The earlier levels can be completed in around five minutes and give you a detailed snapshot of everything VR has to offer: from teleportation movement to object interaction. Lost Recipes' laid-back nature makes it a perfect game to unwind with, but also an excellent introduction to VR. The background music and sounds, alongside the soothing words of your ghostly guide, help create a game that is almost as much of a meditative experience as it is about cooking. That said, even as the game’s difficulty ramps up – and higher ranks become harder to achieve – the levels remain relaxing. The better you perform, the higher rank your dish gets on a one- to five-star rating system. You’ll visit ancient Athens, Song dynasty China, and the pre-colonial Yucatan Peninsula on your cooking adventure, creating dishes that steadily rise in complexity. Ironically, for all of Cooking Mama ’s kitchen talent, this game is far too underdone to be palatable for gamers.These aspects are then combined with Schell Game’s knack for creating charming NPCs and highly detailed VR object interaction to create something more than the sum of its parts.Īs you play through the game’s levels you’re tasked with creating dishes from different regions using historically accurate cooking methods – all while guided by a ghostly apparition from that period of history. Pick up one of the older games, back when Cooking Mama was fun and fresh, and if you happen across a copy of this latest entry, steer clear of it. Certain elements are fun the first time around, but it’s too often a frustrating experience that offers really very little. Like much of the game, it’s superficial charm that screams of missed potential.Ĭooking Mama: Cookstar is a weird instalment in the franchise as, even with an increased amount of content, it still feels like an empty game that is really lacking in polish. The most interesting addition is the newly added ‘Cookstar’ feature, in which you cook food and share it online to gain attention (this links to Twitter too, if you’re really that proud of a dish’s success), but it doesn’t go that far. The co-op mode pits you against a friend, but there are few challenges and no real incentive to try them. There’s a Vegetarian mode for those who want to try to be meat-free in the digital kitchen, and it’s a nice addition that feels inclusive. There are some new additions, which premier with mixed success. Worse, there are mandatory control schemes whether you’re playing in handheld or docked mode, meaning you don’t even have the choice if you prefer motion or joystick controls. None of the challenges are even that tough–they normally only take a few seconds, and there’s very few of them. It should be some degree of a challenge to get the three stars on each recipe, but it more often felt like blind luck. It’s really frustrating to play a game that doesn’t realise you’re playing half the time. I really struggled in some of the games because Cookstar simply wasn’t picking up my movements. The situation isn’t any better on the Switch. I’ll be honest–I haven’t played a Cooking Mama game since the DS, meaning I missed all the Wii instalments that (I’m told) had somewhat dodgy motion controls. If you’ve played one Cooking Mama game, don’t expect anything radically different.įor all of Cooking Mama ’s kitchen talent, this game is far too underdone to be palatable for gamers Past that, there’s not very much to keep you occupied.
Completing recipes also unlocks more recipes, of which there are 80 on offer. It’s exactly the same process, but there are no on-screen prompts reminding you what to do.
Each challenge gets a three-star rating based on the quality of your performance and, if you get at least two stars for the entire dish, you’ll unlock a ‘Cookstar’ version of that dish. The eponymous Mama guides you through a recipe, and you complete all the steps (in the form of little challenges) to make that particular dish. It may be off the shelves currently, but I see no reason to hurry it back anytime soon.Ĭookstar boasts no real differences to the other games in the Cooking Mama franchise in terms of gameplay. Sadly, despite a few tweaks to the established recipe, Cookstar isn’t that enjoyable a game. Fortunately, before the game was recalled, I managed to get my hands on one of the physical copies that sneaked out, so I can give you some thoughts on this most illicit of games.
#GAMES COOKING MAMA SERIES#
It’s not often that a series as seemingly innocent as the Cooking Mama franchise hits the headlines, yet it has been embroiled in a debunked cryptocurrency-mining scandal and legal dispute that has seen the game pulled from the digital store.
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