mini recipes that, when combined, allow you to create a total of 12 different foods.

These range from a variety of different things including lasagna, burgers, and more.

All of the recipes are definitely appealing, as they are presented by Food Network “experts” Mory Thomas and Susie Fogelson.

The whole presentation of the game is quite strong, with good realistic visuals, nice details, character models, etc.

With the way in which the visuals were done, it is clear a lot of detail was put into the overall presentation of this game.

The biggest issue with this one though is the fact that the game is just not all that fun to play.

This is due to the fact that it takes a long time to cook your food. For example, if you have to boil water, you have to actually wait for the water to boil for X amount of minutes.

This means that you will find yourself spending a lot of time waiting around for stuff to finish cooking, with the only catch being you don’t actually get to enjoy it in the end.

This is compromised with the fact that you can multi-task most of the time, cooking 3 different things at once which will be combined for 1 dish in the end, as well as the fact that you can fast-forward while you are waiting for stuff cooking.

For the most part though, the waiting is almost too-realistic for its own good, and kills a lot of fun and excitement the game could have had if the speed was kept at a fast-pace.

Once you finish your dishes, you present them for judging to the “experts,” and if you don’t get them to them hot, you will be in trouble.

The biggest issue here beyond the fact that it takes too long to cook stuff is that the game lacks longevity, especially with there only being 12 actual dishes to prepare in total.

On top of that, the multi-player is rather weak as you prepare the same dishes basically in a competition of sorts.

The gameplay is well-done for the most part, with Wiimote and Nunchuk motions consisting of you cooking, stirring things up, breaking eggs, etc. If you have played a cooking game on the Wii before, you get what I mean with the motions. They get the job done, but are certainly not innovative.

For those who want to cook, you are honestly better off getting a cook book and trying these out for real in your own kitchen, especially if you are going to spend this much time on the dishes. This one just lacks the fun-factor it needed to really appeal to the gamers out there.

Graphics: 8.4 A very good-looking polished game.

Audio: 6.0 Highly-lacking.

Gameplay: 7.2 The controls work, but everything moves too slowly.

Replay Value: 6.0 You can plow through the whole game in a few hours.

Final Score: 6.4