Cooking Mama Review

This game isn't hard to grasp at all. In fact, my 4 year old niece and I play together often. It's my game, but she also has a Nintendo DS so we can share games and play multiplayer games. So if you have a child, getting them a DS can result in fun for both of you.

Alright, on with the review.

Cooking Mama is a chef, and she judges your cooking performances and assigns grades. Each recipe consists of several steps that are judged by Mama. A perfect job on each step earns you a top grade of 100 and a gold medal.

You get bonus points for finishing a task before the timer reaches the halfway point. Do badly and Mama's eyes burn like fire, but she helps you continue to the next task. A truly horrible performance results in no score at all.

Your stylus becomes the perfect cooking tool. It slices meat, dices onion, spreads sauce, grates cheese, cracks eggs, and basically becomes the most useful kitchen tool you've ever seen. You never have to touch a button or lift a finger when playing Cooking Mama. Everything is controlled using the touch screen or microphone.

Each time you're ready to complete a task you tap, scribble, or swipe with the stylus. Some recipes ask you to blow into the microphone. It's usually when something is boiling and needs cooling. This is fun and easy unless your Nintendo DSLite is in bad shape.

For a truly frustrating experience, play this game on a console with a faulty touch screen or broken microphone. You'll run screaming into the night. Before you get into this game, you better make sure your DS is up for the job.

The game is colorful and fun to watch. The cartoon style graphics look good and go well with the mood of the game. Mama's funny faces are amusing as well. She also speaks words of encouragement. When you do well she says "even better than mama". She's even a good sport when you fail by saying "don't worry, mama will fix it".

I admit, Mama's voice can become annoying. Her English is pretty bad, but she tries hard. The music also gets annoying after a few plays. This is easy to fix though by turning down the volume.

Visit ReadGameReviews.com for more game reviews.

Pros
- Easy to complete recipes
- Fun good looking graphics
- 76 recipes in all
- Appropriate for all ages
- Takes time to perfect all recipes so you get your money's worth

Cons
- Low replay value after all recipes are perfected
- A few recipes contain too many tasks
- Some recipes are too repetitive