Imagine: Master Chef Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had this game a couple weeks now and I have played through 50% of it (it tracks your progress with a percentage). I find this game to be quite fun and relaxing to play, unlike it's rival "Cooking Mama" for the DS which is fun and awesome but NOT relaxing.
Imagine Master Chef puts you in the role of a young girl named Lisa (approximately 12 years old), who is learning to cook to impress her father who is out of town. There is a very lengthy story surrounding this game, where the girl's stuffed animals come to life and are quite chatty during cut scenes throughout the game.
These long pauses for dialogue between cooking lessons are fairly boring but whimsical, even nonsensical at times (poor translation?), but arent bad enough to turn one away from the game.

The meat and potatoes of this game is in the cooking lessons which are guided by a girl named Rachel. They are designed much like the original Cooking Mama with one major difference: NO TIMER! This is a wonderful thing too - cooking at your own pace, not racing against the clock. It's a little less hands-on than Cooking Mama, which makes it more accessible to younger players or those who are a bit new to gaming in general. Best of all - no hand cramps here! You will still find yourself chopping, stirring, frying, baking, etc on every dish but once in a while, Rachel (your teacher) will do one or two of the cooking steps for you (still leaving about 80% or more of the work for you to do though). There are many recipes to do here, 65 of them in fact, ranging from all sorts of local to international cuisine. A few examples are meatloaf, eggs over easy, garlic bread, salisbury steak, minestrone, custard pudding, Japanese pancakes, and much more. Rachel will guide you, step by step, telling you how to do every aspect of every dish. And she doesnt cuss you out if you get it wrong either! haha :) Another difference here (from Cooking Mama) is that when you go to begin a recipe, Rachel will tell you all the ingredients you need, and then you get all of them out (yourself) from the refrigerator, one by one. This kind of reminds me of Rachael Ray on her 30 minute meals, and I wouldnt be surprised if that inspired this part of the game. It's nice though. I like seeing what's going into my recipe.

When you finish each recipe, you get to select the placemat, plate, bowl, mug, and eating utensils that you use to serve it. Then you get to select all of your garnishes (french fries, ham, corn, etc - about 30 to choose from), and then squeeze your condiments however you want on your food. It's really cute that you have so much control over your food like this from start to finish! Then someone in the game (friend, family, etc) will eat your food and rate it based on how you did cooking it. But regardless of how high or low your ratings are, you still continue on.

Just the cooking itself is fantastic enough to make this game a worthy purchase but it doesnt end there! It also has additional games in it based on cooking! These unlock as you progress through the cooking lessons (and can be later accessed from your main menu). They include: 1.Cooking Quiz: where you do 10 trivia questions based on cooking. Nothing overly complicated here. 2.Match: this is like the card game "memory" where you match cooking/food related cards. 3.Darts: A very cute darts game where you throw darts at a board that looks like a pizza! 4.Puzzlit: A puzzle game where you guess the object being shown in the top screen. 5.Stackem DX: A plate stacking game. 6.Wash!: A dishes washing game (very cute).

Between your cooking lessons, after your cut scenes where you interact with your family, neighbors, friends, or stuffed animals, you will acquire a new kitchen item each time, and it will prompt you just before each lesson to change your kitchen if you'd like. You can change only the colors of items (i.e. blue toaster, red toaster, yellow toaster, etc), but it allows you any color combinations you like for 3 large areas of your kitchen, including items like your stove, fridge, walls, clock, trashcan, microwave, rice cooker, oven mitt, etc.

Last but not least, each time you complete a recipe, that one and an additional one or two is added to your recipe book to do anytime you would like in Freestyle Mode (accessible from the main menu). You get recipes not seen in the story mode, and even recipes for dogs too! Again I will reiterate that it's a very comfortable cooking pace too, so when you play freestyle, you can truly enjoy just cooking without racing against a clock.

This game thought of everything. It was designed for females, but honestly anyone who loves cooking (or virtual cooking) would greatly enjoy this game. It's cute, friendly, and truly fun to play, appealing to all ages without being too difficult or overly easy.
I definitely recommend this game as one of the most family friendly titles to hit the DS system this holiday season.

