A lot of gamers may or may not find themselves endowed with the mastery of the culinary arts, and for those who don’t, Cooking Guide: Can’t decide what to eat? is a masterpiece in almost every manner. From the simplest dishes like Macaroni Cheese to complex international cuisine, Cooking Guide is one game, if you want to call it that, that gamers cannot do without. Of course, it’s not for everyone, but it’s still pretty damn amazing how much quality content has been packed into this little DS game card.

Being part of Nintendo’s famous Touch! Generations label, Cooking Guide doesn’t really have a storyline. It takes the form of a digital cookbook, except with many more additions not found in a conventional paperback recipe book. Ingredients can be listed, videos can be viewed to perfect cuttting and cooking techniques, recipes can be viewed in all sorts of different ways and players can even try out compiling their own shopping list based on ingredients they need. Although it really doesn’t matter, Cooking Guide pushes the Nintendo DS to it’s absolute limit in terms of delivering visual acuity than any other title on the system.

Where photographs and imagery previously featured on the DS’s petit screen as unclear sometimes jagged looking images, Cooking Guide features a beautifully sharp and clear view of everything that is happening on screen akin to the sharp graphics of the Playstation Portable. The video’s providing, although short, are very high quality for a DS game and perhaps show what’s to come from Nintendo in terms of video compression with lossless quality. The aesthetics of the game are clean, simplistic and sharp meaning that almost any gamer (or non-gamer) will have no problems reading the instructions, though Cooking Guide doesn’t really require a whole lot of reading either.

Here is one we prepared earlier.

Upon first starting up Cooking Guide, the speed of our lovable Chef’s speaking can be adjusted, meaning that almost anyone can follow a recipe given they have adjusted the Chef’s voice speed accordingly. After passing through the title screen, players can treat themselves to the Cooking Guide itself, "Cooking A-Z", Shopping List or adjust settings. Cooking A-Z is for those who want to educate themselves more about the culinary arts, educating users on the bare basics of cooking. From descriptions and photos of utensils, to recipes for making ingredients such as pizza bases, bolognaise sauce, cooking rice and pasta and many other things.

Also included in Cooking A-Z is the different cutting techniques, styles of cooking (both wet and dry methods), substitute ingredients for all those obscure eastern recipes, and finally a glossary of cooking terminology. The Cooking A-Z section of Cooking Guide is definitely the most comprehensive, and comes highly recommended to anyone who wishes to learn about cooking and this is their first time. Where the game really shines though, and this is the most obvious, is the cooking guide itself. From the Cooking Guide menu, it is possible to search for recipes in all different kinds of ways.

The first, is by Country. Upon selecting Country, the game will display a map split into three regions. Choosing a specific country will display recipes from that region, which the player can choose to cook. Looking to cook something with what you’ve already got? Then a search can be conducted using an ingredients search. Selecting specific ingredients (Eg. Beef, Veal, Chicken) will display all the recipes in the Cooking Guide that utilise said ingredient. Trying to lose weight? In a rush? Then searching by Requirement is the mode for you. It allows players to choose a maximum calorie count, a maximum preparation time, method of cooking, difficulty and main ingredient, and retrieve recipes according to the criteria you set. Naturally the game uses a process of elimination, and using extensively specific criteria hardly ever yields less than one recipe, after all, Cooking Guide has 245 of them, with 78 being ranked as "Easy". Finally there’s a keyword search which is pretty self explanatory.

Upon choosing a recipe, players are presented with a briefing screen, before progressing into a three step process. On the bottom screen, is the three steps in cooking: View Ingredients, View Steps and Cook. During this period, the top screen of the DS displays helpful hints, tips and reminders that should be read before undertaking the recipe. A simple example is "Don’t remove the pan juices, as they are integral in making the sauce afterwards". Being one of the people that WOULD through out the pan juices without reading ahead, this feature is definitely welcome. The preparation time, calorie count and nationality of the dish is also displayed.

Finally, notes can be added to the recipes for personal reference, in case a variation of a dish is something you prefer, then you can save it into Cooking Guide for future reference. During this screen players can also mark their recipes as "Favourites" for quick and easy access Upon choosing the first step, a list of ingredients is displayed as well as a list of utensils. Some recipes allow the specification of servings and reduces or increases the yield of ingredients as necessary. Upon verifying that all ingredients are available, players can proceed to view the recipe itself. If they don’t, however, the game can export it to the Shopping List and take their DS shopping while they purchase the required ingredients. Although I personally wouldn’t do such a thing, it’s awfully convenient. During the ingredients screen, the game also gives advice for those who wish to increase or decrease the servings, though some of the advice is sometimes mundane ("If you are using more ingredients, use a bigger pot").

The second phase of the cooking lists the process in a vertical flow chart, and also lists the utensils, splitting them into Essential and Recommended. Upon checking that all utensils are ready, the recipe can commence! Players can also choose to skip steps, choosing which step to begin at. Then comes the third, stage, Cooking. The Cooking stage is amazingly detailed. Each screen has a separate photo, instructions and controls to advance or step back a step of the recipe. The chef also fully voices each recipe, meaning you can essentially cook up a storm without even looking at the DS, as voice commands can be used to advance the recipe.

All the details of the recipe, including ingredients can be accessed at all times during the cooking process, and the chef is more than happy to repeat with a yell of REPEAT into the DS’s microphone. Cooking A-Z can also be accessed from here, and saying "More Details" into the microphone of during a step will detail any terminology that may confuse some users. All in all, the recipe system is very robust and is sure to pull in everyone of all ages, as it’s just so easy to use and so accessible. The quality of the voicework is amazing, and with a fully voiced walk through of each recipe, it’s a wonder how Nintendo got so much onto the DS cartridge. Naturally, it’s hard to talk about replayability with a title like Cooking Guide - it’s equipped with 245 recipes, allows players to track how many times they’ve cooked each meal, has a stopwatch and calculator for cooking time and shopping lists respectively, and even has an unlockable version of the classic Game & Watch game Chef unlockable.

Cooking Guide isn’t a game more so but a tool, and it’s one that is heavily recommended to be utilised as it provides a cooking experience to anyone with or without it. Cooking Guide is the first "non-game" title that I’ve experienced on the DS that has genuinely been effective for me, someone with no cooking experience what so ever. I would personally have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who wants to look at beginning to learn how to cook, or even those who are skilled and experienced in the field. It’ll be interesting to see if any expansions will be offered, but Cooking Guide looks to be something every DS owner should have.