This is a follow up to the Nintendo DS game: Cooking Mama. The game is simple to learn, but sometimes hard to master. In Cooking Mama: Cook Off, you are a chef that must make various foods. These foods range from a burger, to a dessert and just about anything in between. You chop, stir, cut, heat, and much more to the foods. Each recipe is made up of several cooking mini-games that you must complete. Some are timed, while others aren't.

In the main mode, you start off with a few recipes. Once you complete them, more are unlocked. You get awarded bronze, silver or gold medals depending on how you did. There is a reasonable error rate. So if you had a few mistakes overall, you should still complete the recipe with a medal. You can change things up by playing challenge for any recipe. In challenge, you can do the recipe straight through with no breaks. A good concept, but it wears your wrist out.

Besides the main mode, there is a mode where you compete against a computer in a cooking contest. It's a competition to see who can make a recipe with the best score overall. Just like the main mode: you need to do good with little mistakes, and be quick. You get a prize for your kitchen, if you win or if you lose. The computer never seems to make mistakes, and usually wins. You seem to have to be perfect, just to beat them. This really frustrated me about the game.

There is also a 2 player mode, where you compete against a friend in a cooking contest with any recipe that is unlocked. This is similar to the computer cooking contest, you have to be quick and not make many mistakes.

The remote is used well during this game. You usually just do a motion with the remote (up and down for cutting for example) to complete a task. Sometimes it involves the A or B buttons, but overall controls are easy. With some of the motions, it's non-responsive at times though.

Sounds of the game are fine and it actually sounds like you are cooking. The voice of Mama gets annoying at times, but you can always mute it and the problem is solved. As for graphics: they are cartoony and seem Japanese. However, the foods look like the real thing (most of the time at least). The bottles for salt and so on, all look the same though. A little variety in that would've been nice. There is 55 total recipes you can make, with 300 ingredients total. This is a pretty good number, even though it could've been higher I bet.

As for replay value: there is only some in the game. Once you complete the 55 recipes, you can always go back and try to get a better medal. You can try and collect all the prizes from the international friends (in the competition mode), and that's about it for replay value. The game could've used a "create your own recipe" feature of some sort, to add to replay.

Cooking Mama is fun, but it wears your wrist out with all the motions. Taking breaks between the cooking mini-games is a good idea. The game does get repetitive at times, so playing for too long isn't a good idea. Once you've done a few recipes: that's about all that the game has to offer. It certainly could've used more variety in some shape or form.




Recommended: Yes