Cooking Mama: Cook Off for Wii Reviews by Gamers

Turning cooking into a series of minigames is a natural fit. I love to cook, and I've often thought that cooking was a lot like a video game.

This game won't automatically feel just like the real thing, but (as with almost every other Wii game) once you understand the controls and movements, you'll be cooking like an Iron Chef in no time. Don't assume that the motion controls are just "off"; as with SSX Blur, take the time to learn what the game is asking you to do.

This game falls somewhere between the exacting professionalism of Trauma Center (but without the annoying storyline) and the minigame mayhem of WarioWare (but without the manic ADD-ness). Even though the recipes aren't exact, they're close enough that they've given me some new dish ideas for actual cooking. Some dishes focus on elegant simplicity, while others focus on rich, flavorful complexity; bake elaborate cakes, simple vegetable dishes, unusual meat preparations, and complex seafood plates.

Many cooking details are incorporated into the gameplay. For example, when sauteeing ingredients (called "stir fry"), you must choose the order you put them in the pan based on relative cook times. The "stew" minigame also closely resembles the kinds of things you do when actually stewing ingredients. I was thoroughly impressed.

Dishes are all organized by country of origin, but almost all of the dishes seem like a Japanese take on those international dishes. Also, the voice acting (mostly from "Mama") is done with a humorously bad Japanese accent. Hearing "Blavo!" or "Hoolay!" or "Wonduhuhrl!" for the 50th time is still funny. I do wish there was a wider variety of national cuisines represented (especially Latin American), but I'm mostly satisfied with what's there.

The ranks, medals, and scores will keep you busy for a long time on single player, and if you have another amateur chef/gamer around, multiplayer will keep you busy even longer. Highly recommended to current and aspiring chefs.

This is a game that I have read quite a bit a bout and was really excited to play. So I placed it into the Wii and was ready to play. When I first started to play I liked the graphical style as well as the sound effects (aside from the voice, I hate the voice) and over all game play.

The only thing that I was disappointed in was the fact that the cooking was broken up into so many segments. I really wanted it to be Trauma Center: Second Opinion but with cooking instead. I wanted to be rated on my overall skills cooking a whole dish not on the individual segments.

That being said, I really enjoy a lot of the cooking tasks, mostly the egg cracking and the butter spreading in a pan. I was only frustrated occasionally by the wii-mote not responding as I would like, but it rarely resulted in a ruined dish.

All in all I would say that Cooking Mama is a fun game and if you like nonsense games, with no real story, then this game is for you.