You know I love Jamie Oliver.
I even emailed his publicist once to let them know that if they were ever looking for an outspoken obesity doc to work with him, I'd be there with bells on.
Anyhow, not to diss Jamie or anything but what's up with What's Cooking? Jamie Oliver, a new game for the Nintendo DS.
I mean if you've actually got the time to sit and practice "shopping", "chopping" and "dressing the dish" on your Nintendo shouldn't you simply be cooking?
Not sure where Jamie was going with this license. Let's teach kids to pretend cook? Let's teach kids to experiment in the virtual kitchen where tastings a bit challenging? Let's teach kids to waste their time on a gaming system so that when it's dinner time there'll be no time to actually cook and they'll need to order take out or nuke something? I suspect the point was an interactive cookbook, but given the wealth of online, interactive cooking resources and Jamie's own along with lord knows how many other TV cooking shows, I'd say this is overkill.
Sorry Jamie, I love your work but this endeavour seems off to me.
Oh, and if you were wondering if it were a good game, here's what one review had to say,
"After the first few recipes, you quickly realize that this is a game of rolling through monotonous motions. Long before the game is finished, you will become very bored and have no desire to return."Ouch.
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I love Jamie, too, but you're right - this seems antithetical to his other work. He's so passionate about actually getting people into the kitchen, cooking and eating real food. Odd.
ReplyDeleteWait, wait, wait. I know at first glance it doesn't make sense to have a child sitting in front of a video game *pretending* to make food. But consider this - first of all we can't be cooking 24/7; second of all, the game (and the recipe) might just inspire the child to get up and go give it a try. Or drag Mom from her computer and do it together. This could also be an excellent chance for parent/child to bond and have fun together while learning about a very handy skil or at least creating some interest in it.
ReplyDeleteI haven't played this game, so I'm not the best authority, however I own a Nintendo DS, and 2 months ago I purchased "Cooking Mama 2" which teaches you how to prepare 80 world recipes as a game, with a timer and skills tests, etc. Most of the food is seafood or vegetarian based. There's only one pork recipe in the entire game (although there is a lot of flour based things). But, this game as gotten me cooking. I have made sushi (in real life) because of this game, and jambalia, and some really nice veggie pasta dishes. Ok, maybe I also made churros. But it did get me cooking!
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