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Imagine Master Chef DS

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Gardening Mama Review

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(More customer reviews)I got this game since I previously played Cooking Mama and Cooking Mama 2 (Dinner With Friends) and I was very excited about it. Now I've played it a few times, I'm very happy to have gotten it. With this game if you have previously played either of the Cooking Mama games, then you'll probably have an idea of what to expect. The format isn't greatly different from them, it's still very easy to pick up and figure out.

What I love about these games are, kids can have so much fun with them but an adult can also have a go too. Some of the task may be a little easy for an adult but some may not be (especially if you're going for gold).

If you haven't played any of the Cooking Mama games, then the style of the game is a little something like this, your goal is to plant something, such as a tulip but its broken down intostages, seeding, digging a hole, and so on. Theres nice obvious instructions on what to do for each task that needs to be done in order to plant something. There is also directions for you to follow, which is very helpful. My cousin loves this game too as it gives her an idea of how to garden, in a fun way. :D

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Product Description:
Go green in the very first gardening specific game for the Nintendo DS. In Gardening Mama, Cooking Mama, from the award-winning, multi-million selling Cooking Mama franchise, has stepped out of her kitchen and into nature for some gardening fun. Join Mama, either in single player, or with up to three friends in wireless DS single-card play as she grows, harvests and enjoys the literal fruits of her labors.

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Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm a big fan of the Cooking Mama franchise, and I think this is a good addition to anyone who liked the previous Mama games. The game is broken down into several elements, some familiar, some brand-new. The familiar elements are, of course, cooking with mama, in which you practice and make recipes. What I like about this portion of the game, which is new to Cooking Mama fans, is that once you obtain all the recipes, you unlock what I suspect are sixteen new recipes. I've only recently unlocked the hidden recipes, but the game description says that there are 80 recipes and with only 64 of them, I think that's how many are left. You also have cooking for your friends, which is a tried and true test of your cooking skills. What IS different about this segment of the game is the recipes each of your friends has. In Cooking Mama 2, each of your friends had a set of recipes, but in this game, you can access your entire recipe list from each friend. However, you seem to only be able to unlock new friends if you cook for ALL of your friends. (You can't just make food for just one of your friends. You can't seem to get new friends this way.) And then there's the Diary section and the always fun designing your kitchen and dressing up Mama.

What is NEW about this game is the ability to shop for Mama. The Shop portion offers you five "levels," during which you need to buy the items on Mama's list. Each level is progressively harder than the last, and by the end, you're just running for your life, trying to get everything Mama needs before time runs out. As you manipulate the mini Mama (those who have Cooking Mama for the Wii will know who I'm talking about) through the grocery store, watch out! You can bump into other customers and set off mini games! (The games are fun but they suck the time out of the clock.) The other section I like is the one during which you can mix and match recipes to create new dishes. I like the format they came up with for this game. The choices are limited, which means that there are a controlled number of dishes you can come up with. I don't know how it was for other gamers, but I think too many choices are not that great since you can make too many combos (I often lost track of what I combined with what).

Majesco has made some of the more familiar tasks, such as dicing, mixing, and frying, different, so that it's providing the gamer a bit more of a challenge the previous Mama games. The new additions of the Shop and the Mix have extended the game play nicely. It had always been a complaint of mine that I finished Cooking Mama too quickly, but I feel as if I'm getting a little more bang for my buck. And the chance to send the fruits and vegetables I've grown in Gardening Mama to my Cooking Mama 3 kitchen is a great way to incorporate both games.

My only complaint about this game is that the items you get from achieving bonuses (you know the ones--for when you finish a task before a certain time limit) is not very clear. It just tells you that you got a new item, but you're not sure if it's an item you use in the Diary or if it's something Mama can wear. Other than that, I'm glad to see that Majesco has challenged once again with good, wholesome game-playing. Yay Mama!

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Product Description:
Fresh from the harvest in Gardening Mama, Mama's heading back to her culinary roots with Cooking Mama 3: Shop and Chop. Packed with six game modes--including two new to the game franchise--all new recipes, ingredient shopping, dish combinations and multiplayer cooking challenges, Cooking Mama 3: Shop and Chop lets players explore their inner creative chef with everyone's favorite kitchen cutie at their side.

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Cooking Mama Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a very cute game for the DS. A good one if you've just purchased a DS and want a game that really shows you what a stylus can do. ;) Some recipes are kinda easy, while others proove more challenging. I'm still working on peeling potatoes fast enough. The graphics are very amuzing. I laughed out loud as I spilled water all over the place while trying to drain some pasta. The meals are japanese based...and make you want to go out and make your own gyoza! This is very fun for an adult who likes DS mini games, and it doesn't seem too 'kiddish' as I had feared. I'm so glad this unique japanese game made it to the states. Two thumbs up for Cooking Mama!

