Cooking Mama: Cook Off review

We can’t help thinking that Cooking Mama was best suited to the pocket-sized DS, not the full-bodied Wii. The idea is that the Wii’s functionality is perfect for the game, letting you use the remote to closely simulate chopping real peppers, cracking real eggs and stirring real soup. You know, like every real night of your life, right? Wrong.

At least on DS you had the touch screen to create some sensation of resistance while you carried out your cooking tasks; on the Wii there’s not even the occasional remote rumble to imply you’re doing anything other than waving your hand around the room at random. On top of that, the remote doesn’t even seem to do what you tell it to half the time.

For example, one of the minigames - and no matter how it’s dressed up, this is essentially just a collection of minigames - has you grating cheese. You hold the remote downwards and mimic a naturalistic grating gesture. Occasionally the grater gets clogged up, so you have to shake the bits free before carrying on.

This’d be fine, a nice touch even, if the remote actually worked when you did it. The gesture you’re told to make is to shake the remote up and down. Doing this rarely frees any cheese - maybe one time in every five. Trying to shake it harder seems to stall the remote sensor, while doing it gently means the movements are too soft for the Wii to pick up. Plus, you suddenly realize you’re playing a game where you grate cheese.