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Product Description

Cooking Mama 3 takes us back to the kitchen minigames on the Nintendo DS. 80 new recipes, additional ingredients and a host of places to shop create fresh dishes and some great multiplayer cooking modes.

The cartoon graphics persist through the six game challenges including the beginner friendly Let's Cook, and expert challenge Let's Eat modes. The stylus becomes your utensil as you chop, whizz, sprinkle, and tap your way through the 200 cooking different mini-games. More of the same maybe, but in this case no bad thing.

Out now Cooking Mama 3, more latest DS games and new Region Free Video Games for all the family

This is a US Product

Expert Reviews

Average rating (2 reviews)

Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop

Graphics and Presentation

Cooking Mama 3 is not concerned with 3D backgrounds, character models, high resolution textures or technical lighting effects. No Sir, its main aim is Fun. Having you blow into your DS while making various motions with the stylus as little children stare and mock you on the bus is great. Cooking Mama 3 has the same simple interface as the previous games, utilizing basic 2D sprites and backgrounds for the majority of its gaming experience and although very simple, it works. The game maintains a charm of its own and will no doubt have you smiling throughout its duration.

Sound

Cooking Mama 3's sound track is, as you may expect, cute, cuddly and cheerful. Although after the hundredth time of hearing Mama's Voice, which is a mixture of French, Swedish, Japanese and the sound of a drooling baby, congratulate or commiserate, can become a very annoying affair.

Gameplay

As the title suggests the gameplay in Cooking Mama 3 is based around cooking! You'll be cooking everything from marshmallows to fried shrimp and even squid. Using the DS microphone and a variety of stylus and touch screen motions you'll be a cooking Mama Pro in no time at all. From the start screen you'll have a whole host to choose from such as, Cook with Mama, where you'll cook up all manner of recipes with the aid of mama; Let's Cook, (prepare and cook food without the aid of Mama); Cooking Contest, (try and set records for specific cooking tasks); Change Design, (use the items / bonuses won to change the appearance of cooking mama & her kitchen); and finally two new modes to the cooking mama series.

The first of these new modes is the shopping mode Let's Shop, where players enter a supermarket and shop for specific ingredients. The only catch is everybody else is an obstacle, bumping into screaming kids means you have to grab their balloons before they float adrift, bumping into shoppers means you have to catch their shopping before it falls to the ground, you'll even encounter maniac sales assistants forcing sale items into your shopping cart. Although it all seems a bit crazy, after playing for awhile you swiftly begin to realize this mode actually has a deep undertone of strategy to it. Taking into account things like walking speed and walking pattern soon become more compelling than the cooking itself and although a little too short in length, the new shopping mode is more than a welcome addition.
The second new mode available, although slightly less significant is Let's match in which players are able to choose two separate recipes from a selection for Mama to combine into a completely new delightful dish.

In the mode Cook with Mama, which is essentially one of the two main modes in cooking mama, you prepare food with the assistance of mama, receiving instructions and on screen prompts and are graded for your performance. When preparing a meal, with each section of the meal you complete, mixing ingredients, slicing ingredients, etc, you'll get a bronze, silver or gold medal. Then once the overall meal is complete, you will again be graded and given marks out of 100. The better you do in these tasks the more items you'll unlock and the more recipes you'll be able to cook. The option to retry any unsuccessful recipes is always available to the player.

In the mode Lets Cook, you'll prepare food just like the previous mode, but without the assistance of mama. This can be harder than you think. After cooking the meal, is a taste test and a similar scoring out of 100. After completion, or failure, the Picture Diary option enables you to snap a shot of you creation and save it, for later bragging sessions with friends.

Multiplayer in Cooking Mama 3 runs a similar course to the previous games in the series; players can enjoy the cooking craziness of mama with up to four friends.

Closing Comments

As much as I love the Killzone's, Street Fighter's and GTA's that have graced our industry, its refreshing to find a game that does not take it self to seriously and is just fun to play. So For anybody looking for a fun distraction on the bus, on the train or a game just to pass some time, Cooking Mama 3 Shop and Chop is the game for you. Well it seems cooking and shopping without actual food can be fun. Cooking Mama 3, the game that doesn't teach you how to cook but is a whole lot of fun.

Don't let this cute little title fool you, give it a day and you'll be addicted. So what are you waiting for jump online and buy now.

If you liked this Cooking Mama video game version, buy and try Cooking Mama 3 for DS.

4 / 5

Simon Currie

Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop Review

I was a little unsure of the whole Cooking Mama idea at first. Maybe it was being maried to a trained Chef, but it seemed odd to create a game so far removed from real life recipies and ingredients. But I soon realised this was missing the point. Cooking Mama isn't about teaching us to cook, or improving our culinary knowledge, it's about fun, frantic minigames. This, it delivers.

Those that have followed the series will know it has seen similar success on both the Nintendo DS and Wii, as well as a recent diversification outside with Gardening Mama. The DS however is the game's spiritual home and where it simply works the best. The tactile taps, swipes and circles created with the stylus make the whole experience feel much more connected to the action. The simple bright visuals also suite the DS's diminuative dimensions and dual screens.

Cooking Mama 3 doesn't reinvent the wheel - and that's a good thing in my book. The same solid gameplay and quirky Japanese visuals quickly draw you into the experience. This time around we have an expanded recipe book with an impressive 80 new recipies - Eggs Benedict, Tulip Chicken, and Pumpkin Gnocchi to name a few. To accomodate this the game provides a range of new ingredients and places to shop.

These recipies are then spread through the six different play modes. Let's Cook is great for novices as even if you make mistakes the game ensures you still get to the end of the recipe. Let's Eat is more for experts as you have to perfect each stage without help. The resulting dish is then rated by a set of fussy in-game friends. Combine and Create is available when you've been playing for some time, it's an opportunity to combine steps and ingredients from different recipes and come up with original concoctions. Let's Shop has you heading out to the shops to collect the ingredients and equipment you need to prepare the next dish. Time Challenge is, as the name suggest a timed cook-off against 3 friends using local wi-fi play. Picture Diary round things off as a place to collect pictures of your favorite dishes.

Much of this may be seen as tweaking the formula rather than bringing anything new to the table, but this is no bad thing based on the quality of the previous games. Attention has been well spent though. This release sports a gentler progression which is particularly good for younger or novice players. Whereas previously the challenges soon got out of hand, the Let's Cook mode ensures help is always on hand.

Along with the steady increase of difficulty my family really enjoyed the mulitplayer mode. It was great fun on rainy Sunday afternoons to bunker down in the lounge and see who could score a receipe the highest in the shortest time. For us, it is these colaborative and competitive modes that add the most value to the purchase.

Cooking Mama 3 sticks to what it does best and offers one of the best minigame collections on the DS. The attention to detail, joyful approach to cooking as well as multiplayer modes make this well worth buying. Even those that have the previous outings will find plenty of new content on offer here, providing they want more of the same kitchen fun.

If you enjoyed Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop, you should buy...
Easier: Pass the Pigs and Zenses: Ocean
Similar: WarioWare Touched, Cooking Mama 3 and Hell's Kitchen
Harder: Professor Layton and Pandora's Box and Professor Layton and the Curious Village

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