Cooking Mama Review
By: Bernie Yee
Japanese cover shown above
Contents:
1. Introduction / Story
2. Gameplay
3. Graphics and Sound
4. Replay
5. Conclusion
Introduction / Story
Have you ever wanted to be a great chef, but found out in reality you stunk worse than a skunk? Do you want to indulge yourself in a fantastic simulation cooking game where you get to make lots of choices and delicious dishes? Look no further, because you can now be “Cooking Mama!”
There’s no real story to Cooking Mama, just plain old fun where you get to cook dishes from sunny-side up eggs to shrimp tempura! (The dishes are mostly Asian influenced since it was made in Japan.)
Gameplay – 9
The gameplay is like WarioWare! Touched, there are a bunch of little mini-games that contributes to your final dish.
Each mini-game features a different style of control using the stylus, e.g. cracking eggs compared to tenderizing beef. The game is 100% stylus controlled, which in my opinion, uses the full potential of the touch-screen really well. However, they could’ve improved on better touch-screen programming because sometimes, the touch-screen seems to be non-responsive.
There are 3 modes in Cooking Mama, “Let’s cook,” “Let’s combine,” and “Use skill.” Let’s cook allows you to make one single dish, whereas let’s combine allows you to mix dishes together, e.g. boiled rice with beef steak to form “beef steak over boiled rice.” And lastly, use skills allow you to play 5 different levels of one skill, e.g. peeling shrimp heads and cutting tofu up and it gets harder as you go along.
Graphics and Sound - 8
Cartoony and full of vibrant colors, that’s one way to describe the graphics in Cooking Mama. The graphics match the music, sound and the game itself very well.
The music and sound are pretty good, although there are less than a dozen actual tracks.
Replay – 8
Replaying this game should be a lot of fun for most people. There’s just so much to do, e.g. get gold on all recipes, mastering the “Use skill” mode, etc. And you can always battle against your friends, swapping the DS if you’d like.
Conclusion
Cooking Mama is definitely one of those better cooking simulation games that does its job smoothly and fantastically. If you like WarioWare, then this game is a must for you!
Now I’m going to try to make my own soba noodles. =D
SCORE = 8.5/10
By: Bernie Yee
Japanese cover shown above
Contents:
1. Introduction / Story
2. Gameplay
3. Graphics and Sound
4. Replay
5. Conclusion
Introduction / Story
Have you ever wanted to be a great chef, but found out in reality you stunk worse than a skunk? Do you want to indulge yourself in a fantastic simulation cooking game where you get to make lots of choices and delicious dishes? Look no further, because you can now be “Cooking Mama!”
There’s no real story to Cooking Mama, just plain old fun where you get to cook dishes from sunny-side up eggs to shrimp tempura! (The dishes are mostly Asian influenced since it was made in Japan.)
Gameplay – 9
The gameplay is like WarioWare! Touched, there are a bunch of little mini-games that contributes to your final dish.
Each mini-game features a different style of control using the stylus, e.g. cracking eggs compared to tenderizing beef. The game is 100% stylus controlled, which in my opinion, uses the full potential of the touch-screen really well. However, they could’ve improved on better touch-screen programming because sometimes, the touch-screen seems to be non-responsive.
There are 3 modes in Cooking Mama, “Let’s cook,” “Let’s combine,” and “Use skill.” Let’s cook allows you to make one single dish, whereas let’s combine allows you to mix dishes together, e.g. boiled rice with beef steak to form “beef steak over boiled rice.” And lastly, use skills allow you to play 5 different levels of one skill, e.g. peeling shrimp heads and cutting tofu up and it gets harder as you go along.
Graphics and Sound - 8
Cartoony and full of vibrant colors, that’s one way to describe the graphics in Cooking Mama. The graphics match the music, sound and the game itself very well.
The music and sound are pretty good, although there are less than a dozen actual tracks.
Replay – 8
Replaying this game should be a lot of fun for most people. There’s just so much to do, e.g. get gold on all recipes, mastering the “Use skill” mode, etc. And you can always battle against your friends, swapping the DS if you’d like.
Conclusion
Cooking Mama is definitely one of those better cooking simulation games that does its job smoothly and fantastically. If you like WarioWare, then this game is a must for you!
Now I’m going to try to make my own soba noodles. =D
SCORE = 8.5/10
