Personal Trainer: Cooking brings gourmet cooking from around the globe to your Nintendo DS. It features a DS Chef, your own private cooking instructor who talks you through 245+ recipes from over 30 countries worldwide. It's a combination of interactive cookbook and live cooking demonstration that'll have you cooking like a pro, even if you've never lifted a ladle before. With so many recipes, you can find something new and tasty to make no matter what you're in the mood for. You can search a map by country to find regional dishes or select options for low-calorie foods, specific ingredients or short cooking times. Each recipe contains step-by-step directions and photos to make it possible to prepare dishes you've never tried before. Use the stylus or simple voice commands to "turn the page." Hands covered in batter? Keep your DS clean using voice commands to continue to the next page, repeat a step, go back, and more. A tap of the touch screen lets you adjust the serving size automatically, and users can write and save cooking notes, just as they would in a paper recipe book. Recipes include photos of the dish as well as instructional videos on how to perform different cooking techniques, such as how to chop an onion or clean a fish. Users can access a handy reference function to explain unfamiliar terms and cooking techniques when they appear. The software includes a timer and calculator, as well as a search function to help you find what you're looking for. Cooking Guide also includes an ingredient checklist to use as a shopping list. Just put a ? mark next to the items you need and bring your Nintendo DS to the grocery store. You and the Chef will collaborate on a wide variety of recipes, with videos of techniques, explanations of ingredients, and expert advice. With its innovative interface and the interactivity that only the DS can provide, it's a perfect learning tool for the budding chef. As you browse recip
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182 of 187 found the following review helpful:
Perfect Introduction to Cooking...from a Video GameNov 25, 2008
By J. Finkel
"Jack of Trades"
The Nintendo DS is an amazing piece of technology with far more potential than to just play video games (though it's certainly ideal for that). Personal Trainer: Cooking is the rare software that pushes the DS in a new direction while putting this potential to great use. You won't find high scores, cute characters or bonus levels in this game, because it's really a cookbook - a really good cookbook.
I was blown away by the quality of production for this game. It's much easier to use than I expected. By default you can select a country from a map and browse popular recipes from that area, or you can search the entire contents by main ingredient, calories or cooking time. All the menus are straightforward and both the hand writing recognition (which you can use to make notes) and voice commands work great, despite loud noises (pots and pans clanking) being picked up erroneously. The included videos are similarly high quality and very helpful if you are unfamiliar with any part of a recipe. You'll also find a glossary, conversions, sustitutions, and a handy timer.
When making one of the nearly 250 recipes included, you'll get a step-by-step walkthrough. It's easy to go through the entire recipe before you start to see what you'll be doing, but it's certaily not neccessary. The ingredients and kitchenware you'll need are listed for you when you bring up the recipe. Just lay out the DS on the counter where you can see both screens and if you need to go back and repeat instructions to any step or go ahead to the next step at any time you can do so with a voice command or using the touch screen. As mentioned, short videos are available to show you many of the required culinary skills. You can bring up the appropriate video for a step (when applicable) with voice command or touchscreen as well.
If you are a seasoned, worldly chef, you'll likely find the production values to be overkill and many recipes too basic. Yet the average home cook will likely find the perfect introduction to at least a few dozen unfamiliar dishes. For the young or inexperienced cook, this game is a cheaper and better pimer than practically any cookbook.
39 of 39 found the following review helpful:
Fantastic for Those Less Experienced in CookingDec 01, 2008
By Ashley N. Lebourveau Personal Trainer: Cooking is a great purchase for those of us who are either relatively inexperienced in cooking, or just looking for fun and tasty recipes to make at home. Someone with much more experienced (as already mentioned by a previous reviewer) will most likely find the recipes basic, however.
The game itself is a great cookbook purchase: Some technologies are just lazy while others are highly convenient. The voice recognition makes it very easy to move back and forth and get more information even while your hands are busy or covered with dough, though it can be frustrating that it tends to recognized many louder noises as a voice command - during one recipe I had it repeat and move back a step dozens of times after a plate would clink or the refrigerator would be closed. If you like to prepare on your own, you can start the recipe steps at the cooking portion so that you don't have to go through ten extra preparation steps.
