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Thread: Anyone played Cooking Mama for Wii?

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    Cherry (Level 1) NinjaJoey23's Avatar
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    Default Anyone played Cooking Mama for Wii?

    I played this game today in GameCrazy for awhile, in spite of the chiding and insults I was getting from the employees for asking. I must admit I had fun in the process. I must have played for about an hour and a half, from Minestrone to Pan-friend Lobster. Anyway, a very unique game that makes interesting use of the Wii Remote.

    Not sure if it would be worth buying, but it's worth playing just to hear "Wonderful! Better than Mama!" in a sort of weird Japanese accent.

    Anyone played it?
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    Peach (Level 3) sirhansirhan's Avatar
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    Yeah, I bought it the day that it came out. I actually really hate the stupid Cooking Mama speaking voice--I always turn the volume all the way down and listen to a CD or something.

    It's fun and I don't regret buying it, but I do think that it is marginally worse than the DS one (which I'm a fan of). A few of the minigames have pretty frustrating control.
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    Quote Originally Posted by sirhansirhan View Post
    Yeah, I bought it the day that it came out. I actually really hate the stupid Cooking Mama speaking voice--I always turn the volume all the way down and listen to a CD or something.

    It's fun and I don't regret buying it, but I do think that it is marginally worse than the DS one (which I'm a fan of). A few of the minigames have pretty frustrating control.
    That's kind of disturbing to me.

    This is kind of derailing comment...you mention it's worse than the DS one. Well, I've been a big fan of the GBA and DS Warioware games, but Smooth Moves was really bad I thought. I didn't like how it was designed to make you feel stupid, and the storylines were a little too rediculous this time. I was hoping I'd get some mileage out of it by getting my girlfriend to play it with me, but she thought it was so rediculous that she wouldn't touch it, so I traded it in for Elebits.

    I hope this isn't becoming a running theme where great DS software gets updated to the Wii and ends up getting ruined. I know that wasn't the case with Trauma Center, but after reading your post I'm getting a little concerned.

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    Wife spent about 6 hours playing it yesterday on the Wii - Take it for what it's worth, but she likes it

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    I recently gave this game a rent over the weekend. I never played the DS version so I was curious on how someone could turn cooking into an engaging game. My wife and I both like to cook so why not give this a whirl? I chose the single player mode, picked the first recipe and off I went.

    A recipe is split up into different mini games which represents the preparation of the ingredients and the dish itself. Mama, the smiling girl on the box, shows you a list of stuff that needs to be done to make the dish. You can choose to practice (allowing you to pick which step you wish to work on) or do the recipe for real. Each step is timed and you are scored by a variety of ways (speed, how well items are cooked, etc.). The steps then play out where you have to perform acts such as peeling veggies (move the remote up and down), slice meat (press A and then "draw" a line where the arrow is flashing on the piece of meat), chop items (sometimes using the "draw" technique mentioned above to cut the item down then swift "chopping" motions to dice the item up), stirring, kneading, stir frying, etc. until you get to the last part where you have to cook the whole kit and kaboodle. Mama then grades you on your performance. Then it's off to the next recipe, which progressively gets more difficult and typically more complex.

    After playing a page and a half in the recipe book, I'd rather just buy the ingredients and cook for real then play this.

    The controls in the game were a bit awkward as a lot of the methods used in the steps were not 1:1 motion control. Cracking an egg, shaking custard out of a mold, pouring a mixture into individual containers was practically as digital as a button press. Twist the remote and the bowl with the mixture tilted over completely, twist back and it's upright. Making this fully motion control would have inserted a lot more playability into these steps and made it more immersive, like you were really cooking. Peeling vegetables was also not nearly as intuitive as you might think. The pieces came off in premade strips and you had to make sure your on screen peeler was at the right spot to register a peeling motion. I found myself moving the peeler over a spot several times and not getting the game to recognize the action. This lack of response also gave me issues when I was stir frying: you move the pan back and forth (moving the remote towards and away from you) to help prevent burning, giving the remote a flick to flip the contents of the pan. There were times when my pan refused to move when I was moving the remote (even one with fresh batteries).

    Real cooking involves using pretty much all of your senses. While we can't simulate smell one thing that can be done to a certain extent is the tactile feeling of the act, something Cook Off completely misses. I read with the DS version that people were immersed because they could slice, chop and such on the screen. With Cook Off you get to do a lot of similar motions of cooking but you don't FEEL it. Granted the remote can't stop your arm or hand from moving but the developer could have put in rumble. Unless there is some hidden option I didn't see, there is zero rumble support (and if there is, why in hell would you have it off from the get go?!). The lack of any tactile feed back did put a damper on the fun for me.

    In closing I can't really recommend this game except maybe to those who liked the DS version and want a larger recipe list to play with. The lack of 1:1 control really makes the game less intuitive so I'd think even those whose culinary skills only allow them to make a mean bowl of cereal would find Cook Off to be intimidating. I didn't play the multiplayer because my wife, after playing about half a page, handed the remote back and said she was bored with it. As she stood outside next to the grill, flipping chicken breasts, she made a statement that sums up my thoughts on this game as well: "I'll take real cooking over the game any day. When I'm done I've got something to show for the work I put in."

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