On top of the graphics, you also have over 30 traditional comfort food recipes that are broken down into realistic tasks that one would do to cook a real meal. They walked us through the "steak, asparagus and mashed potatoes" dish, and it basically had all the steps there. From pan searing the steak first, to peeling the potatoes, to boiling the water, to oven roasting the steak, to properly blanching the asparagus.

Now before you start moaning about how if you wanted to go through every step of cooking a dinner, you'd do it in the kitchen, the folks working on the game already knew that nobody likes to watch a pot of water boil (especially since a watched pot never boils). For this reason they've worked in a fast-forward button into the game time, that allows you to speed up time. This allows you to get past the mundane tasks, but still advances the clock in the kitchen time, to show you just how long it would normally take. Watch out though, while you are speeding up time for you water to boil, that steak in the oven might be burning.

The game also realistically shows what happens to the food and cooking appliances from your actions. If you turn the stove on high, the pans heats faster and your food burns more easily. Too low of heat, and you'll never get anything accomplished. After each step of creating the food, you also get rated on how you did it. Most of the time, one of the Food Network featured judges, Susie Fogelson, will appear on screen in a miniaturized form to rate you from one to five chef hats on how you've done. I was told that semi-hunky Mory Thomas will also be making appearances in the game, mainly to instruct the player. At the end of doing all the tasks, the food is presented properly on the dish and your score is averaged to give you a final score for the dish.

Along with the single player action the game also boasts a cooperative play and competition mode. The cooperative play allows you to switch off tasks with a partner for a more laid back and partnered game. The competition mode allows you to go head to head with a friend and try and pull off a dish better than s/he will. In the competition mode, multitasking the different parts to the overall dish can help you finish faster and look more savvy. Granted, it's no "Iron Chef" competition, but let's try to forget that game was ever made already.

Overall, Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked really had me impressed in the way that it tries to teach the 'science' of cooking, instead of trying to boil the whole thing down to quick minigames. The game is due out on the Wii platform sometime during the fourth quarter of 2009, so look for it around the holidays. I guess I'll just have to watch my Good Eats for a while longer, before I can play them (plus it's never a bad thing to watch/listen to Alton Brown).