whats-cooking-with-jamie-oliver
Latest
DS Fanboy Review: What's Cooking? with Jamie Oliver
For Atari's slightly weird cooking trainer/cookbook What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver (technically the box says What's Cooking? Jamie Oliver, but I don't think I want to call it that), I decided a traditional review probably wasn't the best idea. So I decided to take cues from my colleagues, the Cooking Guide experts, and make a gallery of my experience cooking a recipe from the game -- in this case blueberry, banana, and mascarpone pancakes. As the perfect garnish for this food metaphor, a somewhat abbreviated review appears below, followed by a link into my pancakes gallery!%Gallery-27845%
What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver's Trailer
One of the biggest -- and weirdest -- surprises of E3 was What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver. Far from a Cooking Guide ripoff, What's Cooking is some kind of hands-on cooking trainer combined with an interactive recipe book. It seems like, even if people don't want it or don't like it (or it turns out not to be good), significant enough thought (and budget) has gone into this game to prevent its classification as shovelware.This NSFG (Not Safe for Greenhough) trailer doesn't feature any of the 3D kitchen stuff or the simulated cooking, focusing instead on the actual recipes. But man, that sweet potato soup sounds good.%Gallery-27845%
Atari's CEO wants you to know how it will stay back in black
We've already witnessed the news that made us go, "Wha?" -- Atari actually turned a profit this past financial quarter, even though it was just a measly $3.5 million smackers. GameDaily went a little more in-depth in their interview with brand-spanking new Atari CEO Jim Wilson to find out what the company's plan is for staying profitable and earning bigger margins, and we'll sum it up for you here: "We really, really, really hope Alone In The Dark continues to do well," and "Location, location, location!" Yup, it's trying like mad to establish a strong footing in the North American market.The trouble with that scenario is that the most exciting Atari title we were shown at E3 was What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver for the DS. Atari is relying heavily on N+ and Backyard Sports to make a splash... but will it be enough to keep its head out of the water? The publisher needs a huge smash that can potentially turn into a franchise to keep things rolling, or else release dozens of marginally successful titles for the DS and the Wii to make things stick. Either way, the interview is an interesting read. While we don't want to see Atari fade into obscurity and bankruptcy again, the company has a hard row to hoe. Photo credit: Evil Angela's Flickr feed
E308: The Jamie Oliver game is ... really cool?
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised. I passed by a demo of What's Cooking? Jamie Oliver at Atari's booth and I was overcome by curiosity. How abhorrent would a licensed celebrity-chef training game be? The answer, it would seem, is "not very abhorrent." I couldn't really figure out what to do that well, but not because the interface was bad -- What's Cooking is a hardcore cooking training game. Also pictures of Jamie Oliver show up from time to time, just to remind you that it's his game. Imagine (in a non-dirty way) if Cooking Mama and Cooking Guide had a baby. What's Cooking teaches real-life recipes, and then has players simulate their preparation with touch-controlled actions. Without holding your hand, at all. I actually couldn't get past the initial steps of my first recipe, because the thing is so deep. To make a sugar paste (the first step), you have to first get a bowl out of your inventory of kitchen implements, then pour some sugar into the bowl, then mix it with a wooden spoon. To heat something up, you have to move it (via a 'stove' icon) to the stove area of the kitchen, then turn on the heat, and stir it around. The game doesn't really tell you when you're done, or even when you've failed. You just cook, like in real life. You could really learn how to cook by playing this. %Gallery-27845%
