Cerise Magazine

Mass Effect, BioWare, Xbox 360, 2007

By some happy coincidence, Mass Effect, BioWare’s latest RPG offering, was released on my birthday, which meant I got a copy right away, and I didn’t even have to buy it for myself! I popped it in the Xbox 360 that night, and I haven’t stopped playing since.
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Cooking Mama: Cook Off, Majesco, Nintendo Wii, 2007

Games like Cooking Mama: Cook Off are why I love the Nintendo Wii. Many gamers would assume that a game about cooking food with a matronly Japanese woman should not be fun, it should be stupid. Yes, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a novelty game—one of those games you show off to your friends because it’s just so darn weird—but it’s a really entertaining novelty game. Imagine the control scheme of Trauma Center: Second Opinion and the off-the-wall action of Katamari Damacy meets the Food Network and you have a good idea of how the game plays out. The premise of Cooking Mama: Cook Off is that you are learning to cook under Mama, a kerchiefed, manga-style, incredibly adorable head chef. Mama guides you through fifty-five different recipes, presented as a series of minigames, from countries all over the world. You can also choose to compete against a friend, or against computer-controlled opponents for fabulous prizes to outfit your kitchen.

The presentation is simple but effective. Your kitchen is rendered in appealing cel-shading with bright colors and simple shapes. The food is depicted more realistically than the setting, with appropriate proportions and textures, and it often looks quite delicious. There are only a handful of musical tracks in the game, and although they’re catchy they become repetitive quickly. The sounds when cooking are great—chopping lettuce, pounding mochi, patting hamburger and stirring eggs all sound distinctive and realistic. It would have been nice if Cooking Mama: Cook Off had utilized the Wii Remote’s speaker, but no such luck. Mama pops up occasionally as a static 2D sprite, ready to fix you with her sparkly eyes and shout encouragement in her cute Japanese accent. Wonderfurr! At first I thought Mama’s thick Japanese accent might be a bit insensitive, but it makes sense in the game world (she is Japanese, after all) and it’s clearly authentic as opposed to an imitation meant to mock and embarrass. I showed the game to a group of international students enrolled in an English as a second language program and they loved it—if Mama’s accent doesn’t offend a group of Asian students struggling to master their own English skills, who will it offend?

Charming as they are, the graphics and sound are just icing on the cake (sorry, no more food puns). The real fun lies in the assortment of minigames, and their innovative control scheme. Mama’s recipes require you to chop, boil, stew, stir, grill, fan, wash, fill, peel, season, and manipulate food in dozens of ways. The Wii remote becomes your all-purpose cooking utensil: turn it upside down and swish it in a circle to stir sauce, hold it vertically and swing it down and to the left to crack an egg on the side of a bowl, turn it like a crank to work a meat grinder. The possibilities seem endless, but they’re not, which is one of the game’s main drawbacks. Once you’ve played it for a couple of hours you’ve seen every minigame, even if you haven’t mastered every recipe. After six hours I had unlocked everything and I was ready to move on, thankful I had rented the game instead of paying the full cover price of $50.

But even though I exhausted the possibilities it offered, I would rent Cooking Mama: Cook Off again for the sheer entertainment value. Everyone who saw the game loved it: me, my girlfriend, my girlfriend’s mom and little brother, my beer-swilling skier friends, the international students, and my hardcore gamer roommate all tried their hand at cooking with Mama. The game’s charming Japanese wackiness enticed giggles and shouts of encouragement from everyone. You haven’t heard backseat gaming until you’ve heard someone shout “Crack the egg, dumbass! Crack the egg!” If you’re looking for some light gaming for a weekend with friends, Cooking Mama: Cook Off is a good bet.

A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to Diner Dash. It’s a fun puzzle game framed by the story of Flo, who is so stressed over and hateful of her 9-5 office job that she buys a restaurant and goes into business for herself. Because she has little money, Flo has to do everything but the cooking — take orders, serve guests, bus tables, etc. As you move along in the game, Flo earns enough to fix up the place, open new restaurants, and become a successful entrepreneur.

Diner Dash is addictive and a lot of fun to play. I also love that the main character is a woman and that she achieves success in a very straightforward way — she works hard, improves her skills, and makes smart business decisions.

