Allez cuisine! Iron Chefs Headed to Wii, DS

Move over, Cooking Mama. Mario Batali, Masaharu Morimoto, and Cat Cora are horning in on your virtual kitchen with the new video game “Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine.”

Due to hit stores sometime around October 25, “Supreme Cuisine” offers you the chance to “cook” on your Nintendo Wii or DS game system, much like “Cooking Mama.” This isn’t Mama’s kitchen, though. Not only will you be battling three of the real Iron Chefs in your virtual Kitchen Stadium, but you’ll be expected to work on multiple dishes at once, all while battling the clock, just like contestants on the show.

And the best part? You also get your own virtual Alton Brown as commentator. Virtual Alton isn’t quite as cute as the real thing, but since I’ll probably never have real Alton in my living room, I suppose it’s a fair trade. The Chairman is there, too, as portrayed by actor Mark Dacascos (also recently seen as Sensei Ping in my favorite summer television show, “The Middleman”).

I found out about the game while surfing Alton’s website, but you can get more details at the game’s official site, including an image gallery that shows off the characters as well as the food.

From what I can see so far, the game looks absolutely beautiful. The graphics used for the food are more reminiscent of Pixar’s Ratatouille than “Cooking Mama.” And while the game motions appear to be fairly similar to those required in Mama’s kitchen, it definitely appears to be more of a challenge overall — which ought to be interesting, considering Mama’s not easy to please. Priced at $39.99 for the Wii and $29.99 for the DS, “Supreme Cuisine” costs a bit more than “Cooking Mama,” but is more than reasonably priced compared to other Nintendo games, or even other video games in general.

And to me, at least, it looks to be totally worth it. “Iron Chef: Supreme Cuisine” combines three of my favorite things — food, television, and video games (four, if you count Alton Brown). What more could a geek like me ask for?

Allez cuisine, indeed.