" Repetitive, But Definately Worth Taking a Look At"

When I first heard about a game about cooking, I definately had to try it out, since my future chef of a best friend would never forgive me if I didn't get it, and it seemed like an only natural concept. What other system could actually pull off a game about cooking? Anyway, in this game, you use the stylus as a cooking tool to chop things, sautee them, and anything else that must be done, and it's a great deal of fun.

Gameplay: 3/5 In addition to making recipes, you can practice a specific skill, combine recipies, send a friend a tech demo, or do a lightning round of a skill. You start out with 15 recipes, and to with each new one you pass, you unlock more. With a total of 76 recipes, which are mostly japanese, it would seem like a ton of variety, but unfortunately a lot of the recipes are very similar. For instance, there are about four different types of gyoza (dumplings). Also, there aren't any cookies or desserts.

Even though there isn't too much variety with the recipes, they're still fun to go through, and since each one only takes a few minutes to go through, this game is very well played in short amounts of time, making it great for when you're in a situation where you're gonna be turning off your DS often (like class!) As I said the stylus is used for everything (except blowing into the mic), which can be a lot of fun as long as you don't overdo it. I was a little disappointed though, that there wasn't a mission mode, like where you become a chef at a restaurant or something. You just play through one recipe, finish, and then go back to the menu.

Graphics: 5/5 You really can't ask for 3-d graphics with a cooking game. It would look really bad. These 2-d cartoony graphics are perfect, the food looks delicious, and the only thing that sort of annoys me is that the sandwich bread looks... not like bread. Everything else is nice though.

Sound: 3.5/5 As for sound effects, you hear the chopping, frying, boiling, and everything else that happens in a real kitchen. The music is just piano stuff, which is nothing special, but I don't really have any complaints about it, as I have no idea what kind of music you would expect to hear in a cooking game. You'll either semi-enjoy it, or hate it, but you don't need the sound on at all in this game, so feel free to mute.

Value: 5/5 It's only a 20 dollar game, so you really have nothing to lose by checking it out if you see it, especially since it can be a bit hard to come by. Even if you breeze through the game in a few hours, it's fun to go back and do the recipes again, especially if you're doing something where you have to go back and forth between your games and something else (like school, or friends, or a short car ride).

Pros: -great concept
-yummy food
-great use of DS features

Cons: -No mission mode
-a lot of similarites between recipes

While Cooking Mama certainly isn't the game of the year, it has a great price tag, and a good several hours worth of enjoyment. If it's available for rent, renting it would allow you to fully experience it, but I would reccomend buying it just because it's more fun to play for a few minutes a day than an hour at a time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/06