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Fabulous!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I cannot speak from personal experience but I can say that my 6-year-old LOVES this game and can play literally for hours.

Simple tasks are presented initally and the player progresses up to larger recipies. What's nice is that a player CAN practice prior to doing the "real thing" under Mama's critical eye!

I don't know if anyone else had the problem with the touch screen. The game seems very sensitive to how the stylus is used and my 6-year-old cannot play the game on her own DS - too many touch screen problems but can play it on mine - I think this is a problem with her own DS albeit it is not that old. Nevertheless, she may be a little too rough with the touch screen so heed the warning to BE GENTLE wih any game.

The only caveat here is for youngsters who cannot read or read slowly, an adult might have to help. I don't mind - my 6-year-old WANTS even more to read so I find it encouraging. After performing the mini exercises, the player will have the opportunity to "cook" the final project but has to follow the directions. This is not a problem as long as I can read them to her (i.e. turn the stove on "medium", "flip", et cetera). One might even say the game is good for getting people to learn to follow directions, always a plus.

Enjoy! From what I'm seeing with the other reviewers, this game is good for both adults and children - that's a winner!

cooking fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: October 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am 23 years old and this game hasn't left my DS since I bought it a month ago. It's incredibly fun. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes fast paced minigames. You get rated bronze, silver, or gold for your cooking. I love these weird japanese games! I only gave it 4 stars overall because there is not a lot of replay value once you have received gold on all 74 or so recipes. I heard they are making a Wii version of cooking mama, so I'm hoping that one will have more recipes.

Fun... even for older kids!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: October 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Hi, I am 11 yrs old, and my next door neighboor's little sister got a pink nintendo lite. She is 6 yrs old and she recieved it for her birthday. With the nintendo ds lite, she recieved cooking mama. I started to play it, and it was really fun! It is fun to get new recipies and prepare the food. My favorite is making the pizza, and beef stew.

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My 9 year old and 16 year old fight over this game. My 9 year old owns the game. She has asked me to buy her 16 year old sister the game, so she will leave hers alone. It is a great game that will hold your attention.

Mesmerizing Monotony

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 19
Date: October 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The problem I've noticed with a lot of DS games is that they totally lack any kind of replay value. Out of the five games I've bought since I got this hand held, I've only kept two of them. The main problem I've noticed is that the games where either too repetative or the difficulty was skewed towards being too difficult or too easy. Cooking Mama embodies both of this common problems, as once the novelty of the touch screen control weares off, there is very little substance remaining.

Cooking Mama is about cooking, of course. As you complete recipes, new ones become available for a total of 76 unique dishes. After unlocking of those, you can combine two recipes for even more complex and difficult culinary challenges, and practice certain cooking skills. It may seem on paper that there is a lot to do here, but in reality there really isn't. Each recipe is broken down into a series of steps, each step representing a beat the clock mini-game. Here in lies Cooking Mama's main problem. The mini-games are really repetative. You'll see seeing a lot of the same one's over and over again, sometimes twice in the same recipe. Cut the vegetables, boil the ingredients, slice meat, dry fry the food. The recipe unique games are few and far between. And goodness help you if really hate one of the games that pop up frequently. I can't stand the game where a series of intrustions scrolls across the top screen and you must perform the action just as it passes over this little line. It's not hard or anything, just annoying and sometimes you can do it up to three times per recipe.

The DS cartridge is capable of holding ports of 3D Nintendo 64 games so there really is no excuse why Cooking Mama only seems to have about 30 mini-games total. Some of the challenges are utterly ridiculous too. One game has you imputting the number of minutes Mama tells you to onto a microwave. It's no challenge at all, and its the kind of activity that belongs on a Speak-N-Spell. In fact most of the mini-games really aren't very challenging. The only one that I ever found difficult was the game where you have to coat meat in bread crumbs because it takes forever to do it.

Cooking Mama is okay for its low price, but after a few days I imagine you will put it away and never look at it again.

Finally a game that really deserves 5 stars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I find this game to be very fun. It is so cool the way you make many meals and sometimes, you have the option to change them while you make them. There is also a practice option so you can practice a cooking tool or the way to do something before making the real meal. There is also an option to mix two meals together. If you don't know already, there is 75+ meals to make in this game. As I go make more meals and unlock more meals, I get different tasks so the game stays alive and fun. To this day I still play this game and it's so fun to go over meals you have already made and perfect them to get a gold coin for them. You will have hours of fun with this game. Hope you enjoy it. :]]

Extra tasty for only $20!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Putting me, your friendly Game Freaks 365 video game reviewer, into a kitchen is about as productive as chucking an infant armed with a combat knife on the front lines. I touch spatulas and pots and pans and things go wrong. Three-minute Ramen noodles take me eight. Ultimately Cliff Bakehorn fits with cooking as well as trying to put LEGOs together the wrong way. Well, Mama doesn't care. She wants me to cook delicious meals. In Majesco's cute little DS game, my gaming cooking skill was equal to that of my real-life skill, but I couldn't help but enjoy it anyway.

Might I start by saying that never in my life has a video game made me hungry. They've made me happy, excited, angry and, in the case of Kingdom Hearts, cry like a baby. Cooking Mama made my stomach growl like an angry dog. There are dozens of recipes for gamers to prepare, including simple things like Instant Ramen and much more difficult dishes like shrimp curry (there goes my stomach again). Now, bear in mind that Cooking Mama is no simulation-far from it, in fact, it is closer to being a rhythm game than a simulation. Wolfgang Puck will still make a better meal, even if you earn gold medals in all of Cooking Mama's dishes.

