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Kitchen Madness

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 147 / 155
Date: September 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I won't say that Cooking Mama is the best game I've played in recent months. Surely, there's something more important than cooking - like, killing zombies on the X360, for example. However, it's certainly the most innovative, especially when you consider how much you can do on the limited dimensions of a Nintendo DS touch screen.

In Cooking Mama, you're an apprentice in the fine art of cuisine management. Your master, a certain Mama, will put you through a series of saliva-inducing recipes, and will grill you through the preparation of each as if it's the only thing you live for. You can choose to practise before hand, but when you go into the actual process of making a particular food, you'll find that there's no room for error. A wrong move, and Mama will not hesitate to show you her wrath.

Making a food involves several steps. Some are short, while some may take forever. For example, when preparing a pan-fried fish, you'll have to go through the coating of the fish slices, the melting of the butter, the actual pan-frying and the arranging of the plate. Each process in turn involves different ways of doing things. Coating the fish slices, for example, requires you to drag your stylus in a left-right manner while touching the fish. Melting the butter requires you to rapidly drag the butter in a circular motion when it's on a hot plate. Pan-frying involves a "following the command on-screen" mini-game that requires you to perform whatever Mama tells you to, and so on.

The impressive thing here is that, even though you're just stroking your stylus throughout the game's 70+ recipes, you're essentially doing different things. It's a bit like Trauma Centre from last year, but instead of seeing body parts, you're looking at food. If you're more adventurous, you can even combine recipes to form new ones, which adds depth to the gameplay.

For a game as quirky as this, it's understandable that it uses quirky graphics. The presentation of Cooking Mama is light-hearted, and makes the hectic process of cooking (to me, at least) much more enjoyable. The music is a little weak, even though it does have some nice variety. But seriously, graphics and audios are not what you'd buy this game for. I mean, who cares about these things when you've Fried Octopus Balls to make?

For its sheer audacity in bringing the kitchen onto the DS, I'd recommend Cooking Mama to every owner of the DS. Don't expect to see your DS in a few weeks, however, if you bought this game, and have a missus in the house. Now, if only my wife can learn a few tips out of this.

Cooking, cooking!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 96 / 100
Date: September 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a very cute game for the DS. A good one if you've just purchased a DS and want a game that really shows you what a stylus can do. ;) Some recipes are kinda easy, while others proove more challenging. I'm still working on peeling potatoes fast enough. The graphics are very amuzing. I laughed out loud as I spilled water all over the place while trying to drain some pasta. The meals are japanese based...and make you want to go out and make your own gyoza! This is very fun for an adult who likes DS mini games, and it doesn't seem too 'kiddish' as I had feared. I'm so glad this unique japanese game made it to the states. Two thumbs up for Cooking Mama!

Fun new innovative cooking game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 49 / 52
Date: September 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I got this for my girl along with one of the new pink DS Lite and she is loving both the machine and the game. I think anybody that enjoys cooking will probably enjoy this game.

It is basically simple stylus controlled fun little minigames (200+) through which you make 76 real world food items.

It has a great progression so it is easy to learn even if you don't know cooking or don't know how to play games. For example first you learn to make boiled rice which is as simple as adding the right about of water to the pot with a simple minigame... and then if you do that successfully then next you can try making fried rice.

I really like the low price of the game. It should appeal to anybody that enjoys Warioware, Feel the Magic, etc type games.

A Surprise Family Favorite!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: March 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Having recently purchased a DS lite for my seven year old we let him choose his games. Being like most boys he picked a Mario title and a Sonic title. I jokingly commented to my husband I wanted to try Cooking Mama. The game is mine! Or so I thought when he brought it home for me a few days later.

I started playing right away and was quite amused by the cute little graphics, annoyingly catchy music and Mama's firey eyes when I messed up on my Fried Octopus Balls. The mini-game style and chances to practice each technique before making them kept me entertained to the point of taking the DS with me so I could play at random places outside my home. Until of course I laid it down one night (my thumbs were sore from hours of perfecting my Miso Soup) and my husband picked it up. Hearing him curse at the cheery little Mama and his over-cooked chicken was more amusing than watching him throwing his console controllers. Next my son got his hands on the game, it is HIS DS afterall. Soon it was his favorite, Mario and Sonic long forgotten.

