Everyone's favorite waitress, Flo, is back for yet another Dash game. This time it's Cooking Dash. At Flo's order, her chef has left the restaurant to further his career, leaving Flo and her grandmother to handle the shop. Grandmother handles making the sandwiches while Flo cooks food and serves the customers. This was a ton easier than the Diner Dash: Seasonal Snack Pack. As a matter of fact, this version is a lot like the original Diner Dash game but with better graphics. However, instead of just handling customers' orders, Flo also has to handle the grill and the fryer. Adding these jobs to her waitress job doesn't make completing her tasks impossible though. It's just another trip around the kitchen. If you like the Diner Dash series, I think you'd really like Cooking Dash as well.
Game review: Cooking Quest
I have played a lot of hidden object games but none of them have been as weird as Cooking Quest. It actually mixes a hidden object game with a tiny bit of time management in an attempt to make it interesting. As with most hidden object games, you are given a level and a list of objects to find. In each list, there is at least one object that you need to make the food item you picked. Once you gather all the items in each level, you need to cook the food and serve it. However, they don't tell you which objects go together and which go to which cooking device. So you may, for example, have a knife, some onions and some carrots. The knife will only work on one of those and it doesn't tell you which. The same goes for the cooking devices. You might have a steak, an oven and a pan on a stovetop but it won't tell you which device needs to be used to cook the steak. It makes that part of the game annoying.
In the hidden object part, the items are difficult to find. Some of the items are hidden behind other ones so you might only see the tip of an item you need. I'm not sure why these games have started leaning toward this trend but it's not fun. It's annoying when you need to use a hint because you can't find an object only to find that's because it's hidden behind something else! Put them all out in the open. Make the game fair.
I can't say I'll play this game again. There are way too many other hidden object games that are a lot better.
Game review: Cooking Academy
Cooking Academy, much like Family Restaurant, is a time management game similar to Cooking Mama. You are given a set of cooking instructions, such as chop the carrot or fold the pastry, to complete within the set time limit. When the recipe is finished, you are graded on how well you prepared it. As much as I don't like cooking, this was actually pretty fun. It's not as difficult as Cooking Mama since everything is controlled by the mouse yet it was more enjoyable than Family Restaurant. The instructions are very basic so anyone should be able to understand them easily. I was able to make all of the appetizers and most of the breakfast dishes with no less than a C grade. And I'm pretty bad at games like this! For some reason, I can never get the little line to stop in the green spot, which means I end up burning a lot of food.
While I didn't let my daughter play this one, I think kids might enjoy this game as well as adults. I know my daughter likes Cooking Mama on the Wii and this was definitely easier than trying to manipulate the Wiimote into doing things like stirring a pot. Unfortunately for them, their parents will find the game too fun to share!
Game review: Hot Dish
In my day-to-day life, I don't cook. My husband does a majority of the cooking in our household. This is mostly due to the fact that I hate to cook. For some reason, I decided to load up Hot Dish to see if I'd like that any more than real life cooking. I both liked and hated this game. On one hand, the simulated cooking is a lot like Cooking Mama on both the Nintendo DS and Wii. You choose a dish and you go through the steps to cook it. From chopping the vegetables to simmering the seafood to baking the bread, you do it all. However, Hot Dish throws you for a loop by forcing you to prepare more than one dish at a time. It starts out with one dish in the tutorial but you are quickly thrown into making three dishes at once! This means you have to keep track of when to flip your grilled chicken over so it does burn while stirring your warming milk so it doesn't curdle while flipping your sauteed shrimp. It really does get to be too much.
In my opinion, this game would have been better if it had focused on making two dishes at once instead of three. As it is, you already make an appetizer, a main course and a dessert. Do you really need to make three of each at once? The game only shows one reviewer and I doubt that she is eating that much food by herself. I think I'll stick with Cooking Mama. At least she doesn't try to drive me to drink!
Favorite Friday
Katori Shingo is a member of the ultra-famous Johnny's group, SMAP. Sometime around 2000, he starred in a new show where he would cross-dress as Shingo Mama and let tired housewives have the morning off. He would show up at someone's house bright and early in the morning to perform all of the duties of a housewife - waking the family members up, making them breakfast, seeing them off to work/school - doesn't your mother do that? It was extremely popular, especially with children. So, Shingo Mama recorded a song and released it as a single. Now I present it to you.