Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.
Busy Gamer Review-
Cooking Mama
Reviewed On: Nintendo DS
In a Nutshell: Cook recipes (mostly Japanese fare with a few Western dishes thrown in) by playing mini-games that simulate each preparation step. Measure water and rice, bread meats, butter frying pans and cook items Dance Dance Revolution-style with a meter that marks a short opportunity to perform an action. Cooking Mama doesn't offer any real world recipes that you could make with the game's guidance. In fact, some of the steps are pure game balancing: Do you really need to repeatedly blow on boiling vegetables and adjust the stovetop temperature three times to create a perfect potato salad? Then again, it's a lot more fun than real cooking. Learning Curve: Easy. You can pick this game up in moments, though mastering some recipe steps may take awhile. Some are embarrassingly easy (like setting the time on the microwave) while measuring ingredients, sauté©®g and grilling foods are a bit more difficult. Fortunately, a convenient practice mode lets you repeat troublesome mini-games until you get the hang of them.
The Save Game: Since it's a DS game, saving your progress is as simple as snapping the system shut (which works fine unless the battery dies). The game saves your highest rankings and any new unlocked dishes between cooking sessions. The most complicated recipes take maybe 10 minutes to complete. So you won't have any problems if you need to pull yourself away, except for the temptation to finish just one more cooking step before, say, preparing a real meal for the family.
The only downside is that the game offers no save slots or player profiles, so you can't really share the game with other family members without them contributing to your game progress. There is a wireless demo feature if you have more than one DS and your family is happy to only sample the game. Otherwise, your only choices are to get more than one copy, or clear the save file when you're done with it.
Family Factor: The rating is E with a warning about alcohol use, but the only booze is cooking sherry. The most shocking parts include burning your hand with a hot potato or hitting it with a mallet while pounding rice. It's done in a cartoon style that's less frightening than pretty much anything you'd see on Saturday morning television. If junior takes a peek, there shouldn't be any mental scarring.
Buy, Rent or Skip? It's short, so rent it if you can find a place that offers DS games rentals (if all else fails, sign up for GameFly.com). If you really love cooking and mini-games, you may want to buy. It's only $20, and you might be able to score a used copy for less.