The game is very popular and has spawned several sequels and knock-offs. PlayFirst then developed their own spin-off called Wedding Dash. I decided to give it a try because it was by the same developer and because, after finishing the last level of Diner Dash 3, I needed my fix.
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I have been anticipating Hellgate: London for a couple of years now, ever since I saw the amazing cinematic trailers that premiered at E3 2005. I have never played any of the Diablo games, though, which were highly influential in the development of Hellgate: London.

I played about of five hours of the Hellgate: London beta and got my character up to level seven. I only completed main quest chains. I did not reach the “end” of the beta. However, I think five hours of play is a decent amount of time to invest in a game so I will share my impressions below.
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Tecmo Bowl, Tecmo Ltd, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1989

I grew up in a household with an NES at the end of the 80’s, along with several other middle-class urban households. Now, this sounds all well and good – I grew up a good little geek and am now enjoying the “geek chic” trend, however fleeting it may be. There was a disadvantage to this situation, however. The NES technically belonged to my older brother . Whenever I wanted to play it, I had to ask him (this usually wasn’t a problem) and we always had to fight over what games to rent. Having a twin sister who also liked playing NES wasn’t easy, either – we could only have two games, and my sister was GOING to rent Mega Man, so help her God!
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Boogie, EA, Nintendo Wii, 2007

Gameplay

Boogie is a Wii game (USB microphone included) where you dance and sing… in SPACE.

If you’re anything like me, that might be all you need to pick it up, but to sweeten the deal there are a couple of modes, including dance-offs, karaoke-only mode, a cute story mode with some great dialogue (disappointingly, without an ending – at least I couldn’t find it) and a movie-maker mode where you can dance, sing, and edit your own fabulous music videos.
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Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Activision, Nintendo Wii/Xbox 360/Playstation 2, 2007

It’s a safe assumption that almost nobody had heard of Harmonix before Guitar Hero. Despite almost a decade of music game development and widespread critical adoration of brutal beat-busting games Frequency and Amplitude, Harmonix had yet to develop a game that garnered mass appeal – and most importantly, solid sales figures. Finally, in November of 2005 Harmonix’s collaboration with peripheral maker RedOctane hit stores. Guitar Hero was born – and the rest is history.

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Resident Evil 4, Capcom, Nintendo Wii, 2007

This is apparently confession time for me. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube edition, to be fair!), like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne before it, was the first game in the long-venerated franchise that I have played. Honestly, I don’t know if I could play the others after playing the fourth Resident Evil game. You get pampered with great controls, a non-broken camera, and incredible (at the time) graphics. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition (Resident Wii-vil, if you will) is nearly the same game including the Playstation 2 extras, with a much improved control system to boot. Is it worth dropping the budget-conscience $30 to play the same game you played on the ‘Cube and PS2 again? Yes. Yes it is. (more…)

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, iNiS, Nintendo DS, 2005

Note: My Japanese language skills were not sufficient to be able to read or understand the language used in this game. As such, this can best be viewed as an import review.

Released in Japan in the summer of 2005, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (translation: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad) is a rhythm video game developed by iNiS for the Nintendo DS. Critically well received, Ouendan has emerged into its own status as a cult hit, spawning both a sequel and a Western remake. From OLs and salarymen to ramen shops and dodgeball, though, this game is unabashedly Japanese through and through. It’s no wonder that Nintendo and iNiS felt it wouldn’t translate well to English-speaking shores and instead chose to develop a separate game entirely for the non-Japanese audience, known as Elite Beat Agents. Though the Ouendan phenomenon has likely slipped past the radar of many a gamer, this is one game that should not be missed. (more…)

BurgerTime, Data East Corporation, Intellivision, 1982

“Mom, where did you go? We’re about to eat.”

“I’m down here, Connie. By the radio.”

“You’re not playing video games again, are you?”

“They’re so fun!”

“Who did you get that system for again?”

“…the grandkids.”

My grandmother was always more interested in things of the future than she was in eating dinner with her extended family. She and my grandfather bought the Intellivision in the early 80’s for the grandkids to entertain themselves with, and according to my mother she played it more than my brother at the time. BurgerTime was reportedly her favorite, and I’m fairly sure she was the best at it out of all us who tried to attempt it. Would that she could teach me her secret.
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