Review: Cooking Mama
Making Mama proud with my chopping skills
Burnt And Toasted
The only problem we had with Cooking Mama was that the control scheme was sometimes unresponsive in certain situations: we knew peeling potatoes was a pain in real-life but it can be downright hairy in Cooking Mama, especially when the clock is ticking. We also noticed that the game suffers from a WarioWare-esque problem where vague instructions left us scrambling to figure out what to do. It often took repeated tries in order to figure out the correct procedure for certain tasks and while it is true that cooking requires practice and repetition, this doesn't always make for a fun game.
Also, we were annoyed with the way new dishes were doled out: most are unlocked when an existing recipe is completed but after a while, we hit a wall and couldn't figure out how to get new dishes.
Lip Smacking Good
Thankfully, these problems are few and far between. Cooking Mama has the same sense of simplistic charm and quirky addictiveness that made underground hits out of games such as Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center. Its smart design takes full advantage of the DS' strengths and is put together in a delicious, ready-to-eat package that's sure to delight. Just be sure to keep a towel handy: you'll need it to wipe up your drool after you get a look at the virtual vittles that you'll cook up.
PROTIP: When pan-cooking, don't add all your ingredients at once or you'll end up burning something
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