"Cooking A-Z" includes a lot of information especially useful for beginners. Preparation terms, vocabulary, ingredients, cooking utensils, possible substitutions, etc are explained briefly, and a selection of "how-to" videos are included. There are recipes for homemade ingredients to use in recipes, such as stock and pizza dough.
The recipes themselves (245 of them) can be searched by keyword, ingredients, country, type of dish... It's very easy to find what you would like to make, and the recipes vary from very simplistic and almost obvious to slightly more advanced. All information is given and a timer is included as well - preset to the necessary time. The shopping list is not the most convenient - this is one of the things in the game that is better off written down as long as nothing is forgotten: the shopping list is out of order and can be hard to go through if you have more than one recipe's worth put down. There is no way to delete ingredients from the shopping list - you simply check them off and they remain on the list for awhile with just a red x.
I would definitely recommend this to the beginner cook or someone cooking with younger children. Most cookbooks come in at around $20 anyway, and Personal Trainer: Cooking contains not only a good amount of recipes, but of variation as well. It is a wonderful introduction whether headed in a serious direction, or just looking for family dinners to prepare.
25 of 25 found the following review helpful:
GeniusDec 05, 2008
By Jin This game (if you can call it a game) is very user-friendly. It's easy to navigate and responds to voice commands nicely.
The recipes range from unique to the yummy simpler foods.
There is also a handy little feature that lets you select what ingredients (i.e. onions, pork, curry, etc...) you don't like.
The recipes are super easy to follow, too. I'm looking forward to letting the two boys I take care of (11 and 13) use this game/cookbook to whip something up all on their own. With my supervision of course. ;)
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Really great for beginners!Dec 09, 2008
By Jessica Ellenberger I love cooking, and I love cooking gadgets so I had to pick this up. :D
I'm really amazed by the detail in this game, honestly. There are lists of ingredients in case you aren't sure what something is, there are these cute little how-to videos on certain subjects, there are whole glossaries about preparation, tools, etc.
I also love that you can preview every step in a recipe before you decide on it. And that they don't use illustrations! There are real pictures for every step for every recipe! :D Plus, there is a clear ingredient list and utensil list for every recipe, plus tips and advice.
There's also a menu where you can omit anything ingredients you don't eat - you can then choose to have those recipes not show up at all when searching, or you can simply mark them so you know they contain something you're not okay with. Great for finicky eaters or those with food allergies. :)
On the opposite side, you can also perform a search for ingredients you want in a recipe. You can also search for recipes based on cooking times, calories, difficulty, and cooking method. You can also search by country - there are different recipes from all over the world!
And you can write notes about the recipes you make and search that way as well.
You can also change the number of servings you want to make - up to 6. And the calories for recipes are listed.
All in all, I am very impressed. I've been having cooking classes with some friends and I think I'll have to show them this - I really think it'll help. I'm also hoping to get a few meals out of the boyfriend - it's so easy and there are so many pictures, I really don't know that you could mess up! :D
17 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Good idea, but needs improvements.Feb 05, 2009
By T. McQueen
"LincolnsDad"
I was really excited about getting this "game" as I love to cook and wanted to try it out. There are some very interesting recipes available, however a good number of them are exotic and if I even wanted to try to cook them I could never find the ingredients (i.e. Squid in Ink sauce). I'm a pretty adventurous eater and cook and there honestly aren't alot of these recipes that I could say I'd ever make more than once. I definitely think they could have used more variety in their recipe selection.
My major problem with the game, and the one that has me considering either sending it back or selling it online is the fact that when you are cooking the voice recognition picks up other sounds and starts freaking out skipping back and forth through the steps at every clank of a bowl or chop of a knife. Every time I'd get done with one step I'd have to go search for where I was in the recipe.
I do have to say however that the recipe I made turned out great (Chicken Marengo), if the rest of them turn out as good as the first it might be worth keeping even with the overwhelming flaws.
based on 96 reviews
( 96 customer reviews )
