I got my copy of Cooking Mama: Minna to Issho ni Oryouri Taikai! (Cooking Mama: Cook Off) a little ahead of schedule, it was on my desk today and it comes out in Japan in just a few hours. Cooking Mama: Cook Off plays similar to the DS version where cooking a meal is broken up into little parts like chopping up veggies and buttering pans. The main difference, besides more recipes, is the Wii remote control. In the game the controller “becomes” the cooking utensils. I shot this video of making Hamburgers because it emphasizes a lot of the ways the Wii remote is used in the game.
When you dice the bun you make a quick horizontal slice and then when you chop up the tomato you slide the remote vertically. One thing that caught me off guard is that I’m tempted to rotate the remote when I’m cutting vertically so the edge would face towards a non existent cutting board, but you don’t need to do that. Pulling the lettuce is a little tricky you have to slide the remote left or right, but not too fast otherwise you rip the piece off. When all of your ingredients ready you need to put them into the mixing bowl in an order determined by the window on the top left corner. It gives the players a glimpse of what item to put in. After that you make the burgers, by copying gestures at the bottom of the screen with the remote to mix everything. The last part with the pan has players flip the burgers by moving the remote forward and heat is adjusted by holding A and tilting the remote left or right.
Besides making hamburgers there are lots of other recipes like making chili shrimp, mochi, minestrone soup, and flan. As of now America’s cuisine is limited only to popcorn, hot dogs and hamburgers. Is that all we eat?
