Expand your horizons! (Cooking Guide (DS))

Member Name: tipples

Product:	Cooking Guide (DS)
Date:	16/10/08 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Caters for all levels of experience

Disadvantages: Over-sensitive microphone input

I bought this for myself when it was released and I have cooked with it about a dozen times now. My favourites are Lemon Chicken and Sticky Toffee Pudding, both of which I have made twice.

I especially like how the recipes can be 'filtered' - by country, by main ingredient, calorie count, cooking time, cooking method, and by difficulty, or combine the settings to narrow down your options further.

Some of the recipes do require a sense of adventure, as this game was originally developed in Japan, before being tweaked for the Western market, but if you want expand the horizons of your tastebuds, this is a great way to go about it.

Compiling a shopping list is simple, find the recipe you want, go through the list of ingredients and tick the ones that you need - they will then be in your shopping list. (I have walked round Tesco with my DS open on more than one occasion!) The shopping list can store ingredients from several recipes, so is great if you're planning a complete menu. For the wannabe chef on a budget, the shopping list also has a calculator, so you can add up your shopping total as you walk the aisles!

The cooking process itself is made a lot more fun (and a lot less lonely!) by having my talking chef around, although he doesn't always recognise my commands, or mistakes general cooking noises for speech and asks "Pardon?" or "Come again?" - this can be mildly annoying, especially as sometimes he thinks I've said "Go back" when all I did was put a pan down on the counter! This is easily remedied by turning off the microphone input, which means that you will need to use the stylus to advance to the next step.

The game also has a calendar so it remembers what you've cooked and when. You can also 'favourite' recipes, just like you would a webpage, so you can come back to them again and again - Sticky Toffee Pudding is firmly on this list for me!

There are several videos in the game and a glossary, which teach you how to do the more technical things, like filleting a salmon, or dicing an onion, so you don't have to be the next Jamie Oliver to understand what to do!

I really recommend this game, both to beginners and kitchen coinoisseurs alike, as it has something for everyone. I don't have kids, but I would imagine it's a great way to make food fun for them too!

Summary: Impress your family and friends when you cook with this great game