The cooking game genre is springing to life! This will be a nice counterpoint to getting screamed at by Gordon Ramsey in the HK game. However, if the game makes it seem as easy to blithely crank out pasta in, like, 5 minutes, as Jamie does on his show, I'm throwing the BS flag, even if it is just a video game. I mean, the guy's just ridiculous. Everyone knows homemade pasta is a road of hard labor, frustration, and a dough/flour-spattered kitchen.

Cooking game? Really? Shouldn't one instead just go into the kitchen and COOK? Because a cooking game isn't going to teach you how to cook any more than Rock Band teaches me how to play the guitar.

"Shouldn't one instead just go into the kitchen and COOK?"

Maybe they're not hungry? Seriously, you can't cook all the time, but you can make all the virtual food you want and never have leftovers.

Is it just because I haven't played a cooking game? I love puzzle games, and I love Rock Band, but I can't make myself believe that a "realistic" cooking game would be very interesting.

I like the idea of people who are not that into cooking getting inspired by the game, just like I" not that into music, but Rock Band has perked my interest in music types that I am not that big into.

Mabe that just makes me embarrassing and not fit for public consumption though. :D

I think for a lot of people, cooking *is* like music - it's difficult, and intimidating. Maybe they have an interest in it, or they watch cooking shows, but they need something to bridge the gap between sitting on the couch and getting their hands dirty in the kitchen.

There's a lot to be said for game-based learning, IMO - you play without fear of failure, and you learn the parameters of the system. Maybe the game teaches you to cook a steak - you learn what to look for in the store, when to season the thing, to leave it be for a while to brown, and what texture to look for when it's done. Maybe you do that in the game, and you're better equipped when you actually go out and buy a steak, and throw it on the stove at home.

There are certainly things in the kitchen that I don't try, in part because I don't want to waste the material blowing a new technique. Jamie Oliver's the perfect guy to encourage people to try these kinds of things, and a game's a great environment to do it in.

And regardless, cooking's a great basis for a game - you've got a rich, combinatorial environment, timing-based actions, multitasking, and a clear way to quantify the quality of the result.

I'm looking forward to it.

I agree overall. Actually, as cool as I think the idea of cooking games is, I personally would much prefer to tinker in the kitchen for real than play a game, all else being equal (I don't mind investing in the ingredients for something new I might totally screw up). Oddly however, I feel the opposite about buying a real guitar/drums and learning them vice playing Rock Band or something similar, just b/c I have a basic hobbyist's knowledge in the kichen, but NO knowledge of music--so I can see how a cooking game could do the same for someone whose competencies (or relative lack thereof) are reversed. And I think that if I played music games more, it would make me feel more comfortable with learning an instrument for real.

I should probably just shut the hell up because I've never played a cooking game and don't even recognize the name Jamie Oliver. And I don't have a negative opinion of game based learning (Go Math Blaster!), far from it.

However! I bet this game won't be about teaching you how to cook. I bet it will be a puzzle game, or possible a simple skill game. And since eating is, like, necessary for living and stuff, in a way that consuming music isn't, I'm really surprised that cooking games have a market.

Of course, I don't like Second Life or The Sims either, so shows what I know. :D

I had to delete a comment that exposed a bug so it doesn't screw up the site. Please carry on.