I never thought this game would become a family favorite. I expected it to wind up lost somewhere in the stacks of other games. Instead everyone in our family takes turns preparing all these odd Japanese dishes and earning new ones. While very repetative and at times frustrating we've all really enjoyed it. If you're looking for a family friendly game for all ages I would reccomend this game a thousand times over.

Love to cook but hate messes try this fun game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: March 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a fun game. You can cook many different recipes and unlock many more as well. There are probably a lot of recipes you have never heard of. If you aren't allowed to cook you can play this game without getting hurt or burned.

Fun but simple

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: September 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I looked forward to this game coming out here in the USA after I read about the Japanese version, and I have to say I'm glad we got it. It's a fun, quirky game that's simple and quick to play, nice if you've just got a few spare moments to play, doesn't take a lot of concentration and is easy enough to not be frustrating. Mama is pretty forgiving though, she gets a nasty glare if you mess up but then she "fixes" things for you, although she lowers your score if you don't do it right.

Most of the recipes have a Japanese feel to them, which is nice if you wanted the game to be the same as the Japanese version, but maybe not so good if you don't relate to sweet fried eggs or sushi. Also, I think the Japanese version had voices, but this one only has sound effects (not sure, but in the videos of the Japanese version there was talking, it might have just been narration though.)

The only main drawback is that it might just be a bit TOO easy, the only real challenge is trying to get higher level medals. But the price is right, and I wish more quirky games from Japan made it to the US.

Fun for a while

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 19
Date: February 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Cooking Mama for the DS is one of those many games that feel right at home on Nintendo's dual screened money making handheld, and it pretty much does it's job providing a brief, but fun, collection of cooking themed scenarios to breeze through. Using the stylus and touch screen to prepare your various dishes for dining pleasure, Cooking Mama will look adorable even to the most jaded of gamers thanks to it's cartoony yet unbelievably charming presentation. There's a nice amount of different combination dishes to cook up, but sadly it won't take you long to march through the game at all. This is simplified even more thanks to the fact that Cooking Mama is about as far as can be from offering any sort of real difficulty whatsoever. Despite all that though, Cooking Mama has a great deal of charm to it that will put a smile on your face no matter what; which in itself is a welcome feature in any game. It's not very deep, if at all, and offers little in terms of replay value, but Cooking Mama is a worthwhile, and affordable, distraction while it lasts. Great for kids if you're a parent looking for a fun and non-violent game that's easy to get into.

Fun, but where's the beef?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: September 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Cooking Mama is esentially a series of cooking mini-games strung together to form 'recipes' for dishes. It's an enjoyable game but it lacks enough depth to be truely replayable. When enjoyed casually I think this game could last a while, but aside from these dishes there is little else to do. I found myself wanting to unlock more than recipes, to find new ways of using my cooking practice. One way this game could have easily been made a classic would have been to add some competitive play to it. How about Iron Chef matches or Wi-Fi tournaments? But there's not much to this game once the novelty wears off, which for me was about 6 hours later. I've come back to it casually but not for more than a few minutes here and there. It is, however, well worth the $20 price tag.

Great game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My kids are 4 and 11 (boy and girl) and both love this game! It is a great alternative to the fast, rush, shoot atmosphere that most games have. I thought that the game may be a bit lame due the price and the graphics, but my kids play this game more than ANY of the other games they have (and they have a lot of em...lol). I hope they come out with another one!

Very fun, no matter your age

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I work at a Japanese restaurant and not only are the recipes in this game very accurate, it's tremendously fun for all of us. Whether it's 30 year old me, my 40 year old boss, or their 10 and 6 year old kids, all of us enjoy it. It's easy enough for the 6 year to do most of it, but hard enough that even I haven't gotten 100s on every single recipe yet. I'd recommend this game whole heartedly.

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