Cooking Mama + Reality - Game = This (Cooking Guide (DS))

Member Name: mchitty

Product:	Cooking Guide (DS)
Date:	11/02/09 (69 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great tool, substitute for a cookbook

Disadvantages: Voice recognition rubbish, don't buy if you're vegetarian

Okay, so 'Cooking Guide' isn't necessarily a game as such. There is no challenge as such, no points or levels, the graphics are limited to photos, videos and menus. No, 'Cooking Guide' is basically a piece of lifestyle software on the DS.

Usually, these 'games' are BAD. Bad cash-ins, taking advantage of the DS family audience hooked in by Brain Training and the like.

However, with 'Cooking Guide', I can see a purpose. Cooking can be tricky, especially for a beginner - getting together the correct ingredients, preparing them and cooking them in the right way - there are so many things that can go wrong, and this handy application has each of these areas covered.

First thing's first, choosing a recipe. 'Cooking Guide' allows you to search its database using a range of filters, from difficulty to country of origin. This is handy, rather than just having to flick through a huge list to decide what you're having for tea.

It also helps you to shop for ingredients, preparing a shopping list for your chosen recipe that you can tick off whilst your pushing your trolley around... if you're that way inclined!

Further in to the process there are plenty of instructional videos to teach you some of the basics of prepping and cooking meals. These are really handy and even though I cook quite often, I found that learning the 'proper' way really improved my results.

There are a few flaws here. For a start, although it doesn't affect me, I noticed that there weren't that many veggie recipes. This seemed unusual, and disappointing for those who disapprove of meat-eating.

Also, although there are over 200 recipes here, it feels as if there could be more crammed in there. 500, now THAT would be impressive.

Finally, the voice recognition is absolutely useless. You'll have to be careful using this in the kitchen, with greasy hands and all that, because if you rely on the voice recognition to move through the recipe you'll have a lot of trouble!

Overall, this is a great game that you can pick up usually for around £20. All the meals I've tried have been painless to make and rather tasty. Despite the odd flaw, this is a really good buy, especially if you're only a beginner cook.

Summary: Overall an ace little game