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Iron Chef Game Listed, Then Pulled
Joystiq notes that a game based on the excellent Iron Chef television show on the Food Network is apparently in the works. Apparently, because the game was listed and then pulled within the last few weeks. "The game appears to be on the brink of an announcement, with a listing appearing and disappearing on Gamestop's website for DS and Wii versions of the game, and Siliconera's Spencer Yip indicating that an IC game was being created at Destineer. (Yes, that Destineer). We're already sharpening our knives in anticipation, but we have to ask: [how do we get] Alton Brown in the game?" Their post includes a great animated spot for the show.
And instead take the lesser title of Zinc Saucee... With comes with double prize money
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Like Cooking Mama maybe, but instead of medals, you play for the people's ovation and fame forever.
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
Well, there was the Iron Chef: Virtual Kitchen Stadium game for the Sega Saturn, but it's more a museum tour than a game.
That said, I too would love the original Japanese show to come out with more material in the US. Sadly, I can't see Fuji TV allowing that.
Chairman: "Let Kitchen Kombat begin!" "Your cuisine is mine... forever!"
I could see it having a fun, Mortal Kombat character select screen as well. Of course, this would work better with the original Iron Chefs, as they all much more distinctive styles. The sad truth is, the game will probably be a poor imitation of Cooking Momma, which already fell woefully short of its potential. Combine that with the presence of annoying, arrogant ass clowns like Bobby Flay and Michael Symon and you have a disaster in the making.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Screw you and your "Iron Chef America" weaksauce. Give me Chairman Kaga, Ota, Fukui, and the real show over that cheap retarded ripoff.
Fans of Alton Brown, the host of Iron Chef America, will be pelased to know that he has just signed a three-year contract extension with the Food Network. More Alton!
That's my guess, that it's a Cooking Mama clone. It seems pretty hard to do a real Iron Chef style game (where you would have to come up with unique dishes) since computers don't have a good idea of what tastes good.
I love Alton too, but I wish his recipes didn't include "put this in your fridge for 4 hours" quite so often. I've always suspected that he was trained as a restaurant chef (where 4 hour wait times are a virtue since it allows you to do some of the work before the lunch/dinner rush) and that's why a lot of his recipes are less than ideal for a home setting. 4 hour waits are the worst since you can't do them the night before or in the morning before going to work, but if you wait until you get home you won't be eating until midnight. I do love how he explains what exactly is happening with his cooking techniques, it allows the show to be useful well beyond whatever he happens to be making that day.
I read the internet for the articles.
Why? I've seen both, and not a huge amount has changed in bringing it across the ocean (if we ignore the William Shatner episodes).
Are you kidding?
The entire *point* of the Japanese show has been lost on Iron Chef America. It was always intended as a cheesy drama with serious cooking. The idea was basically to combine haute cuisine with professional wrestling.
Iron Chef America has kept the cooking but removed the cheesy drama, which is what made it so unique in the first place. There are dozens of competition cooking shows on these days (including the whole "Cooking Competition" series on Food Network itself); why would you watch Iron Chef America over any of the others?
At the same time, the show doesn't take itself seriously *enough*. In Japan, Fuji TV treated it as a huge honor to be named an Iron Chef. It meant nothing in the real culinary world, but the Iron Chefs were never referred to as anything *but* "Iron Chef", and the show created "rivals" for them to spar with; they took the show beyond the show, with the point being to use that both for humor and to increase the perceived drama on the show. Food Network doesn't do that; it's just a bunch of random chefs competing against each other for no real reason. Even Morimoto, who's an Iron Chef in both versions, says the US version is a lot more casual.
The original Iron Chef straddled that line perfectly between complete absurdity and real cooking chops. It was unique, and maybe uniquely Japanese. You could watch it and laugh, but at the same time you knew you were really watching some amazing skills. Iron Chef America doesn't even attempt to do that; it's like they realized they'd never get it right (the "Iron Chef USA" specials tried that tack and it didn't work), so they just watered the whole thing down to a generic competition show.
Somehow it is really hard for Americans to get the "absurd but serious" thing down. Japan does it, Europe does it, we just can't get it.
ever heard of Cooking Mama? there is a version for Wii and two for DS (Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends just came out in November). each of these games have received pretty good reviews.
while the concept, admittedly, does not sound very exciting, it can, apparently, be successful.
http://www.cookingmamacookoff.com/
Our house (ages 1 to 39) loves this game.
I mean, by that line of reasoning, working around a virtual farm doesn't sound that exciting either, but Harvest Moon did just that. Let you run around the farm, shear the sheep and brush your horse. I'd guess it must have sold enough copies to make it worth porting to most consoles that ever existed.
An even more bizarre, and I would dare say _disturbing_, concept is Boong-Ga Boong-Ga. The Japanese arcade game where you get to shove a giant plastic finger in what looks like the plastic arse of someone bent over. And watch their face as they scream in pain. And then get your virility and sexual behaviour judged by how brutal an anal probing you gave the poor bugger(ed).
I'm not sure how that would translate even to the Wii, because thrusting the wiimote at thin air must be, at a wild guess, not quite the same as shoving it into someone.
The Japanese also seem to have these interesting game concepts, like driving a big truck... while staying under the legal limit, obeying all the traffic rules, and avoiding causing any damage to your truck or someone else's property. Break too many rules and you're fired. Does that sound exciting? Well, they too didn't think us gaijin would find it exciting, because in the USA version they turned it on its head. Cause enough mayhem and you get a bonus.
So, well, don't be too quick to dismiss the concept. I'm sure some people will find it hilarious to flip pancakes with the wiimote, and stir in a pot with it.
