Cooking Mama 3 - Shop & Chop provides even more DS recipe cooking fun from the previous “Mama” games, and adds in a shopping style mini-game.

When you turn on the game, you’re presented with a menu of nine different options, each represented a picture.  This makes the game accessible for even non-readers, something which is carried over into the instructions and verbal cues provided.  Everything is either spoken or instructed with arrows.

The “classic” Mama style “Cook with Mama” option lets you go through recipes step-by-step with Mama.  This has the traditional gameplay that we really enjoy, where even if you make a mistake during one step, the recipe continues on.

In the “Let’s Cook,” however, your skills are put to the test as you must attempt to complete a recipe without making any mistakes.

Other modes include a competition mode, in which you compete for a high-score, and a “matching” mode in which you pick two ingredients and the game comes up with recipe that involves both (for example, picking eggs and steak gets you a Salisbury steak recipe).

The game is called Shop & Chop because there is also a new shopping-style mini-games that see you maneuver your way through the market and around (or into) other gagther everything on your list.  It works well as apuzzle game and we enjoyed the enjoyed the excuse to bring the mini-games out of the kitchen and into the supermarket, but we didn’t really enjoy the fact that the one of the ponits seemed to be to avoid the “annoying” people at the market because they would just slow you down.

Cooking Mama Shop & Chop is a game that can be enjoyed by almost anyone in the family.  There’s so much fun content, and so many different ways to play it, and even toddlers will be able to perform some of the task on their own, since the game doesn’t require much reading.