Food Network: Cook or be Cooked exists. That’s seemingly the best way to describe this latest effort from Red Fly studios. There’s nothing offensively bad about the game, and other than surprisingly functional controls there’s nothing that stands out as being particularly good. It simply exists.
In this game, the first licensed Food Network title, you play as an aspiring chef. Guiding you along your adventure are miniature versions of Mory Thomas and Susie Fogelson; two moderately well-known Food Network personalities. Sure, they’re not the first people your mind jumps to when you think of the Food Network, but they perform their job adequately. That job entails challenging you to cook various dishes, always accompanied by a little anecdotal story for why they decided to make you cook that particular dish.
Susie and Mory provide color commentary while you cook. They’re also tiny.
Speaking of dishes, the game’s box proudly states that is includes 30+ recipes. This is true, to a degree. While one might initially take that to mean there are 30 different challenges, that is not the case. There are 12 challenges in all, each challenge made up of multiple dishes. For example, meatballs and marina sauce are treated as two separate recipes instead of one. If there were 30 full challenges, this game would be considerably easier to recommend. As it is, running through all 12 challenges took me two and a half hours.
As to the challenges themselves, they usually consist of anywhere from two to four dishes; each with an estimated cooking time above it. Each dish will have many steps associated with it, and it is important to keep track of multiple things at once, as you’ll be penalized for things like allowing a dish to overcook or for serving the judges cold food. One interesting aspect is that the game takes place in real time, so that cooking bacon for 15 minutes will take 15 minutes. Realizing that this would get boring very quickly, the player is given the ability to fast-forward the action. Deciding when to fast-forward or when to multitask keeps you on your toes and make the gameplay feel appropriately hectic.
Throughout the challenge you will be scored. Each action will merit a number of points based on how well you performed the action. When shaking salt into a dish, for example, your shakes will be rated as “too hard”, “too light”, or “just right”, each with an according numerical value. Performing each action perfectly will attain you the “Perfect” bonus, a necessity for reaching the highest point totals. There is also a multitasking bonus multipliers awarded for each action, based on the number of dishes you are working on concurrently. At the end of the challenge you will receive a medal based on your score; either gold, silver, or bronze. The medal system is a good way to add replayability, though even going back to attain any gold medals I had missed the first time took only another forty minutes of play.
The UI is fantastic. Clear, clean and informative.
When you take your eyes off the on-screen prompt and actually look at what you’re cooking you’ll no doubt be neither impressed nor unimpressed. The character models look passable and the texture quality on some of the food is great, while in some cases it’s actually difficult to discern what the dish is. The user interface, however, is very clear and simple. It tells you everything you need to know without covering up any of the action on-screen. Each icon that represents a certain dish will have an estimate of the time remaining before it is complete, as well as a timer that counts down to the next step.
Apart from single-player mode, there is also a 2-4 player “pass-the-pad” mode where players can co-operate on a challenge by passing the Wii remote and nunchuck around when prompted. Additionally there is a two player splitscreen competitive mode. Both of these additional modes, however, feature the same recipes and procedures that were featured in the single player mode.
That said, it doesn’t matter how long a game is if you don’t enjoy playing it. Luckily, Cook or Be Cooked is actually fun, if not always for the right reasons. All of your actions are designated by a prompt in the bottom right corner of the screen, and they’re always at least tangentially related to the actions your character is performing on-screen. In addition, the controls are very responsive. Unlike many motion controlled games, I rarely found myself frustrated by the game failing to recognize my inputs.
The competitive multiplayer mode provides some of the best entertainment.
The multiplayer modes are interesting enough. In split screen mode messing with your friends as they try to perform the necessary actions is endlessly entertaining, though pass-the-pad mode seems entirely useless. It was a good choice to include a multiplayer aspect, but the lack of challenges makes it unlikely that you will return to this game in any of its modes.
Overall, Cook or Be Cooked is a perfectly functional game. It’s mildly entertaining throughout, and the $40 price tag makes it seem like an attractive purchase. Unfortunately, with a single player mode that lasts under three hours and multiplayer modes that will quickly become rote, it’s difficult to recommend this game to anybody.