I don't understand them, but, hey, they probably wouldn't understand why I'm posting on Slashdot from home at 1 AM either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I love Alton too, but I wish his recipes didn't include "put this in your fridge for 4 hours" quite so often.
Unfortunately that's what cooking is all about. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, good food takes time. There's a reason that "fast food" (as found in a diner, as opposed to McD's which I don't think even qualifies as food) is a negative term.
If you want "full meals in 10 minutes" there are plenty of cookbooks and shows that cater to that form of cooking. But if they seem lackluster (which they do) it's not due to lack of skill, it's just that there's only so much that can be done in that amount of time. Complex foods need time to let themself cook through, for temperatures to stabilize, for water to evaporate, for flavours to be absorbed, for chemical reactions to take place.
It sucks, I know.
Random and weird software I've written.
I've found that most people who aren't either professional or dedicated hobbyist cooks or serious gourmands don't really know intuitively what's going to taste good. They know they like "chicken primavera", "buffalo wings", "pizza", or "eggplant parmesan" and might look up a recipe or two to see how to make it at home (or just buy the sauce in a bottle for wings or pizza). When you get inventive with a dish, it's always best to let people try it before telling them what's in it.
I have a few examples. We have a restaurant near here that has a pizza with sourdough crust. I've heard several people groan at the thought who liked it when they tried it. My uncle hates sour cream. He won't eat it or even smell it. My mom makes a dessert with sour cream in it, but the rest of the dessert is so sweet you never taste any sour taste and whipped cream would be way too sweet for it. My uncle loves the stuff, and they joke about how his portion is made with whipped cream or Cool Whip.
One of my personal favorites is hot sauces. I love making my own and I have a cabinet of different small-batch commercial sauces. Lots of people who think they love hot, spicy foods are very surprised by hot sauces made with anything other than just ground dried peppers, white vinegar, and salt. Lots of very good hot sauces use a pepper mash in addition to or instead of ground dried peppers. Vinegars from red wine, white wine, apple cider, or other types might be used. Many have vegetables or fruits in them, like carrots, apples, mango, peach, pineapple, or blackberry. A few use food gums or oils to thicken them, while a few use water to thin them or as part of the traditional vinegar portion to cut down on the taste of vinegar. Many have herbs and spices.
One of my most prized bottles is simply a mix of pepper puree, vinegar, and salt. It's a single-crop, single-barrel reserve sauce made from hand-selected red savina peppers from a particular hot sauce producer's private farm stock. Since a hot pepper's heat, flavor, texture, and more can be affected by everything from soil nutrients to hours of sun exposure and rain levels to pruning, there are very complex differences in single-crop hot sauces from year to year. This one's called The Legend and it's from CaJohn's Fiery Foods. My current one is a 2002 vintage. It is a hotter year, but still flavorful. It needs to be used in moderation or you'll really piss off your non-chilehead friends. Still, it's peppers and not just habanero oil or capsaicin extract so if you like your stuff hot it's not going to actually literally burn your tongue. The real curiosity about sauces like this one for most people is, "they make vintages of hot sauces"? They sure do. Several companies have reserved vintage hot sauces, but few have a single-crop one sold in a wooden box. Dave's INSANITY LIMITED EDITION PRIVATE RESERVE is another vintage reserve in a wooden box, and it's good, too. It's not the same type as The Legend, but it is a good vintage reserve of another type. I'm planning on picking up some of the 2008 as I'm out my previous one.
Though I understand your complaints, just consider how fucking retarded iron chef america would be if they started upping the drama and instigating rivalries and shit like that.
Drumroll... some sweaty italian dude is sharpening knives in slo-mo, grimacing and looking at a picture of mario batalli... The chairman's voiceover starts... "If memory serves, Iron Chef Batalli has only one true rival..." followed by 5 minutes of completely fucking useless b-roll giving sweaty italian dude's back-story, and the origins of this non-existent rivalry, all leading up to the challenger triumphantly entering kitchen stadium and throwing the gauntlet at batalli, who, instead of being his regular goofy, sarcastic, chill yet bitterly competitive self will have to be somber and treat the entire affair as an affront to his honor.
Alton Brown will have to stop knowing anything about food, and will instead serve as an affable but douchey host constantly asking the real food expert/partial sponsor of the show, Doc Hattori (who was only on the fucking show because his culinary school provided the sous chefs) Kevin Brauch will have to stop being able to complete coherent sentences, like Otah, and a strict All Oral-Sex Double-Entendre ruled will have to be placed on on the judging commentary (If Lower-House member what's his face ever encountered a food that didnt feel good sliding down his throat, he never mentioned it) Then, once the judgment has been handed down, and the victor declared, instead of being able rest easy that his or her best efforts were put forth but the victor was better, the loser must hang his or her head in defeat, ashamed of the dishonor suffered, and apologize to his/her fans and family.
In short, it would all seem kinda dumb in the american cultural context. Yes, the drama and cheese and the overblown rivalries were great in the original, but only insofar as they were quintessentially japanese. The american remake is its own thing and working w/in a different cultural context and does a pretty good job of it. Good chefs get together and make some really good looking food, its judged, fun is generally had by all. That's the point, not "LOL, japanese culture is hilarious to my western sensibilities."
As a side-note, I am prejudiced, justifiably in my opinion, against the 'the drama and whatnot is the whole point of the show' proposition after almost coming to blows with a friend who took it all so seriously that he cursed me out as being 'naive and closed-minded' for pointing out that not only was there no such thing as the Gourmet Academy, but that Chairman Kaga was in fact an actor, not an eccentric foodie putting on a show for his own amusement. If you want absurdist drama, watch daytime television. If you want to watch a show where chefs compete, watch iron chef.
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