Mama’s sure been busy these days. After two DS games, a hilarious/terrifying parody/attack by PETA ,and a just announced gardening sim (coming next spring), she’s been all over the place! In fact, I think ol' Mama’s starting to get a little tired., and things are starting to get just a lil bit stale in Majesco’s kitchen.

Betta zen Mama

I'm sure the gameplay is familiar to all of you by now right? Using your Wii remote which is basically your all purpose cooking tool, you “cook” recipes you are too lazy to make in real life.You slice veggies, knead dough, frost pastries, tenderize meats, so on and so forth. It’s not all about food, well it is, let's just say the game is more about the preparation of food.

That being said, even though the gameplay in "World Kitchen" is familiar it does play slightly differently than previous Cooking Mama games in the series. Which is why some sort of tutorial would have been nice!

The lack of a tutorial really puts a damper on things.You are thrown right into the kitchen without explaining what all the rules of the food prep are. For example, some steps are based on timing, and a meter pops up on the bottom of the screen with different motion icons. You have to quickly (and I mean quickly) wiggle/shake/turn what have you, your remote when the icon is highlighted, but the game doesn't feel like explaining all this to you!

This leads to some frustration at first, sure it will soon become obvious through trial and error, but it's mostly error. The characters repeat the same annoying catchphrases whenever you mess up...and you will mess up...often.Y'know I'm really getting sick of hearing my character shouting "Seriously?" over and over again.

The Dog Ate My Hamburger

Another feature that seems weirdly out of place are the somewhat bizarre mini-games (little animations) that are supposed to spice things up between cooking sessions. As much fun as it is to see Mama catch a burger behind her back as we clumsily flip it in the air, this can't possibly happen every time we cook one can it? Oh, but it does! Sure these events are kinda comical in their own unique way, but they pop up a little too much for my tastes.

Graphics

The "new" 3D graphics are supposed to make the game look more realistic (that's what you'd think, at least). But they are actually counter productive, thanks in part to the cel-shading, meaning itmakes the recipes look less appealing and not very appetizing.

Sound
Same as before, happy and quirky. Nothing really to complain about but considering that this is the fourth game in the series (two for DS and two for Wii), some new music and sound effects would have been nice, don't ya think?

Cooking Mama should be crazy fun. It should be, and it could have been, but for the most part, it was frustrating.In the end, I would say "Cooking Mama World Kitchen" is definitely an acquired taste.