"Goes to Show You That Science Just Isn't EVER Fun..."

Bill Nye the Science Guy tries to make science fun. And it ends up being really cheesy and most people's eyes start to glaze over when the actual science is being explained. Alton Brown (of Good Eats) takes a different approach and attempts to teach people the science behind food. Interesting and all, my thoughts start to wander off when he gets all scientific and my attention is only regained when food is being made. Now, I commend adults for trying to teach kids that science is enjoyable and fun but the reality is this: it's not. And quite frankly, I think we can all agree that the only people who thoroughly find science enjoyable (as a passion, not a hobby) are too smart to appreciate the dumbed down science of video games like this, or just aren't into video games. But seriously, science is a difficult subject to focus on in a video game, especially when it doesn't relate to high-tech weaponry or infectious, deadly viruses capable of creating zombies.

So here we have Science Papa who decided, what if we took the idea of Cooking Mama and, instead of cooking, made it about science? Now, first of all, as I've read in numerous places, the makers of Science Papa are NOT the ones who made Cooking Mama. Why's it sound so damn familiar, then? Well, because, quite frankly, the approach is similar: Science Papa is a collection of minigames much like Cooking Mama is. But after playing it, I find it odd that while Cooking Mama had me hooked, Science Papa had me bored.

Before I start this review, I want to point out again that Science Papa isn't related at all to Cooking Mama. It sounds like a spinoff but I certainly won't be blaming Majesco for the mess that Activision tried to make. However, with that said, I will DEFINITELY be making comparisons of this game to Cooking Mama. The way I see it, if you want to copy a game (because let's be honest, who didn't automatically think of Cooking Mama when they heard of Science Papa?), then you have to deal with the comparisons. It's like how everyone compared the numerous GTA-like games to GTA. In the end, you may think that all I'm doing is basically saying, "This game sucks because it's not Cooking Mama." Certainly this is true, but the main thing is this: This game sucks because IT DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME STUFF GOING FOR IT that Cooking Mama has. Let's begin this review so you can see what I mean.

Story
Expecting a story in a game that is essentially a collection of minigames (such as Warioware) is foolish. In Science Papa, there IS a story...sort of. You're the lab assistant of Science Papa himself and your driving force for continuing the game is to come out first in the science competitions. Everything in between? Nonexistent. I guess that's more of a story than Cooking Mama can say it has, but stories are meant to be driving forces. That said, you're certainly never motivated to continue playing because of the story. However, once again, expecting a story - especially a good one - in this kind of game is foolish and so I don't look at Science Papa any more negatively because of its story.

Controls
Everything in the same is controlled by the touch screen. They do what they are meant to do, which is all you can ask for, really. The game isn't so fast-paced that you require quick, tight controls (this is usually when problems with the controls pop up) so if there were ever any control issues, I never noticed. Stirring solutions is kind of weird and not really how one would expect it to work. However, when you realize how to stir effectively, this isn't an issue. One minor criticism I would say, though, is that some of the buttons are small so sometimes you'll select something else instead of what you had intended to select. But this is minor and probably a problem only I have.

Graphics
Going for a more realistic approach instead of Cooking Mama's cutesy drawn approach, the graphics unfortunately don't help this game much. The characters are drawn nicely (although one look at Papa and you start to think, "Shouldn't this be called Science Grandpapa?") and all and if you hated how cute and bubbly and flowery Cooking Mama was, you'll appreciate this much toned down art style. Some of the actual 3D stuff look bland and uninteresting. The dalmation mice are nice and all but they're not spectacular. Basically, the graphics in Science Papa won't wow you but they're not so damn terrible that everything's just blocks. A nice touch is that, while growing plants, they actually DO grow and you see them go from seedling to tiny sprout. Nice touch, but definitely should've been expected anyway.

Gameplay
Now to get to the good stuff. After all, if you're playing a game such as Science Papa for its story, graphics, or controls, you are terribly weird and unreasonable. =D Certainly there were other factors in making Cooking Mama such a success, but undoubtedly its gameplay was the biggest. Cooking seemed like something no one wanted to do, and doing it in a video game just seemed stupid. But we all played, didn't we? And we all loved, did we not? If a sequel isn't proof of the love we all have for Mama then I don't know what is. In any case, the main point is: Cooking Mama made cooking fun. Science Papa, on the other hand, does NOT make science fun.

It definitely tries, throwing in experiments that involve making smoke bombs or firepowder, but really, it's just not turning out how I'm sure the developers had hoped.

In Science Papa, just like Cooking Mama, you have to perform each task necessary to get to the end solution. In Cooking Mama, you cut, pour, and cook with the result being a food dish. In Science Papa, then, you measure, stir, and mix with the result being numerous things (ranging from soap and shampoo to genetically altered mice). Really, the name isn't the only thing Science Papa has in common with Cooking Mama - its concept is pretty similar as well. So if you know Cooking Mama, then you know what to expect from Science Papa.

