Have you ever played “Cooking Mama”? Well “Cook Or Be Cooked” is similar to that game. You are given recipes that need to be carried out and based on how well you do you earn gold, silver, or bronze tokens. How you cook is simple, you have to move the Wii remote a variety of ways (chopping, stirring, flipping, etc) as the screen prompts you too.

There are some differences between this game and “Cooking Mama” though. First this one is not as appealing to kids; it is more realistic and lacks the same playfulness. But what it lacks in colorful animations and cute characters it more than makes up for with information. As you play the game cooking a variety of items you are given actual recipes, not just random things to chop or stir (it does lack in some of the measurements though). You are also given better instructions about what you are doing.

As you cook each recipe will have several different items or side dishes that need to be made. Each step will have a time listed and you will have to learn to multi-task if you want to get each dish finished and have it still hot on the plate. The time will continue to click down in real time and many of the recipes can take 20+ minutes to complete if you allow the time to run like that. Luckily they were smart and thought about that. You have the option by simply holding down a button to speed time up. If you do this be careful and be sure to let your finger up a couple of seconds before time to do the next step expires. Otherwise you may fail a step or let something burn. 

While cooking your judges Susie Fogelson and Mory Thomas will be commenting on your performance and giving you cooking tips and advice for real cooking. And at the end they will grade you on your performance. To make sure you earn as many points as possible keep tabs on the screen, words will pop up telling you if you need to go faster, slower or if you poured too much or not enough. And as with cooking in real life be sure to always turn off the oven and burners when you are finished.

To play the game you will need not only the Wii remote but the nunchuk too. You can play by yourself in single play or there are two different options for two players. First being if you both have the right controllers (which unfortunately I only have one nunchuk). The second way which I was able to try is called Hot Potato. You both work towards finishing the same recipe passing the controller back and forth when the screen tells you to. Each of you earn your own separate points so at the end you can see who scored the highest; but you are both responsible for the finished product.

The game was fun and I feel like I was learning a few things as I kept playing; but once again I will say that I’m not sure how much this will appeal to a younger audience as it is much more technical than charming like that of a “Cooking Mama”.