Review: Ready, Steady, Cook

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 10 October 2009 20:03

Entertainment

Ready, Stead, Cook is a TV show, and what better place to promote a TV show than with a game for a hugely popular game console?  Sound strategy on paper, but not with this title it isn’t.

It is on during the working day, so I have not seen it, but from the web information available, Ready Steady, Cook looks like a day-time bastardisation of Masterchief and Iron Chief.  This game is looking to cash in on the popularity of Cooking Mama, also on DS.

Ready, Steady, Cook
	Developer	Mindscape
	Publisher	Mindscape
	Rating	G
DS

But unfortunately Mindscape will not gain much fame with this uninspired title.

As in the TV show, players select a red (tomato) or green (capsicum) team, followed by a chef to assist.  The chef choice will also dictate the cuisine style, either Mexican, Indian, Mediterranean, Oriental or good-ole Continental cooking techniques.

Players then select a bag of ingredients; Budget and Classic are unlocked in the beginning with Bistro and Gourmet for later on, if you actually succeed in winning a few matches.

To win, you need to select a recipe based on your chosen cuisine and bag-o-ingredients, and then enter the pressure cooker of competition.

Game-play then takes the role of a series of min-games, following the chosen recipe.  Players will slice, fry, stir and bake until the stylus is a molten blob at the end of their fingers.

All of these mini-games are timed at varying – but extremely challenging – degrees, and some of the mini-games feature a completion bar that either needs to be filled before time runs out, or filled to the optimal point.

If one step of the process is a little under or over done, don’t worry, your friendly assistant chef will step in with a “no worries, I’ll fix it” comment, and the game continues.

At the end, it is time for a taste test, and then comparison to the opponent’s dish.  Here is where the problems arise.


No matter what difficulty level is chosen, the timer for each step is unbelievably harsh.  Even on ‘easy’ setting, competent players will struggle to crack the required amount of eggs, or fry up the ingredients in order within the strictness of the time clock.

Even on ‘easy’ setting, mucking up a couple of these steps only will mean losing when it comes down to the critical audience voting on who made the best dish, Tomato or Capsicum. 

There is a training option, and budding chefs will need to sweat it out for long time in a training apprenticeship before gaining any respect in the main arena.

It is all a bit demoralising; there are nicer ways to spend an afternoon.  Perhaps real cooking with one of recipes on offer in the software, a nice idea, but the cookbook presentation is just too clunky and small to be considered against your traditional paper based cookbook.

The best way to play Ready, Steady, Cook, by far is as a multiplayer chef-hat to chef-hat match.  You only need one game card and besting your real-life opponent under the stylus frenzy of competition gives some satisfaction.

All in all, Ready, Steady, Cook may well be a fine food laden TV show, but its soul-less translation to the Nintendo hand-held has the consistency of a watered down gulag meal.



3 Cracked eggs out of 10