Cooking Mama World - Babysitting Mama Games

Cooking Mama has been keeping me busy and the more I play, the more children appear. My first question is where is Cooking Dada, or just Dada?

Like they say “any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a Daddy”. I might have this all wrong, as it is a babysitting game and maybe they are not Cooking Mama’s children.

The doll that comes with the game is important but it seems a little unnecessary. There were thoughts that the control would go up the bum of the baby and have the nunchuk stick out like a tail. As a Nintendo fan I am very glad that this was not done because I can only image the YouTube videos that would come from that.

The baby is designed with a strap and slot at the back of its neck. Open the strap to insert the Wii remote into the slot. There is also an opening to display the speaker and the home button, which becomes very important. Push the home button before you put the controller into the baby, especially when reading the instruction as you do it because each click of a button will move the instructions along. Use the home button to pause at any moment, too.

This just leaves the nunchuk to navigate the menus in the game. The game follows the style of Cooking Mama, which has its very good points and one sad one that I was looking forward to. A set of mini games has the player helping Mama to look after multiple babies, one at a time though. As the stages progress the skill required from the player is increased. Rocking and patting the baby are just the small subsets of the skills required; soon it evolves into baby races, baby talk identification and other music or rhythm games. There is a limit to the number of games that can use the motion of the control in the baby so there are a good bundle of games that use the nunchuk to feed, rattle and even swat flies to take care of the baby. There are no breast-feeding games or gender parts shown when changing the nappy; this is to avoid a high age restriction and odd questions that will be coming the way of the parents. The baby doll does seem washable but please do remember to take the Wii remote and nunchuk out first.

The feature that I was hoping for was more than just mini games and using the game as a test for a couple looking to have a baby… having the baby cry and needy for the couple to look after it, but then I suppose they could just turn off the console when it got too much.

There are so many games and each baby brings different games to the challenge. Each baby works through a book of jobs and each page has around four or five tasks or mini games. After each page is completed they are opened up for practise. Mostly boys would see the competitive edge in things but little girls will be fine with just playing through the games and caring for the baby. There is a two player versus mode, which is competitive. The game does not expect another baby to be bought, it suggests that players just use another doll.

As players look after their babies and do the tasks or play the games with their babies there are pictures that unlock in a “scrap-book” like fashion to remember the past activity with the baby. Most of the games require unlocking for all the modes but playing through a few of the single player games and taking turns with friends will quickly unlock them all. This, I feel, is set in more of a learning point of view than a restriction.

The babies show a lot of emotion - the angry faces had me raising my eye-brows and wondering what I did wrong. Do adjust the speaker volume in the Wii Menu setting before you play as this is the only separate volume you can adjust. I did find at times that the music is louder than the instructions and not much instruction is given.

No need to really worry about this, as after the first few games players will get the hang of how they are being instructed. There are also visual aids to help with this too, and while it might seem hard at first, there is not much reliance on reading so that even the young girls can play without constant help from their parents. The game will be very entertaining for the younger generation, and even has some space for parents to join in.

At A Glance:

This is a great collection of mini games to play with the baby doll and does progress into looking after a child.

Developer: TBA

Publisher: 505 Games

Distributor: Apex Interactive