IGN goes hands-on with: Cooking Mama
Where Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a bit of a letdown is in the way you interact with the game, as the Wii remote's primary function will be the IR control. In the DS version players would draw to slice food, grab ingredients and physically place them into pots and pans, or trace designs to fold gyoza or stir ingredients in a pot. While there are a few of these actions in the Wii version - players will literally stir with the Wii remote, chop up and down, and saw back and forth through slabs of meat - many of the actions are still done simply with a cursor, so cutting meat is more about tracing a line, and adding ingredients is a click-and-drag movement.
The split between the two types of play (cursor and action) are still about 50/50, so you'll still be mimicking moves to pull off cooking maneuvers quite a bit, but the feeling is just more of a detached experience. Cracking eggs, for example, centered around physically touching the egg on DS, and slamming the stylus down to crack it. Now it's done by moving the Wii remote softly from left to right. Once you make the move, the game interprets it and gives you the outcome. The feeling of cooking is still there, but the tactile experience is lost with the incorporation of IR.
That isn't to say players should write this one off, as there's still a ton of content for us to explore (two-player mode will have to wait for another day), and dozens and dozens of recipes for us to master. In addition, many of the actions - such as coating a pan in butter or whipping a bowl of eggs - feel much better with the Wii controller than they did on DS, and that many of the actions that do support Wii gestures instead of IR add to the overall experience a ton. It's going to come down to how many of those actions are in the remaining parts of the game, and whether or not they make up for the lack of tactile feel during the other portions.
On the presentation side, Cooking Mama's transition is a decent one, and while the graphics aren't meant to be mind-blowing the game displays in 16:9 and 480p, and has a crisp look to it. Icons are large, colors are vibrant, and the audio is still just as lively (and crazy) as it was on DS. The addition of a worldwide theme for the dishes (each region has specific methods for cooking) and the "Everybody Cook" multiplayer mode could go a long way in the end.
The split between the two types of play (cursor and action) are still about 50/50, so you'll still be mimicking moves to pull off cooking maneuvers quite a bit, but the feeling is just more of a detached experience. Cracking eggs, for example, centered around physically touching the egg on DS, and slamming the stylus down to crack it. Now it's done by moving the Wii remote softly from left to right. Once you make the move, the game interprets it and gives you the outcome. The feeling of cooking is still there, but the tactile experience is lost with the incorporation of IR.
That isn't to say players should write this one off, as there's still a ton of content for us to explore (two-player mode will have to wait for another day), and dozens and dozens of recipes for us to master. In addition, many of the actions - such as coating a pan in butter or whipping a bowl of eggs - feel much better with the Wii controller than they did on DS, and that many of the actions that do support Wii gestures instead of IR add to the overall experience a ton. It's going to come down to how many of those actions are in the remaining parts of the game, and whether or not they make up for the lack of tactile feel during the other portions.
On the presentation side, Cooking Mama's transition is a decent one, and while the graphics aren't meant to be mind-blowing the game displays in 16:9 and 480p, and has a crisp look to it. Icons are large, colors are vibrant, and the audio is still just as lively (and crazy) as it was on DS. The addition of a worldwide theme for the dishes (each region has specific methods for cooking) and the "Everybody Cook" multiplayer mode could go a long way in the end.
Full Hands-on can be found here
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