Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat?

Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? PAL Personal Trainer: Cooking NA
Box art for the PAL version.
Developer(s)	indies zero Nintendo NSD
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release date(s)	EU June 20, 2008 AUS July 3, 2008[Note 1] NA November 24, 2008 JP December 4, 2008
Genre(s)	Edutainment
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	CERO: A ESRB: E OFLC: G PEGI: 3+
Media/distribution	2048-Megabit Nintendo DS Game Card

Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat?, known in North America as Personal Trainer: Cooking and in Japan as Sekai no Gohan Shaberu! DS Oryōri Navi (世界のごはん しゃべる！DSお料理ナビ^?), is a digital cookbook for the Nintendo DS. The original, Japanese-language edition was released in Japan on December 4, 2008, in Europe in English on June 20, 2008,^[1] in Australia on July 3, 2008,^{[Note 1]} and in North America on November 24, 2008.^[2] Cooking Guide is part of both Nintendo's Touch! Generations brand and a cooking tutorial software series started from a Japan-only title, Shaberu! DS Oryōri Navi. In North America, it is also part of the Personal Trainer series.^[3]

Gameplay

Cooking Guide is an "interactive cooking aid" that gives step by step instructions on how to cook from a range of 245 dishes.^[4] The user is guided through the preparation and cooking process via audio narration and instructional video clips, and the user can use the Nintendo DS's voice recognition to proceed through each cooking step. Users can also choose recipes based on how many calories they have, or what ingredients the user currently has at hand, among other options. Cooking Guide also keeps in memory what dishes the player has already made. The application also allows users to take notes and compile a shopping list, and features functions such as a cooking timer and a quantity calculator.^[4] As a bonus, the Game & Watch game Chef can also be played after the user unlocks it by using the timer during preparation of a recipe.^[5] European versions were created with voices of five "chefs" recorded for different countries. They guide the users in either English, French, Italian, German or Spanish.^[6]

Development

Released in Japan in 2006, Cooking Guide was originally shown to the US during Nintendo's Media Briefing at the Hollywood Kodak Theater at E3 2008.^[7][8] It was later shown at the Nintendo US Press Conference Live Blog in San Francisco in October 2008.^[9] After selling 600,000 units total in North America and Europe during its first two days of sales, Nintendo announced on April 27, 2009 that the game would be packaged with the latest color to be added to the DS Lite's hardware rainbow which is green.^[10] The Green-colored version of the DS lite was released on May 3, 2009.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	81%[11]
Review scores
Publication	Score
Eurogamer	8 of 10[12]
IGN	9.0 of 10[13]

The game was generally well-received, receiving a 81% from Metacritic. Official Nintendo Magazine felt Cooking Guide's features makes it "actually better than your average recipe book" and praised both the ease of use of the software and the range of recipes it offers, but felt that the European retail price it was being sold at was too steep. They gave it 80%.^[14] Pocketgamer felt that while practiced cooks will have little use for it, on the whole it was more useful than other Touch! Generations titles such as Brain Training.^[15] IGN gave Personal Trainer: Cooking a 9/10, praising its accessibility, user interface and features such as the instructional audio narration.^[13] It was awarded Best Use of Sound by IGN in their 2008 video game awards.^[16]

Cooking Guide received an Excellence Prize for Entertainment at the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival. Supermarket chain Asda has claimed that Cooking Guide has sold over 10,000 copies in the first hour of release alone, and has also positively affected the sales of products used in the application's recipes.^[17] The North American version was the 13th best-selling game and third best-selling Nintendo DS game of December 2008 in the United States.^[18]

Sequels

Four sequels to the original Japanese version were developed and released by two companies. From Nintendo are Kenkou Ouen Recipe 1000: DS Kondate Zenshuu (健康応援レシピ1000 DS献立全集, lit. "Health Boost Recipe 1000: DS Complete Menu"^?) and for the first time released worldwide, Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? in Europe, Personal Trainer: Cooking in North America and in Japan as Sekai no Gohan Shaberu! DS Oryōri Navi (世界のごはん しゃべる！DSお料理ナビ^?). Nintendo also released America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking, based on the PBS program, America's Test Kitchen. From Koei are Shaberu! DS Oryōri Navi: Marugoto Teikoku Hotel (しゃべる!DSお料理ナビ まるごと帝国ホテル, It Talks! DS Cooking Navigator: The Marugoto Empire Hotel^?) and Kantan! Tanoshii! Okashi Navi DS (かんたん!たのしい!お菓子ナビDS, Simple! Fun! Pastry Navigator DS^?).

A musical remix based on this Nintendo DS title was used in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where it was heard in the Kirby Final Smash update. This was only heard on the Japanese version of the official website;^[19] however, the song was added to all versions of Super Smash Bros. Brawl as one of the songs for the PictoChat stage. Cook's Illustrated magazine helped to write a 2010 US sequel, America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking.^[20]

See also

• What's Cooking? with Jamie Oliver
• List of Nintendo DS games
• Personal Trainer: Walking
• Personal Trainer: Math

References

1. ^ Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat? Announced
2. ^ E3 2008 - Cooking Guide dated for North America
3. ^ Nintendo Launches Personal Trainer: Cooking For Nintendo DS
4. ^ ^{a b} Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat? - fact sheet
5. ^ Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat? for DS Cheats
6. ^ "Side news and work Side UK". Side.com. http://www.side.com/work/localisation/?artid=17&pageNum=0&blk=39. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
7. ^ M. Thomas, Thomas. "The popular cooking assistant non-game is getting an American localization.". IGN. http://ds.ign.com/articles/889/889730p1.html. Retrieved 2011-08-05. 
8. ^ Harris, Craig. "E3 2008: Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? Hands-on". IGN. http://ds.ign.com/articles/890/890135p1.html. Retrieved 2011-08-05. 
9. ^ Casamassina, Matt. "The press conference in San Francisco is on.". IGN. http://ds.ign.com/articles/915/915726p1.html. Retrieved 2011-08-05. 
10. ^ Magrino, Tom. "Nintendo's money-minting handheld picks up apt new hue; packaged with Personal Trainer: Cooking, carrying case next month.". Gamespot. http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/cookingguide/news_6208609.html. Retrieved 2011-08-05. 
11. ^ "Personal Trainer: Cooking (ds: 2008): Reviews". Metacritic.com. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/cookingguidecantdecidewhattoeat. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
12. ^ Lyon, James. "DS Roundup Review - Page 1 - Eurogamer". Eurogamer.net. http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=233653. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
13. ^ ^{a b} Hatfield, Daemon. "IGN: Personal Trainer: Cooking Review". Ds.ign.com. http://ds.ign.com/articles/933/933817p1.html. Retrieved 2008-12-09. 
14. ^ ONM: Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat? review
15. ^ Pocketgamer: Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat? review
16. ^ "IGN DS: Best Use of Sound 2008". IGN.com. 2008-12-15. http://bestof.ign.com/2008/ds/15.html. Retrieved 2008-12-19. 
17. ^ Mums go DS mental at Asda
18. ^ "Top 10 Games of December 2008, By Platform". blog.wired.com. 2009-01-18. http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/01/top-10-games-of.html. Retrieved 2009-01-19. 
19. ^ Sakurai, Masahiro (2007-10-09). "カービィ：最後の切りふだ". スマブラ拳!!. http://www.smashbros.com/jp/characters/kirby.html. Retrieved 2007-12-07. 
20. ^ http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/fIeyCqi4iFZwJXW395q2KhDE0wyfId_q

Notes

1. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named ref1; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text

External links

• Official websites of United Kingdom , Australia , United States , and Japan