Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Guilty pleasure"

Cooking mama is a guilty pleasure and is a great start to the mamma franchise, but not without faults. The difficulty is just right for gamers starting off in this series with simple recipes and fun and addictive minigames such as trying to chop as many onions as you can in the time limit. It can become addictive very quickly as if you burn your steak and only get a silver you get annoyed at yourself and try and try and 3 hours later you still only on silver. The touch screen and mic play a great part of the game but the mic is only necessary for certain recipes. However one slip on the stylus could lose you a gold medal so it demands a steady hand and i would recommend not playing it at 12am while trying to stay awake. The game is great for travelling or on a Sunday afternoon but the sequels are defiantly better bets as the recipes are more varied and the mini games are more fun for single and multiplayer. The games graphics is great for a DS game and it's a game to keep cause you will never know when you will need to hear see mama's eyes alight to cheer you up.