"A novel concept, turned into a hard, sadistic game."

Long have I awaited the coming of a cooking game. When the DS was released, I had high hopes that someone would utilize all it's features and make a fun yet still realistic cooking game. I saw Cooking Mama, and I was instantly excited. "How could it go wrong?" I asked myself.

As the release date approached, the concept seemed novel. A mini-game for each step in a recipe, menus and game play completely controlled by the stylus. As it got closer and closer, I told myself, "this could not go wrong."

It turns out I was very, very wrong.

When you first start off, the easy recipes are fairly fun. But then, as you start progressing, you realize the flaws of the game. The learning curve is impossibly steep - mainly because the directions provided in the instruction booklet and in game combined are sometimes not enough to achieve a perfect score. Some activities, like sauteing ingredients, have little guidance, so you are forced to practice the exercises many times until you fully understand the concept. Some other activities, in particular peeling potatoes, are just down right difficult.

The game does have it's redeeming qualities, but they are few and far between. Almost right off the bat you are thrown into difficult recipes and impossible tasks. But, when you manage to get the hang of it, you feel an extreme sense of accomplishment - not to say that this accomplishment overrides the extreme sense of frustration. The game play is at times innovative, the recipes are interesting, but these qualities all take supporting roles when you examine the game as a whole.

The look of the game is light-hearted, and the sound adds to this. If you are comfortable with getting one of the lower ranks, then it can be a fun game, I will give it that. But many gamers want to earn a gold medal, and you may spend up to half an hour just mastering a hard task or getting a gold rank on one of the game's 76 recipes.

Buy or Rent: Rent. Then, if you can conquer the challenge, more power to you, buy the game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/06