"At Least I Don't Have To Clean Up After Myself Playing This"

TV is jam packed with shows all about demonstrating how bad everyone is at cooking and that we should be despairing that we can't create recipes that take chefs, with ten years experience, twenty minutes to make. There have been games that include cooking as a type of mini game, such as the Harvest Moon series and even the Atelier Iris series. However, Cooking Mama takes a different approach, where instead of being a mini-game, cooking is the main emphasis. This means that instead of just choosing some foods to put together in a pot and hoping they turn out well, you choose a recipe and go through the process of cooking it.

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Gameplay (7/10)
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Playing this game, you're presented with a variety of recipes and select one to create. This is done by completing a series of mini games that use the stylus and sometimes the microphone. Fortunately, the mini games aren't just random and do pretty much reflect what you would have to do in real life whilst preparing the dish. There are some where you run the stylus along a dotted line to emulate cutting a vegetable, and others such as having a pot on the hob and you get fed instructions along the bottom of the screen such as stirring and turning down the heat. The gameplay is very easy to grasp, however, you are expected to do all this within a time limit. After you have finished creating the dish, you are awarded a score to reflect your performance.

A problem exists in that while some of the games are hard, you can still get silver, but trying to get gold on some of the games is seemingly impossible due to stupidly tight time limits. Also, despite being given an explanation of the next game before you start it, the instructions are often not very clear and often I've not been able to get a gold on a recipe just because I wasn't told when I was supposed to take something out of the deep fat fryer. Along with the lack of instructions, when cooking things, often you have to look for a change in colour to symbolise that the food is cooked, however, the of colour from being raw to cooked to overdone is so slight that it's impossible to notice on some and you just have to go by timing it in your head. It seems they were aware of this and for one of the games, you are actually told when something is cooked.

Although there are a lot of recipes to cook, the problem is, there are only a handful of different games used. This means that despite cooking completely different foods, you'll find yourself engaging in the same few games over and over. The game's biggest flaw is it's repetitive nature, since the games last between ten seconds and a minute and it becomes even worse when you find games you hate because as luck would have it, they're probably the ones you'll play most often. There is another mode available to try to relieve the repetition, where you “mix dishes” but in reality, you don't. You cook them separately and then place them one on top of the other, and you can only do it with a few set recipes.

While fun and innovative, the game does have some pretty evident flaws. Since there are only a few different games on offer it's pretty easy to get bored of the game. It's fun to start with, but when you realise that all you're doing is the same few techniques over and over the shine of the game is instantly lost and it never manages to bring it back.

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Graphics (6/10)
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The game uses bright, colourful 2D graphics, and “mama” herself is drawn in super deformed style; huge head, small body. The different ingredients you use are drawn well, and when you've finished cooking, the resultant food looks alright, but never actually makes you want to eat it. The problem is; there's not a lot of variety and the menu you use to choose your recipe from is rather dull. What's there is pretty good, but unfortunately, there just isn't that much of it, and while there are a lot of recipes, most of them are pretty similar and a lot of the same few ingredients.

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Sounds (6/10)
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The music isn't that good, the main menu song really irritates me, and the other background music doesn't offer much better. The sound effects are alright and do actually sound like what you hear when cooking, but there's nothing that makes the game pleasant to listen to.

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Lifespan (6/10)
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While extremely repetitive, there is fun to be had, and with 72 recipes on offer, it will probably keep you going for some time. That is, unless you tire of the gameplay before you even get halfway. The game is a lot more enjoyable if played in small amounts, but since the recipes don't take a long amount of time it's easy to get through quite a few in a short amount of time. The mixing mode was an idea that doesn't really get used to it's full potential, it would be fun to combine dishes that simply don't go together, since if you do it in real life you've ruined two dishes and left with nothing to eat. But unfortunately, it's rather uninspired and doesn't dare try and do anything a little silly, maybe the game's biggest problem is despite the cute graphics, it takes itself too seriously.

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Summary (6/10)
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If you're getting it for $20 it's worth it, if you're getting it for £20 then it's not. There is enough content to keep you entertained for a short amount of time, but other than the few basic games the game offers absolutely nothing else. It does make good use of the DS's features such as the touch screen and is one of the few games that uses the microphone. In essence, it's very similar in nature to Wario Ware Inc, but not as varied and thus not quite as fun. However, it is pretty original, and is something you're not going to be able to play elsewhere, but it feels as if it would have been better if this whole game was included as a mini game for something else as on it's own it just doesn't feel like a complete game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/28/07