14 DAY TRIAL // There's a huge list somewhere out there of cooking games that have tried to copy the success of Cooking Mama. Moreover, even Cooking Mama has announced sequels and spin-offs aimed at different consoles and meant to bring in more revenue from this particular type of casual game. It goes without saying that, unless they come up with something different and innovative, neither of those games will do as well as the original Cooking Mama.
Atari might just have found something, or rather someone, that can make its game unique. It has signed up Britain's famous cook Jamie Oliver to star in a cooking game that is set to launch in October 2008. The game is called What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver.
100 recipes will ship with the game, and they will have illustrations done exactly as those seen in a professional cookbook. Sufficient details will be provided so that even a beginner cook be able to try his hand without fear of failing. The game will go as far as telling you what to get from the supermarket so that the recipe turns out perfect.
There is also room on the game cartridge for another 100 recipes that you can create, and which you can register in the game. Later on, you can share them through the Wi-Fi connection of the Nintendo DS.
The cooking part of the game will take place in a 3D kitchen. The top screen of the Nintendo DS will show you the progress of the recipe and the state of the dish you are cooking, while the other screen and stylus will be used to do the actual cooking.
Jamie Oliver said that, with this game, "I really want to get as many people as I can cooking simple, tasty food, so I'm really excited about bringing a book's worth of my recipes to a game for the first time".