Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat

What’s the recipe for a perfect video game?
Fantastic gameplay?
Stunning cut-scenes?
Magical worlds?
Maybe even a few nuts thrown in along the way?

Now, while Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat might not have any of those things, who'd have thought that an educational game could still be a recipe for success?

Console: Nintendo DS
Release Date: Japan: December 4, 2008
Europe: June 20, 2008
Australasia: July 3, 2008
North America: November 24, 2008
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: indies zero
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E



Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat?

A HUGE thanks to CAT for the delicious sprites!

Starter ~ (Introduction:)

Now I know what most of you are thinking right now: "Rocky, what on Earth are you thinking reviewing this game!?" Well, in all honesty, that’s exactly the question I asked myself when I first picked this game up and decided to review it. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally sunk my teeth into this delicious game. So let's get cooking and see what this game has on the menu!

Main Course ~ (Gameplay:)

The simplicity of the gameplay really appealed to me. The menu and selection screen is easy to navigate through and nice on the eyes. You can select a recipe and be ready to cook within minutes! Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat contains a total of 245 different dishes from various countries around the world for you to choose from. You can choose from these recipes based on a number of different methods such as country, calories or based on what ingredients you already have. When you are browsing through the recipes you can either choose to look at information about cooking times and calories or a short paragraph on the dish itself and its origins.

Hmm.. That looks tasty!

When you select a dish with the intention of cooking it, you can view the recipes ingredients and adjust the quantity you’re making for, which will in turn adjust the quantity of ingredients needed to suit. My only complaint about this is that you can’t be more specific with the quantity of people, and you can only use the ones the game has already, which isn’t a very wide range. There is also a very practical notepad feature for every recipe allowing you to make notes on the recipe so you can remind yourself to do something differently next time!

When you start to cook, I found the short steps very useful because it meant that I could take my time without fear of forgetting anything and having to refer back to the DS. If by any chance I did forget something, the DS’ “Repeat” voice command would replay the step back to me without me having to go over and look. Ever been interrupted while cooking? The DS has a quick save function that will allow you to save the step you’re up to and then resume it later when you have chance. In addition to this, when beginning to cook you can choose to skip steps and start half-way through, just in case you forgot to quick save, or if you only need part of the recipe.

The extremely useful quick save feature!

Side Dish ~ (Extra Features:)

One of my favourite features of the game was the "Cooking A-Z" section. This gives helpful hints and tasty tips to both new and seasoned Chefs.

The "Cooking A-Z" Section

Something I found of use was the "Terminology" sub-section where it simply described phrases that the game uses, such as "blanching" in a way that even someone as inexperienced as myself could understand! Then the game has both "Ingredients" and "Utensils" sub-sections where it not only described every ingredient and utensil that you'd need to make every dish available, but it also included something very special.. Pictures! This was VERY beneficial when dealing with ingredients that I'd never even heard of before!

Ever wondered how to boil an octopus correctly? Ever wondered how to correctly prepare shungiku? Do you even know what shungiku is?!?

I had absolutely NO idea, until I found the sections on "Preparation" and "Chopping and Cutting" which were very easy to follow and understand. In fact, they even have example videos available for some of the more difficult things to do, like how to properly de-vein a prawn!

One of the many useful Example Videos the game has to offer.

It even has a little "Homemade Ingredients" section that gives you a step-by-step guide of how to make some of the sauces used in the game and also how to make other useful things such as pizza bases and my personal favourite, tortillas. Yum!

Are you sick of having to carry around a pen and paper when you go shopping? Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat has a handy shopping list function that allows you to select what ingredients you want to buy and the option to tick them off once you’ve bought them. Another feature that goes hand in hand with this is a calculator if you need help working out prices of ingredients! A very practical extra was the option to exclude ingredients. You can either exclude recipes that include those ingredients completely or for a little red exclamation mark to appear when you select that recipe.

The Vegetarian Option ~ (Sound:)

The sound plays a major part in Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat, as the Chef reads out the instructions to you. It has a fantastic little option that allows you to adjust the speed of the Chef’s voice to a speed that’s easiest for you to understand.

The microphone has been used to its fullest in this game as well, allowing you to go forward or back a step merely by uttering a simple voice command. While it's a very useful function it also has its flaws. If you have an accent of any kind then the microphone can have difficulty picking up your voice and can sometimes misinterpret it.

The game’s soundtrack is quite poor but as you're there to cook and listen to the Chef's instructions and not the music, this wasn't a major problem. The game’s settings allow you to choose whether you always want the music to play, adjust it so it only plays when you’re browsing through the different menus or to turn it off completely. I can assure you, with the entire soundtrack consisting of around 5 repetitive songs which are constantly played over and over again, that it won't be long before you choose to get rid of the music, and never turn it back on.

Dessert ~ (Conclusion:)

Okay, so there’s no shooting, no fighting, and quite frankly no action of any kind in Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat; but oddly, it's still a really enjoyable game and I was pleasantly surprised by this hidden gem! My only suggestion would be that if they ever did something like this again, they should have downloadable recipes through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
To be perfectly honest with you, it's wrong to call Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat a game because in reality, it's so much more than that. It's innovative, it's imaginative and it's the future. Forget books and magazines, in my opinion THIS is what all cook books should be like! It's interactive, it's educational but most importantly, it was genuinely fun to use.

Scoring System:
Graphics: 6/10 – Okay, so the game only contained pictures, but I felt that they were extremely useful when looking for ingredients and different utensils.
Sound: 9/10 – It has a slight flaw with the Microphones failure to pick up some voices, but overall it's absolutely beautiful. It works well and most importantly, it's easy to use.
Gameplay: 1/10 – As the game is essentially a virtual cookbook, it doesn't actually have any gameplay as such. However, if I could rate it on practicality, it would easily score a perfect 10.
Longevity: 10/10 – While it might lack what most people look for in a game, Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat has more than enough recipes to keep you satisfied and like any good cookbook, you'll keep coming back again and again to cook your favourite dishes for all your friends!