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Cooking Mama (Wii)

Wii Review

By Nathan Whincup - 12th June 2007 22:31

"The Wii version has taken all of the fantastic elements from the original version, chewed them up, got indigestion and churned them back out again."

Cooking Mama was originally released on the DS by Office Create, intended as a culinary simulator with the purpose of teaching people how to cook. It was an excellent idea, as anyone with a DS could learn cooking wherever they went. It could be picked up at any time thanks to the dual-screen wonder’s sleep function, and the stylus carried the authentic feeling of chopping up vegetables, rubbing butter into a pan and mixing ingredients together. The Wii version has taken all of the fantastic elements from the original version, chewed them up, got indigestion and churned them back out again.

Cooking Mama was never intended to be played on a home console: it was meant to be portable to help people who wanted to learn to cook but without having to be at home, in front of their TV, waiting several minutes before they load up their Wii and the game and tiring themselves out. The whole idea of Cooking Mama has been lost in translation, and Cooking Mama has just become another generic party game that developers seem to be so fond of these days.

One of the main defects is that Cooking Mama doesn’t actually make you feel like you’re cooking. You are waving a Wii Remote about in the air and making over-exaggerative motions in order to cook the simplest of dishes. This would put people off learning how to cook if anything. The DS touch-screen provided the perfect feedback against your stylus: it felt like a chopping board or a solid cooking surface when you rubbed your pen of magic against it. You have next to no feedback like this with the Wiimote, you are simply swatting at thin air; although one thing that I won’t criticize is the utilization of the Remote’s speaker, which offers some lovely sounds during game sessions.

It also doesn’t help that the game sometimes doesn’t register the fact that you are actually moving your Wiimote in the manner shown on the screen. Many a time did I find myself mixing together eggs and flour with a wooden spoon, only to realize that the on-screen hand and spoon had suddenly frozen. This is where the unnecessarily over-exaggerated motions come into play as you attempt to get those goddamned eggs mixed before the time limit is up and Mama scolds you. The simplest of motions that could have been done by little swishes and flicks become massive chores that make you look as if you’re stirring an invisible witches’ cauldron the size of Manhattan.

Looking at the game from a minigame point of view, I suppose it succeeds in some ways. This is no Wario Ware, but it can be fun with friends. When you’re with mates, you don’t take notice of the control issues or all of the things that are wrong with Cooking Mama, you just see how your friends fare with it and laugh when they get frustrated and can’t do anything. A slightly callous observation, but people do it. And that brings me to multiplayer. Basically, you just compete against another person to finish off cooking a recipe first. Once again, this is where you get the most fun out of the game (from laughing at the expense of others), because you don’t take notice of those frustrating little glitches, and you just play it for what it is.

You will find single-player mode to be a lot less forgiving, and a lot less fun. The idea is to play through all of the recipes that you have available to you, unlocking new ones as you ace more and more of them. The Wii edition of the game includes recipes from all over the world, including Britain, France, Japan and many more countries, meaning that you’ll never be pushed for variety. But most of the time, due to the control issues, you’ll find it increasingly harder to even pass on a recipe, let alone ace it. Many a time have I seen Mama rush onto the screen looking either extremely sad, or like she wants to murder or dismember me in some horrific culinary accident involving sharp kitchen utensils. Your overall score from the recipe is derived from the total of your scores from the different stages of preparation. There you are, thinking that you’ve cooked up a first rate meal and won over Mama, but then comes the demeaning music and the stamp on the recipe signaling failure.

It’s not all a bad taste in your throat though: I’ll tell you about all of the things that make you smile when you pick up your magical baton. The graphics, for one, are gorgeous. The blend of bright, colourful 2D cel-shading and some simple 3D animations add to the experience of Cooking Mama, and make an average game a bit more enjoyable. If only the same could be said for that bloody repetitive music and generic comments from Mama. “Wonderful! Better than Mama!” begins to get as annoying as a monkey clapping cymbals whilst singing the Macarena tremendously fast.

Cooking Mama really should have been left alone on the DS, because judging by its newest incarnation, it has no place on a home console system. It might be worth a look if you’re into minigame collections, but definitely not if you want to learn how to cook. Or keep your sanity.

Comments

Nathan Says:
June 14th, 2007 at 06:22 \|\| Total Comments: 1116

Awesome! That was a brilliant review!

Gypooooo Says:
June 23rd, 2007 at 04:54 \|\| Total Comments: 105

A good review...Although the game looks a bit lame! Who wants a game on how to cook, and dont you think we have had enough of minigames for a while??? the moment we get our Wii's we have mini-games forced upon us!!!

Blasted mini games!