Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat?
Rating 4.5/5
An interactive cookbook for the Nintendo DS might sound like a cheap joke, but it’s arguably one of the most practical applications you can buy.
Bachelors, bachelorettes, and people with cooking skills who can’t be bothered flicking through grandma’s cookbooks will love the interactive and instructional style that Cooking Guide offers. Choose from one of 245 recipes including dishes from all corners of the globe and let Cooking Guide tell you the ingredients and utensils you’ll need, and how to make it.
To ensure there’s no confusion, a friendly chef will speak to you, and the game has a glossary of cooking terms as well as instructional videos on how to perform basic tasks with ease. If you’re missing ingredients, check the box next to each ingredient and change to the in-game shopping list which will also tell you the quantities you need to purchase for each item.
I cooked stuffed tomatoes and potato gratin, and both my girlfriend and I agreed they tasted delicious – and even looked like they should! Just be warned, sometimes the chef’s instructions progress a little too quickly, and although 245 recipes sounds like a lot, chances are you’ll be confined to a smaller selection of what tickles your tastebuds. Otherwise, Cooking Guide is a fantastic tool for anyone who struggles to decide what to eat for dinner, and comes highly recommended.
Guitar Hero On Tour
Rating: 3/5
The Guitar Hero series is noted for its infectious rhythmical game play. On home consoles, its main attraction is the plastic guitar you wield while playing it, enabling you to leap around the living room like a rock star.
So how has Vicarious Visions translated this experience to the handheld Nintendo DS console? E-Talk believes with mixed results.
While the handgrip that plugs into the Gameboy Advance slot of the DS allows you to use fret buttons, it’s a sad fact that mashing a pad of coloured buttons while using a stylus to stroke a screen is no substitute for a guitar-shaped controller. The track list is almost flawless, with many of the songs master recordings – a positive for the series. But the fun will only last a while before the hand cramps begin to set in. Couple that with the handgrip’s bad habit of slipping out of the slot when you madly finger the fret board on harder levels, and you’ll be frustrated by having to reboot your console in the middle of what could have been a ripper riff. Some of the harder songs are butchered by the fact you can never truly get the feel for changing buttons rapidly because of the way your hand is strapped to the console. The only positive is that this is the best it’s going to get. Portable gaming was never designed with this experience in mind, and it’s a credit to Vicarious Visions for making it happen, and creating an admirable product that will at least allow those without access to a home console version of Guitar Hero a taste of what it’s about.