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Product Description:
Let's get cookin', Mama! Now you can learn how to cook on your Nintendo DS! Prepare foods, combine raw ingredients, cook the meal and present your culinary masterpiece to Mama for your final score.

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Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends Review

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(More customer reviews)The Cooking Mama series can do no wrong by me. These are near perfect games because you get exactly what you're expecting, and then some. As the title suggests, Cooking Mama 2 is a cooking game with 80 recipes from around the world, including favorites like kimchee and pancakes. You prepare food in steps, with Mama giving you helpful hints and scores along the way. The over-the-top cutesy graphics and intuitive gameplay make this a favorite with kids, but there's finesse involved that even adults will find frustrating. These games are perfect for the Achiever in your life, and Cooking Mama 2 pushes the idea further, adding unlockable customizations to your kitchen and Mama's wardrobe.

The most impressive feature of the Cooking Mama titles are their utilization of Nintendo hardware. Cooking Mama 2 continues to caress the DS with innovative stylus play. Move your stylus around a meat grinder's handle to make it go. Crack an egg by drawing a line to the bowl - slowly, or you'll wind up with egg on your hand. Blow into the microphone to ensure a pot of boiling water won't boil over. There are several dozen different mechanics available, and most of them are easy to grasp, but difficult to master. Most of the preparation requires that you beat the clock, but if you chop without stopping, or pull a piece of meat out of the frier at just the right moment, you can receive bonuses. This makes basic gameplay a snap, and advanced gameplay an ART.

After you've unlocked some recipes, you can cook for Mama's friends. Mama won't give you hints on what you should do, but since you've worked through the recipe at least once, you won't need hints. As a result, preparing food for Mama's friends is a much speedier process, and the rewards or penalties are greater. If you mess up when you're cooking for Mama's friends, Mama's not there to help you and your preparation is cut short before you can finish. If you do well, you receive presents and can unlock special items for customizing your game.

You can customize Mama's dress, accessories, the appearance of her kitchen, and the color of all the kitchen utensils you use in the game. There are 10 dress types (with several color options each), 5 accessories, and 5 kitchen settings to unlock. I like customizing everything to match to an unnatural degree, but many players will love dressing up Mama in wacky lemon earrings and strange cheerleader outfits. Not every friend you impress will unlock an item - sometimes the presents are just nice things to look at that don't stay in your game, like a kitten or a treasure chest.

As with previous releases, you can practice any part of a recipe, and set records for yourself in specific preparation techniques. Both Cooking Mama 1 and 2 for the DS offer wireless play, so you can challenge your friends to an egg-cracking contest. This isn't as cool as Cooking Mama Cookoff for the Wii, where you can execute an entire recipe against friends, but there's still something very appealing about proclaiming yourself the Queen of the Deep Fryer and laying the smackdown in an egg-cracking competition.

There are a few annoying parts of the game. Bonuses are now meaningful - each one you get earns you one star out of 5, and for every 5 stars, you get a present. But the presents aren't unlocked items, they're just cute graphic rewards. Calculating these bonuses takes a lot of time, and the accompanying music is very loud. It's nice that the bonuses have some kind of reward, but I'd prefer points or records to an overkill of praise. Some of the mechanics are still a little too hard to master. I find stewing and simmering to be a pain, because you have to wait for the food the food to cook until it's reached the green part of the progress meter, but you also have to control temperature and stir - not too often - to make sure the food doesn't pass the green sweet spot on the meter and remains exactly there until time is up. Adjusting the temperature of the stove and stirring will wildly change the food's progress meter, so it's very difficult to do with respect to the timer.

This is not my favorite Cooking Mama title, but the improvements significantly enhance the replay value and enjoyability of the game. Within a release or two, this game will be perfect, deadly addictive, and completely free of design flaws. Let's hope the world doesn't run out of interesting recipes in the mean time!

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Product Description:
Hot on the heels of her award-winning debut title's sales success, Mama returns to the kitchen with new recipes, ingredients and friends in Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends. Think your dishes are delicious? This time, only your hungry friends will be the judge of that!

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