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Cooking Mama

Sim
Releases: 03.20.07
OfficeCreate
Majesco Sales, Inc.
ESRB: Everyone

Cooking Mama: Cook Off

Get your Chop on with the Wii arrival of Cooking Mama

by 5PR0CK37

Ah, Cooking Mama. A game about cooking, sort of anyway.

From the opening sequence to the main menu, you know what you're likely in for. And that's a budget game title that's intended for the young casual gamer. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all. I love a casual gaming experience as much as the next person. However, I would like to think that they could make it a little less obvious going in.

After being greeted to an over-anime'd version of a girlie WarioWare title, you get into the meat (ha ha, get it?) of the game. There are three different play modes available. Single player, multi-player and multi-player vs. computer. I'll talk about the single player mode first since that's what I played the most of while writing this review.

I guess the best way to describe this game is that of a WarioWare knock off. I haven't played either of the DS titles, but I know that several people seemed to love the first incarnation of this franchise. And, while that game may have been great, this is unfortunately not. It's simple enough though, the premise being to make food dishes by completing a series of micro games such as cracking eggs, kneading dough or my favorite, grinding meat. Speaking of the meat in this game, it looks somewhat out of place it it's realism. At one point, I got up and cooked some steaks and grilled sesame green beans for my soon-to-be wife, and I completely blame this game for that urge. That, and I love red meat.

But here's the rub. Mini/micro games can be a lot of fun. They usually are. But with the Wii, I seem to keep running into the same damned issues with all these types of games. WarioWare, Rayman: Raving Rabbids and this one. They all have shit for control. WW seems to be the best of the three, and this is still slightly better than R: RR, but really, this hurts the game. A lot. Trying to get the eggs to break against the bowl without smashing them takes finesse. Getting the food to flip in the pan is difficult. Peeling food is unnecessarily hard. No one should have to be that precise while peeling a potato. Understanding the directions the game gives you isn't much help either. There's just a lot wrong with the game play mechanics and lack of concise instructions to go by. There's seems to be a lot of guesswork and frustration in this title that should have been sorted out before it's release.

The multi-player modes are essentially the same, except you know... Multi-player. You play split screen horizontally and the both of you work at the same micro game at the same time. Whether it's peeling veggies or boiling water. The tasks are timed as they are in the single player campaign, and you are also awarded points for doing things exceedingly well. The AI suffers from a sort of “Rubber Band” problem like that of Mario Kart. You can be cruising right along, doing everything well then BAM, you watch the computer take you down by doing something incredibly fast and flawlessly. It makes no sense. If the computer player couldn't grate cheese properly, what makes you think I would believe that it could make perfect pierogies in seconds flat? Grr.

Graphically, it's about what you would expect a $30 game to be. I've definitely seen worse to be sure. They're cute and cartoon-y, and make sense with the game. It isn't meant to be graphically intense, whatsoever. As I mentioned before, there are some strange things about the graphics, namely some things looking hyper-realistic alongside everything else that's flat and goofy looking. The meat grinding it's something that has to be seen to really understand what I mean.

The sound is a little off-putting. The best way to describe it is bad English voice overs and really repetitious BG music. I don't know why they thought a Japanese girl mutilating English seemed like a good idea. After about a half hour, I wanted to break the speakers every time I heard “Bedda dan momma!” There's so much wrong with this it isn't funny. I'm not sure whether I should offended by the slightly racist connotations, or if I should chalk it up to just being ridiculous.

Overall, despite the problems (of which there are many) I have to admit that I had some fun playing this game. It's flawed, and the control sucks and the voice acting makes me cringe, but I do love cooking, not that this has anything shared with actual kitchen shenanigans. It's cute and bizarre and worth a rental, but I wouldn't feel right in condoning a purchase.

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