I bought the DS Lite about a year back when it came out in the States. I got it and Brain Age (like you all didn’t buy it!) from Nintendo World, New Super Mario Bros. from Best Buy and Phoenix Wright from J&L. Three games from three stores — all in the same day! (I told you I have gaming addiction!)

The very first import game I bought, which I had to order from Yesasia.com was Cooking Mama. Like many other fans of Nintendo’s quirky DS lineup, especially Japanese games… (more Phoenix Wright, yes please!), I loved Cooking Mama. And please do not go on saying how “girls only like these kind of games” because I know guys who actually enjoy making takoyaki just as much as I do, if not more.

To go with my “addiction” I usually write up a list of games I want to buy. Cooking Mama: Cook Off was one of those games that I was waiting to play with my beloved Wii. Sadly, Mama has lost some of her special charm jumping from the DS to the Wii.

The biggest problem is control. You’d think with the Wii-mote this would be an area of improvement! But the cursor in the Wii version is so small that you always waste precious time just getting your Wii-mote in the right position. Because of this, tasks which were handled with relative ease with the DS stylus, peeling potatoes for example, have suddenly become frustratingly difficult — and that’s coming from someone who was good at the DS version (I finished the handheld version in less than a few hours of getting it in the mail).

What makes this bad play control situation worse are the skimpy explanations of what exactly you’re supposed to be doing. Since you never quite get a clear picture on how you’re supposed to move or even hold the controller sometimes, you suffer a lot of trial and error. It’s times like this when you really appreciate the detailed explanations of WarioWare — those Jack Handey “Deep Thoughts”-style explanations are informative *and* entertaining!

Yet another reason why things aren’t as clear as they could be is because Cooking Mama speaks in bad Engrish! She seems to have mastered the compliments — badly accented encouragements like “Wonderful!” and “Better than Mama!” — but when you mess up, Mama says “Good, not mine!” I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean?? Is she disowning me??

WHY DOES MAMA SPEAK BROKEN ENGLISH?? I’m a little insulted by this. In fact I think this bothers me more than the bad control!

All in all, I’m sad to say you might just want to pass on Mama’s tough love this time around — especially with a price tag of 50 bucks?!?! How about you make meee proud next time Mama?!

Even though, Cooking Mama: Cook Off kind of makes me want to cry and put away my cooking knife, I still want to go over to Nintendo World this Saturday to get a free apron and make the little kids cry with my “culinary” skills!