great game to play any friends or family, but not perfect
The main base of the game is cooking up some authentically gourmet cuisine with step-by-step instructions from Cooking Mama herself. When going by the book, each step in the culinary process is conveyed clearly and easily, but takes most of the challenge out of each step. Once you’ve graduated from the cook book, you can “Challenge” the cuisine of your choice in a fast-paced micro-game lineup that rivals that of WarioWare games. The “Challenges” for each dish contain the same steps, in the same order that they were shown in the cook book, but without any instructions or input from Mama.
Not only can you challenge each culinary dish, but you can also challenge a friend or international personality to a cook-off. Each of the dishes in Cooking Mama come from one of 10 countries featured in the game, and a representative of each country will take you on in a head-to-head challenge. Should you defeat one of your international computer players in a cook-off, they will present you with a gift that you can use to spice up you kitchen!
The controls for this game are quite responsive, and require some discipline, but it doesn’t take long to learn each of the controls for the various micro games/cooking steps in each recipe. Cooking Mama is a great, laid-back game that you can play for 5 minutes at a time, or hours on end. The recipes are detailed and authentic, and each of the steps are fun and addictive. If you like micro games and/or cooking to any extent, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is most likely worth your time.