GENRE
	Simulation
	DEVELOPER
	Red Fly Studio
	PUBLISHER
	Namco Bandai Games America
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
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Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard scoring criteria.

Food Network has become the top network for everything chef and cuisine. No matter if it's celebrity chefs battling to stay in the game on Chopped, discovering what's behind-the-scenes in American food on Unwrapped or shaping cakes into crazy designs and wonders using drill saws and blowtorches on Ace of Cakes, Food Network is the place to be for chefs and those who just love food. For this reason, it was inevitable for someone to obtain the Food Network license. What with all the cooking games currently available for Wii, this would surely benefit the game in not only recognition, but the experience as well. Shoulda', coulda'.

Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked places the player in the kitchen of an original experience that isn't really copied from any of the shows. It is a basic cooking game with real recipes. Mentioning recipes brings up a good point. The case of the game says that there are thirty recipes, which may be true, but the statement's somewhat smoke and mirrors since there are really only twelve dishes to cook. Any side dishes and sauces are counted as recipes. Okay, so maybe there are 30 recipes, but, come on. Counting a sauce or bacon as a recipe? There is obviously a need to make the game seem deeper than it really is, so counting the recipes instead of dishes accomplishes just that.

Continuing into the actual gameplay and experience of cooking, the player can quickly figure out just what to do. The game never throws any curve balls, except for the small change in time management. With each dish, the chef (player) only needs to worry about time being hard to manage. The recipes are always laid out for the player in order to know what to do. The only things really ever up for grabs are just the order of tasks and when to do them. Making sure that everything is done on time and never too early or too late is the biggest (but not hardest) hurdle.

Each dish has either three or four recipes that are completed for points so the player can try and earn bronze, silver or gold medals. Players won't take long to catch on and most will only need one failure at the beginning to learn exactly how to create each dish. The point system usually seems fair, but sometimes it doesn't follow the same rules, making for a bad experience at times.

To elaborate, points are rewarded based on how well certain objectives are met, turning on or off burners, placing and retrieving food from the oven or stove and more. The biggest points to win or lose rest upon how well the player judges when to finish the hot portions of a dish. Letting a hot dish sit out too long while other components are still cooking will allow the hot item to become cold, which takes away major points when the completed dish is arranged. This is the one "challenge" that was mentioned earlier. Yet one thing must be noted about this time judgment hurdle: it's easily tricked. If the player is smart later, rather than earlier, he or she can actually pull cooking portions out of or off the stove early, which doesn't carry as big a point penalty as the punishment for hot items going cold. The game's two hosts who sample and judge the player's finished food never mention if it's undercooked-- only if it's cold. With something undercooked, the player may not receive a gold medal, but the probability of at least getting some kind of medal is higher.

The presentation of Cook or Be Cooked is a mixed bag. Yes, the food looks pretty delicious, but it's food, which shouldn't be hard to digitally reproduce on Wii. The kitchen itself isn't bad, although there is a noticeable roughness to the edges of appliances and countertops, which means an obvious lack of anti-aliasing. The meats, produce and other ingredients look pretty good as well and seem to change realistically, if not dynamically, with the mixing, cutting and peeling going on. However, the worst part of the presentation are the only two characters in the game: the hosts/judges. They look very bland, feature poor textures and have little personality. Audio-wise, the hosts' voices are decent, although their words don't sync with lip animation and the spoken lines themselves are a little too corny. The only sound effects that are well done are the sounds of cutting, slicing and water running or boiling.

With all that, this game is looking down and it's up to gameplay controls to pick things up. Unfortunately, the are also a mixed bag and their success may depend upon the person playing. Cutting, slicing, grating, cleaning and turning knobs are just some of the objectives and required gestures for this game. Most of them are scored on how fast they are accomplished. To help the gamer know what to do, every movement is shown via an animated on-screen remote at the bottom right corner of the screen. No gesture or button combinations will need to be remembered thanks to this interface detail, which makes the game even easier. Yet the flaw with this set up is if the player is mimicking the way the objects and food are being interacted with on the screen instead of the sometimes contrary remote gesture shown in the bottom corner, opening points will be missed or lower than the max. This happens for two reasons: there obviously isn't one-to-one motion controls, and the gesture has to be displayed before the gamer can start following it. This lack of true synchronization between game objectives and execution are another hit against this title.

Otherwise, pulling off the many skills and objectives is very easy, and as previously stated: the moves do not need to be remembered. The Wii Remote is always used for food prep motions like chopping, sprinkling and stirring, while the Nunchuk is used whenever a pot needs to be placed on the stove or something needs to be pulled out of the oven. Amusingly, a mere shake of the nunchuk magically executes any nunchuk-specific move. The only buttons used during gameplay are A, B and Z. For instance, certain produce like lemons need to be squeezed. This is accomplished by holding both A and B on the Wii Remote. The quicker, the better, because higher scores are given to quicker players. This leads to the Z button: it's always used to speed up time. That's right. The speeding up of time is made available and it is a welcome tool. All dishes and recipes are given total times for each step and they are measured in a real time scale. Sometimes, there can be an hour or more for the player with nothing to do. Thank goodness for the Z button tool. Lastly, the + button does come into play, but only to pause the game. The pause menu does display the recipe for making each dish which can be used in real life if the player wants. However, this is doubtful, unless baked burgers and steaks are the player's desire. This chef likes his food fried or grilled, please.

There are other game modes besides 'Solo Mode' in the game, though. 'Hot Potato' is a co-operative mode where players join oven mitts to complete the 'Solo Mode' with two to four players. This is somewhat of a lame mode because every objective a player completes, they have to pass the Wii Remote and Nunchuk off to the next player just to complete the next objective. This seems like fluff; yet the developer could have just left it out and the game would have had even less to show for itself. The only other mode is 'Cook-Off', and it is obviously much better just from the title. In this mode, two players compete head-to-head on specified dishes. The biggest problem: the same twelve dishes are available for both multiplayer modes.

Overall, the game isn't necessarily bad. It's well done for what it is meant to be, but why so short? Skilled players will only need two hours to complete this game. That includes getting gold medals and never cooking before. Also, why are there only twelve dishes? This game could use some more spice! At the very least, the multiplayer modes could have used some changes from the single player experience. The game is way too easy as well, and let's face it, cooking isn't exactly an easy thing to perfect. Granted, most of the dishes are nothing more than burgers, salads and steaks. Honestly, where are the crazy dishes like Sweet Potato-Crusted Yellowtail with Fennel and Leek Stew? There are plenty of big name dishes that should have been included in the game. There just seems no sense to include everyday eats like cheeseburgers and pancakes. All-in-all, rent it if cooking is a huge hobby. Everyone else can let this one cook.

4.0/10