Review of Personal Trainer: Cooking

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.



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