The audience that Cooking Mama appeals to will appreciate the simplicity of the game's controls; almost everything is done with the stylus. The stylus is your virtual hand, fork, knife, spatula, everything. You'll trace lines to cut vegetables, draw circles to stir, and tap things scattered around the screen to add ingredients, select pieces of food, and the like. Like real-life cooking, Cooking Mama is all about directions rather than difficult controls.

The game is set up in a way that is even more simple; each step in the recipe is its own mini-game of sorts. For example, you'll begin to make rice by filling up cups of water and pouring them into a pot. Then you wash the rice, and if the recipe calls for adding other things, you continue in that direction. When stirring and cooking things in a pot, you'll follow a rhythm-like line of commands, changing stove temperature, blowing on the DS microphone, and stirring when prompted. Mama grades you on each individual step, and making good meals is a matter of doing each step as efficiently and properly as possible. For example, filling up a pot with too much water makes Mama very mad, and she gives the fiery death glare and a Failure to any cook who messes up.

Sadly, some actions don't work as well as others. I had the hardest and most frustrating time trying to peel vegetables, but had absolutely no trouble with the rhythm stuff. Fortunately the annoying task of blowing into the DS microphone is done better here than in other games, and at least with a cooking game it is appropriate.

There isn't much lasting appeal to Cooking Mama, sadly. Sure, it's fun to go back and play through all the recipes, earning gold medals and unlocking extra stuff, but there is nothing outside of that. Majesco was wise to release Cooking Mama at the bargain price of $20, because it isn't worth more than that to anyone. The Nintendo Wii follow-up, Cooking Mama: Cook Off releases this April with multiplayer features, Wii remote controls, and more content-perhaps anyone who hasn't invested time into Cooking Mama and is now considering it should wait for that release instead.

Visuals and sound effects are pretty simple. Cooking Mama has a ridiculously cute art design, that's for sure. The ingredients and different parts of foods are hit and miss, but I don't think sushi seaweed ever looked very good anyway. I am actually quite satisfied that Taito didn't use more realistic images of food, because in hindsight, that wouldn't have been a very attractive sight. Real food, before being prepared, rarely looks delicious.

For $20, you can't really knock Cooking Mama. It's a simple, cute game that I can guarantee for any younger or female DS owner. As mentioned before, the Wii follow-up is coming soon with even more Mama to go around, so DS owners with a Wii might consider waiting for that instead.

One of my favorite DS games!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of the reasons why I bought a Nintendo DS instead of another portable game system. In a world of extremely kid-friendly DS games, it's hard to find adult games that aren't brain-type games as well. I actually work at a popular department store and before I bought a DS, I noticed that a lot of adult customers were buying this game and claiming that it wasn't for their child but for themselves. So when I decided to buy a DS, this was one of the first games I bought.

In this game you're a chef and Cooking Mama is your teacher. You first learn how to do certain skills (such as chopping, washing rice, mixing, frying, etc.). Then you make actual dishes. You're scored on each step you do based on how accurately you do it and how fast you do it. If you complete some recipes, new ones will be available to you. Eventually, you can mix recipes and create more exciting dishes.

I've had this game for months and I'm not bored with it yet. I've made every dish but still have fun trying to get a higher score on every recipe. I also like to mix recipes and try to get higher scores on those as well. So, no, after you've made every recipe it doesn't get boring. The only thing that had me scratching my head is the different things you can make. You have simple things like meatballs but you also have some weird Japanese foods as well. If you're giving this to a child, just be forewarned that they may be confused as to what they're making.

In my opinion, this is a must-have Nintendo DS game!

Good game for toddler

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My son is 3&half years old, he loves playing with this game. Not a very simple game. You got to unlock more different dishes once you've finish making one dish. It is a bit hard to slice things, but the rest is very smooth. You'll learn how to made each dishes in real life. I think that's the bonus..haha..similar ingridents. Worth playing! Even I enjoy playing this game with my son. How said cooking is just for girls?

Now if only you could eat it...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Cooking Mama is a well done and unique game to be certain; I've never played a funner cooking game in my life. Unfortunately, that's not saying much. As a starter, let me say I do enjoy cooking in real life when I can. I enjoy cooking or other people or improving on existing dishes. With Cooking Mama though, there is none of this joy that makes cooking enjoyable.

What works for Cooking Mama?
PROS

- High quality graphics and sound; the food browns, the ingredients swish and sizzle, and the effects sparkle.

- Tons of recipes, both Japanese and worldly.

- Many different difficulties of recipes and tasks, with a lot of work being needed to perfect things but not too much.

- The ability to alter recipes and share them.

What doesn't work though?
CONS

- Apart from a separate practice mode, there isn't really much too this game beyond getting medals on all the recipes.

- The large number of recipes repeat a lot the same tasks; stirring in recipe X is the same as stirring in recipe Y. This means that while there are over a hundred recipes, the number of activites you do ends up being a little less than that.

- This is a cooking game; why is that a con? It is a con because a game cannot replicate some of the best parts of cooking. You cannot smell or taste what you cook, and apart from sharing recipes, there is no sharing of your creations.

- The gameplay ends up being too rigid; cooking is more fleixble and artistic then this game lets on, and it can make cooking feel more frustrating than it actually is.
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Cooking Mama is well done, for a cooking game. In the end, that ends up being both its blessing and its curse. If you are looking for a way to practice some cooking basics, get some ideas for recipes, or just a way to kill time on your DS it's hard to go wrong with Cooking Mama. However, if you're looking for variety in minigames, a vehicle to teach you to cook well, or a game with many modes and months of replayability, you'd be better looking elsewhere.

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