I always seem to enjoy any game that is to do with preparing food and so this was a gift for my DS that I got very excited with. Yet I was highly disappointed with it and got bored of it very quickly, never to be taken out of the box again.
The aim of the game is to cook up recipes by slicing, dicing, boiling, frying, chopping etc. For this you get rewarded a bronze, silver or gold award for your skills in the virtual kitchen. There are easy recipes such as an omelette, which then progresses into more difficult things such as Japanese. In total there are 76 recipes to complete and with the easy one not taking much time at all you will whizz your way through them and then ask the question, ok what's next? You have to master the first 15 before you can start unlocking the rest. You can blow into the DS and cool the food down and arrange the food on the plate, which is a novelty for about 3 recipes...
For my liking it was slightly childish and although it's for 3+, I would say that younger children may have problems carrying out the recipes because a gold was hard for me to achieve and you have to be quite good with timings as well as chopping well with the knife that you move using the DS pen. I found that it was difficult to be precise so for a younger child this is probably even more difficult.
The actual graphics are very colourful though and Mama seems cheery enough so the appeal is there and maybe this is why I was so disappointed, not that I expected to be a gourmet chef after playing! It just looked so tempting!
You can also create recipe combinations but this doesn't really vary much from the normal game play so you can't even rely on that to extend the enjoyment time. I found that I spent quite a long period of time cooking but then once it was gone it was gone but maybe I should have realised by the low price in comparison to other DS games that this would be the case. The music was also quite repetitive and annoying and if I had a child playing this with the sound on next to me on even a short train ride I would want to throw it on the floor and stamp on it!
If you wanted to buy this for a child to learn about cooking, I don't think it really teaches a lot and I worry that a child left alone in a kitchen after playing this game may have disastrous consequences! It does teach what goes into the various recipes but beyond that and there is not a lot else it teaches as the recipes are so basic.
I think that maybe this game is ok for children around the ages of 8-14 but beyond that and it just gets monotonous and you want to progress to a more interesting level but you can't. I think they should have made it more challenging as the only challenge is completing the actions quick enough and this to me was more frustrating rather than challenging.
To be honest I just expected more and was highly disappointed. I would never even bother buying the second one. Ok so it made me a bit hungry but other than that it really did not satisfy my appetite.
Here's the stats: PUBLISHER: Majesco Sales Inc. DEVELOPER: Taito Corporation GENRE(S): Cooking, Action PLAYERS: 4 ESRB RATING: E (Everyone) RELEASE DATE: September 12, 2006
also on dooyoo.co.uk under bkecky
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Advantages: Fun anime style graphics, good for young gamers, good for leisure gamers, very addictive Disadvantages: Too easy for seasoned gamers, not action packed or full of puzzles
Advantages: Fun concept, would appeal to the fans of the Cooking Mama series Disadvantages: Mini games a bit repetitive and the controls can be awkward
Sep 24th, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
