Okay, so I'm not a celebrity (yet). But I have prepared many meals that'll make your mouth water. And I did it without having to step into the kitchen. Forget the messy ingredients and tiring cleanup. With Cooking Mama: Cook Off for Nintendo Wii, all you need is a Wii remote. 

Shake N’ Bake

Does life imitate art? Or does art imitate life?

Let’s throw a potato on the cutting board and find out. Hmm, it seems my cursor has been replaced with something else. Could it be a vegetable peeler? Aim the Wii remote above the potato and push it down (so that it’s moving toward the bottom of your TV screen). If done correctly (keep the remote steady while pushing it down), a small piece of skin will be removed. Once peeled, the cursor disappears.

My recipe calls for potato slices – could chopping the remote (quickly swing up and down) get the job done? There’s a large slab of meat that also needs to be sliced. Could a slicing action (push the remote forward and back) do the trick?

Butter needs to be spread over a hot frying pan. Logic says that I can pull this off by tilting the remote as if I were tilting a real frying pan. Similarly, it makes sense that players could stir various mixtures by swinging the remote in a circular motion.

Salt and pepper – just shake. Eggs – just swing?

These and other real-world issues are the challenges of Cooking Mama: Cook Off. Most of your expectations turn out to be true. Stirring, slicing, chopping – whatever you do with real food should be done here. Except for eating. Polygons may look edible, but TV screens have an awful taste.

Red meat is sliced in one way: like a saw on wood. Squid has to be cut open in a few key places. You’ll know where to cut by the arrows that appear on screen. Arrows are used frequently for cutting seafood and vegetables. To follow through with the action, simply swing the remote across that portion of the screen. The same is true for skin and/or tail removal, which is necessary when preparing shrimp. Hold down the B button to grip its tail; swing the remote up and down to detach.

Each dish is prepared as a separate item on the menu. The menu acts as a home base – it’s where you select the recipes you’d like to use. Recipe preparations follow your selection, starting with the simplest (cracking an egg, melting butter in a frying pan, etc.). It may not, however, conclude with the most complex task. Some dishes require a finishing touch, such as a manually pieced display of food. This mini-game is impossible to fail. You just pick up items that have been prepared and set them on the plate. They don’t have to be aligned in a special way, nor does it matter if the items overlap.

Finished meals are displayed with your point totals and grade, and may be followed by the announcement of a new recipe that has become available. New recipes are unlocked by playing through existing menu items. 

Fry High

Cooking Mama: Cook Off has two recurring phases: stir-fry and stew. Stew is pretty easy, but still kind of cool. Recipe information scrolls across the bottom of the screen (like a music game). When each recipe note reaches the highlight point, perform the necessary action. Stir the pot, add an ingredient, or turn up the temperature by tilting the remote like a stove dial. 

Frying is great because it draws upon the player’s ability to think. You can’t drop all the ingredients in at once or else something will burn. Chances are this is a no-brainer for anyone who knows how to cook, but it’s something I hadn’t thought of until now. Players will have to think before tossing ingredients into a frying pan. You have to consider which items will fry the fastest – they’re the ones that should be added last. Meat tends to take the longest (especially if in large chunks) and should be added first. The game has a great practice mode that lets you repeat any part of a recipe, which is a big help in determining the appropriate time for each ingredient.

Popcorn takes skillful timing – how much popping is too much? At what speed should custard be removed from the pan? What’s the best way to crack an egg without making it break?

Not all dilemmas need a perfect answer. This is not a game of exact and excruciating precision. But the correct answer, derived from playing or some real-world source, is the difference between medals. If you’re between bronze (the lowest medal) and the no-win “try harder” emblem, the extra point boost won’t help much. But if you’ve been getting a silver rating and would like to add a gold medal to your collection, pay attention to every issue. Any task that receives anything less than a “wonderful” (gold) rating is sure to be the culprit for low grades. 

IHOF – The International House of Frustration

Although Cooking Mama is not as demanding as Trauma Center: Second Opinion, it does have some quirks. I’d say flaws, but that’s too harsh of a word to describe them. The less-than-perfect areas don’t kill the game – they just hold it back from achieving pure, uninterrupted greatness.

The most prominent quirk: imperfect motion detection. If you are patient, Cooking Mama is responsive most of the time. The problem I have with that are the words patient and most. This is a faster-paced, mainstream-targeted simulator. Some of its players might have the patience for it – I certainly did. But that’s not going to be true for all gamers.

Also, players will notice that, no matter how much they tilt their remotes, some areas of the game cannot be reached. This was intentional (it had to be – there’s no a way a glitch this massive could exist) and it was a mistake. When I’m finalizing a meal, I should be able to grab the items I want and place them anywhere on the plate just by pointing the remote toward the screen. Nope, can’t do it! I have to awkwardly press the D-pad in conjunction with remote movement, and even then not be able to place the food exactly where I want it.

The stir-fry mini-game is great fun but does not have the best design. Like food placement, the game will not let me move anywhere on screen. If I tilt the remote too low, my icon disappears. The game stops reacting and I start losing. 

The problem with quirks (or whatever you want to call them) is that they leave players with question marks hanging over their heads. Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a blast of entertainment – a must-play for certain. But just because you must try a game does not mean that it’s a must-own. I’ve enjoyed the game in spite of its issues, and I think I will go back to it in the future. But will it be a game that spins in my Wii for many months to come? Probably not. But is it better than a novelty? You bet.

Gameplay: 7.4
Chop veggies; grind, roll, fry, and batter meat; extract the most appetizing portion of a crab; spread melting butter over a frying pan; and stir and carefully pour a delicious custard batter into several small cups. These actions (among dozens more) are each performed with the power and complexity of the Wii remote. Buttons are used only when it is absolutely necessary. The majority of your actions mimic those of real chefs. It’s a fun and soothing game that is, at the very (very!) least, a must-play.

Graphics: 7.5
Simple and effective. The cartoony backdrops are unquestionably dated, but the recipe ingredients look great. The final dish could make your mouth water.

Sound: 6
General kiddie music with brief voice-overs to indicate your progress (or lack thereof).

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Cooking Mama: Cook Off isn’t anywhere near the challenge of Trauma Center: Second Opinion. That’s good for casual gamers looking for a simple game they can pick up and play, but bad for the hardcore crowd hoping for a greater challenge.

Concept: 8.5
Cooking Mama was born out of the innovation brought to us by the Nintendo DS (and now, the innovation of Nintendo Wii). It could be described as a collection of mini-games, but that would be a disservice to all that this game has to offer.

Multiplayer: 7
Re-play the single-player missions in a race against the clock – and a friend.

Overall: 7.4
Wii has become a console of mini-games for some publishers. As long as they keep turning out like Cooking Mama, there will be no complaints. The clever controls, resourceful objectives (there are dozens of unique recipes), and moderately high replay value are a winning combination. Food aficionados and Food Network enthusiasts alike – along with anyone looking for a great Wii-specific gameplay experience – will be amused and entertained by Cooking Mama: Cook Off.