The niche for Cooking Mama: Cook Off probably doesn’t involve black clad, pimply-faced gear heads but the family of said gamer will find the recipe-driven mini games of interest and of educational fun. As recipes are unlocked upon successful completion of a dish, Mama grades and encourages you to keep up the good work and the Wii remote functions decently well in the preparation and cooking aspects.

Fifty-five recipes present a lengthy challenge to those who stick with the program.

The area where Cooking Mama: Cook Off excels is in the learning phase of the recipe building. While surprises are rare, the game does work well in the multi player mode as you can practice your work until you feel ready to take on challengers. In this way, CM: CO mirrors the real world of chefdom. Real chefs get a chance to perfect their moves and portions until they reach some sort of stasis with their product. You also can compete against the machine if you can’t find someone to cook off against.

Mama assesses your speed and accuracy and allows you to get farther into the recipe book as you build your kitchen skills. However, the motions are a bit balky as in the egg cracking motion with the remote. Sauté movements also present some sticking points when you try to use what you know to be the correct hand motion.

The visual presentation is not meant to be lifelike although the finished dishes look edible. Mama appears to be Japanese drawn rather than Italian as you might suppose.

Overall, Cooking Mama: Cook Off has deceptively addictive features in the recipes and preparation while the Wii functions need some fine-tuning.