You may have seen Jamie Oliver on TV before. Now "The Naked Chef" has his own video game relevant to his passion of food. Although it has gaming elements, there are a bit more practical sides to it as well.
What’s Cooking? Jamie Oliver doesn’t have much along the lines of a story. You are given options two main options which consist of viewing recipes to actually cook and cooking in the virtual studios. When entering the virtual cooking section, there are three activities. In the Test Kitchen you’ll whip up recipes with instructions, while the Cook Off allows you to challenge yourself with the recipes unlocked via time attacks. The third activity, Get Stuck In, allows free reign of all ingredients available.
During my playtime, I spent most of my time in the Test Kitchen. This is mostly due to the fact that more ingredients, kitchen tools, and recipes can be unlocked by going through every recipe listed. When beginning, you’re presented with instructions on the top screen and the kitchen environment you’ll be working in on the bottom. Flipping the screens can be done, but since you can scroll through the instructions without doing this, I didn’t see the need. Each step is for the most part written with clear details and explained. Actually performing the cooking though requires a bit of practice. Some tasks, such as cooking a pancake, don’t tell you how much of the mixture to dump into the pan to cook. This results in waiting around only to find out you’ve been boiling the liquid without it solidifying. Other times, it feels imprecise. When you’re trying to cut a tomato in half, sometimes the game will instead take a slice from the end of the tomato and results in it being binned.
It’s not all that bad however, the meter on the left lets you know when you’ve got just the right amount of one ingredient. If you’ve got too little or too much, it shows this by a scale that’s tipped to either side depending on circumstance. The clock is also done rather well. By pressing up on the D-pad it will bring the clock down to the touch screen and be able to set how much time you want to pass. Another plus is the positioning when you’re plating your creation. This allows you to look at your presentation from a few different angles and correct it if necessary. Unfortunately however it doesn’t feel as if the game notes if you position something in a pleasing manner. This is probably offset with other modes however where you’re racing against the clock and don’t have time to make something look perfect.
In the Cook Off section, there is the Time Attack and Challenge. Both are timed and keep track of high scores. Time Attack is exactly as described, you’ll race through recipes as fast as possible with time ticking down. In Challenge though you’ll be presented with a single task and see how quickly you can complete it. The process is repeated until you run out of time. It’s a hectic mode that requires using your knowledge from the Test Kitchen and strategically using the timer since it does not take time away from the clock to beat.
With the Get Stuck In you can create your own recipes step by step without having to write the steps down. After you’re finished it will save it into the recipe list so you can make a shopping list if you so desire. It’s a great system, but not without flaws. When trying to measure exact amounts, it’s hard to stop at the perfect amount. I couldn’t see a way to solve this except to fish or dump out the ingredients, but when you this, it’s also noted in the steps for the recipe.
The other portion of What’s Cooking? is the Cookbook. Here you are given a choice of what recipe to cook in your own kitchen with a complete list of ingredients and steps. When you enter this mode, you can use your voice to page through the recipe, in case your hands are full. Visibility can be a problem however since the text is small in comparison to looking at a cook book. Other than that, the mode might be a fun way to prepare a Jamie Oliver recipe.
Before you can actually cook any of the recipes however, it’s important to have all the ingredients. The game provides this and allows you to create a shopping list. In the shopping menu you’re able to add the full list of ingredients from a recipe, but also delete items you may already have. It then saves it onto the cart for viewing while you’re at the store.
Overall, What’s Cooking? Jamie Oliver isn’t a bad experience. Occasionally you’ll have the frustration of trying to get the game to register a stroke of the knife, but the times weren’t numerous. The recipe area is extremely basic as well and can be hard to read. Not horrible, but I think it’d be better suited for Jamie Oliver fans.
