In the Iron Chef America TV show, a kitchen hums with activity as two elite teams chop, blend, and boil to create delicious dishes in order to outdo each other and win culinary supremacy. In Iron Chef America: Supreme Cusine, an animatronic ghoul locks you alone in a kitchen filled with faulty appliances. Ingredients from dishes you vaguely remember choosing appear in front of you, and the ghoul orders you to perform a simple action, praising you afterward regardless of your performance. Your only other company is the disembodied head of Alton Brown, who spews forth a constant stream of interesting facts and goofball quips, presumably unable to stop because of the traumatic burn accidents he has clearly suffered.
Eventually, you are freed from your prison and judged by a panel of ghouls who reveal the grim truth: You have been pitted against another ghoul in culinary minigame combat, and you, yourself, are a ghoul too. This is what it feels like to play Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine. That's a bit overdramatized, sure, but Supreme Cuisine is so lifeless, so lackluster, and so out-and-out lame that it's not far from the truth.
The Good:
* Alton Brown delivers interesting facts.
The Bad:
* None of the appeal of the television show
* Character avatars are ugly and poorly animated
* Minigames are dull
* Boiling liquid is hard.
A look at the world's most popular cooking sims. Which ones will actually teach you something about cooking, and make you a better cook? Which ones were designed purely as entertainment? Which are good and which are bad? The article serves as a side-by-side analysis of all the top cooking games to figure out the above.
PopMatters.com writes:
"It seems that the Wii is a machine particularly dedicated to a very particular simulatory experience. Beginning with launch games like Wii Sports, the system's unique controller has allowed for an unprecedented number of games that are not simply the traditional style of video game simulation but more specifically a series of simulations of a kind of "literalized" physical activity. "
WorthPlaying writes: "The Cooking Mama franchise has proven that gamers love to prepare and cook virtual food. Whether it's hamburgers, egg rolls or calamari, people love to slice, dice and fry anything given to them. The success of the Cooking Mama games has spawned several other titles, all competing to be the first choice for virtual cooking fun. The latest offering, Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine for the Wii, tries to change up the formula by adding a competitive element to the core of the cooking aspect. While it doesn't outright trump the last two Cooking Mama titles, Iron Chef provides some fun for fans of the genre."