One difference with Science Papa, however, is that you don't have to do things in steps. That is, whereas in Cooking Mama, you had to chop, then mix, then fry, then etc, in Science Papa, you can stir AND heat up AND brush. Multitasking is important in Science Papa if you want those bonus points and makes things seem slightly more realistic. After all, when you've got something heating up, you don't just sit there and wait for it to be done - you do another task while you wait. However, multitasking has its flaws, which is mainly that even when you do it, achieving bonuses is still hard as hell. But let's move on to the negatives.

My first negative with the game is that what you do doesn't always have the affect you'd like. My most relevant example is with the brush tool. In Cooking Mama, when you chop a vegetable, how quickly you tap the knife directly affects the quickness of your chopping (ie, the faster you tap, the faster you chop). When collecting corn kernels, the faster you swipe that ear of corn, the faster you'll get your kernels. This is not the case with the brush. The brush requires you to clean numerous things by swiping your stylus back and forth. Simple enough, but the problem is that no matter how quickly you swipe, your brush will always brush at the same speed. There's no way to make this task faster (aside from upgrading your brush) and quite frankly, I don't want to just swipe my screen; I want to swipe and have it affect the speed of my brushing. Upgrading it allows the game to make things easier, as opposed to my skill making things easier. Major problem. Of course, you're probably thinking I'm being nitpicky, which is true. So let's move on.

Another negative I have with the game is that some of the minigames have little involvement at all. When your game is essentially a collection of minigames, you don't want to have one of your minigames be "sit here and look at your screen until the bar fills up." Cue the electrolysis machine, the oven, the filter, etc. Literally in these tasks, you just take your ingredient and stick it in its respective machine. Then you turn on the machine and you wait until the bar fills up. Sounds a lot like baking in Cooking Mama, huh? Sure, it's similar, but unfortunately, for some reason, you actually have to WAIT in Science Papa. These hands-off minigames in Cooking Mama only lasted a few seconds. The ones in Science Papa, however, last much, much longer. This is fine when you can perform other tasks while your stuff sits in the oven, but sometimes your only task at the moment is to heat something up. And so you wait for it to finish and it's terribly boring.

That's actually probably one of the bigger problems with Science Papa: everything drags out too long. Cooking Mama has all of its minigames short and sweet. Nothing lasts too long. In Science Papa, things take forever. Brushing, filtering, growing, etc take forever, and when most of these only require for you to wait until the bar fills up, you've got a problem. Keep in mind that the advantage of making things short is that nothing becomes overly tedious. After all, all you're doing is chopping a vegetable, for example. It's not THAT exciting. If I had to do that for 30 seconds as opposed to just 10 seconds, that would be a problem (this is probably why Gardening Mama isn't nearly as fun as Cooking Mama - its tasks are way too long).

The great thing about Science Papa is that you can buy new lab equipment and even upgrade your current ones to make them more effective. The oven will cook faster, the heat lamps will help plants grow faster, etc. The one thing I found odd, though, is that when I upgraded my mortar, it became automated. Your initial mortar requires you to pound ingredients manually. This is fine because you directly control how quickly you can finish this task. However, when you upgrade it, it becomes automated so all you do is turn on the mortar and let it pound the ingredients yourself. Now you are no longer involved in the pounding process, and you can't control how quickly the task finishes (it'll crush at its own speed no matter what). Can someone say pointless?

The best part of Science Papa, though, is the science competitions. In order to be eligible for competitions, you have to do the boring in-between stuff, which is either to rack up a certain amount of money or a certain amount of reputation. These are both gained by completing tasks for people. Don't think of this as an RPG, though. You mainly just get a bunch of options for experiments to do and you repeat them until you reach your target cash/rep. They repeat too so the poor Zookeeper will continually ask you to make shampoo for her. Because the minigames themselves aren't so interesting, repeating these tasks can become tiresome, especially because all you want to do is get into the next level of the competition.

Now, back to these competitions, they're nothing extraordinary: you simply have to perform a task (making soap, modifying genetics, etc) and finish before your opponent does. I haven't had trouble beating my opponents. It's hard to complete tasks to get bonus points, but beating your competition isn't as tough (which is a good thing, or else the game would quickly become frustrating).

And...let's see...I guess that's all the good I can say about this game. There are some minigames that are quite unique and fun (microscope comes to mind) but everything else is generic affair and typically boring. Another plus, which depends on who you're asking, is that flowers, sparkles, hearts, and other cute things don't shower your screen so at least people won't look at you with confusion when you're out playing this. But that's all preference.

I guess "boring" is really the key word here and really my biggest issue with the game. It doesn't make you want to keep playing, even though there are numerous different "recipes" to unlock. The minigames aren't very fun, and some are downright stupid. The science is there, I'm sure, but given I'm no big fan of science enough to know, I can't legitimize the content in this game. In the end, if you're hoping for something as fun as Cooking Mama, you won't find it in this game (you don't even get a broken-Englished "Even better than Papa!") If you're hoping for an engaging science experience, I don't know why you're turning to video games. My final conclusion: The game is mediocre at best PRIOR to comparing it with Cooking Mama. But once you DO compare the two, this game goes from mediocre to bland, boring, and terrible. Sorry science, but you just can't win.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/09

Game Release: Science Papa (US, 07/15/09)