But wait, there's more!
Apr. 20th, 2008 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaitouI finally got my DS cooking game this weekend and it is SO AWESOME. If you have a DS and know Japanese you should order it right this very second. It's an amazingly robust piece of software and it boggles the mind that they haven't come out with an English version (though they would need new recipes)
When you fire up the game for the first time a little line art chef (so cute) pops up and has you set his voice. You can set the pitch higher or lower, the speed faster or slower to make him easier to understand. This is the level of thought that's gone into this software. You get 4 menus up front. The "Every day cooking Navi" the "Cooking Encyclopedia" "Memos" and "Settings, etc"
The memo section I'm a little unclear about the point, but it's O_o worthy all the same. You can write messages, and the system will 'read' it back to you. There are a variety of voices to pick from including, Alien, Robot, and...get this...Foreigner. The little logo is represented by a big nose no less. If you choose foreigner voice it will over pronounce things and put the stress on the wrong syllables.
The Encyclopedia has a bunch of neat things. It has a picture dictionary of ingredients used, and a second button that will let you know the foods in season each month (Yes Japan, I KNOW you have 4 seasons). There's another dictionary for cooking tools, and an illustrated list of some basic cooking steps, the different kinds of cuts (mincing, julienne) and common terms like a pinch. It also has a list of how to properly store each ingredient (fridge, wrap it, put it in water). Finally it has video clips of some trickier steps and a section for things to be careful of.
Finally we get to the meat of the game, the actual cooking. You can pick a recipe lots of different ways. You can have the game randomly assign a menu, you can search through the recipes by group or by keyword. But the two most amazing ways are by telling it what ingredients you have on hand, either from a list or entering by hand, and having it recommend a dish, or by giving it a list of requirements. You can tell it what 'genre' of food you want (Japanese, Western, Chinese, Ethnic) how many calories you want it to be, or even how much time you have....the list goes on and on. You can even tell it what season it is (Yes, Japan, I GET IT), whether you're making it for a party or not, or even how cheap the dish has to be.
For tonight's dinner I chose Omuraisu, a modern Japanese comfort food. It's something I knew I could get all the ingredients for even in St. Marys Ohio.
Once you pick a recipe you can review what tools and ingredients you need, and then proceed to the cooking. Once you're into the actual cooking you can put your DS in a convenient place (I put it on a cabinet shelf) and thanks to the built-in mike you never have to touch it with chickeny fingers. The little chef talks you through each step. To move on to the next step say 'OK' to repeat a step you tell it to 'Go Back.' You can also tell it to explain in more detail, or to speak louder.
I had the game walk me through peeling & mincing an onion and actually learned a new easier way to do it. The microphone sometimes didn't recognize my commands, which has more to do with my pronunciation than anything. But every now and then doing something like closing a cabinet door would send it back to the last step. And most any loud noise made the little chef go "Hm?" which made me want to say "Hang on! I'm not ready yet!"
The game held my hand all the way through the recipe, and made it really easy, even when I didn't understand all of the vocab. It walked me both through the main course and a vegetable to go with it (though it didn't call for much of one).
And here are my results:
It's a little ragged around the edges, but much better than my previous attempt out of an old cookbook.
I can't wait to try something new!!
When you fire up the game for the first time a little line art chef (so cute) pops up and has you set his voice. You can set the pitch higher or lower, the speed faster or slower to make him easier to understand. This is the level of thought that's gone into this software. You get 4 menus up front. The "Every day cooking Navi" the "Cooking Encyclopedia" "Memos" and "Settings, etc"
The memo section I'm a little unclear about the point, but it's O_o worthy all the same. You can write messages, and the system will 'read' it back to you. There are a variety of voices to pick from including, Alien, Robot, and...get this...Foreigner. The little logo is represented by a big nose no less. If you choose foreigner voice it will over pronounce things and put the stress on the wrong syllables.
The Encyclopedia has a bunch of neat things. It has a picture dictionary of ingredients used, and a second button that will let you know the foods in season each month (Yes Japan, I KNOW you have 4 seasons). There's another dictionary for cooking tools, and an illustrated list of some basic cooking steps, the different kinds of cuts (mincing, julienne) and common terms like a pinch. It also has a list of how to properly store each ingredient (fridge, wrap it, put it in water). Finally it has video clips of some trickier steps and a section for things to be careful of.
Finally we get to the meat of the game, the actual cooking. You can pick a recipe lots of different ways. You can have the game randomly assign a menu, you can search through the recipes by group or by keyword. But the two most amazing ways are by telling it what ingredients you have on hand, either from a list or entering by hand, and having it recommend a dish, or by giving it a list of requirements. You can tell it what 'genre' of food you want (Japanese, Western, Chinese, Ethnic) how many calories you want it to be, or even how much time you have....the list goes on and on. You can even tell it what season it is (Yes, Japan, I GET IT), whether you're making it for a party or not, or even how cheap the dish has to be.
For tonight's dinner I chose Omuraisu, a modern Japanese comfort food. It's something I knew I could get all the ingredients for even in St. Marys Ohio.
Once you pick a recipe you can review what tools and ingredients you need, and then proceed to the cooking. Once you're into the actual cooking you can put your DS in a convenient place (I put it on a cabinet shelf) and thanks to the built-in mike you never have to touch it with chickeny fingers. The little chef talks you through each step. To move on to the next step say 'OK' to repeat a step you tell it to 'Go Back.' You can also tell it to explain in more detail, or to speak louder.
I had the game walk me through peeling & mincing an onion and actually learned a new easier way to do it. The microphone sometimes didn't recognize my commands, which has more to do with my pronunciation than anything. But every now and then doing something like closing a cabinet door would send it back to the last step. And most any loud noise made the little chef go "Hm?" which made me want to say "Hang on! I'm not ready yet!"
The game held my hand all the way through the recipe, and made it really easy, even when I didn't understand all of the vocab. It walked me both through the main course and a vegetable to go with it (though it didn't call for much of one).
And here are my results:
It's a little ragged around the edges, but much better than my previous attempt out of an old cookbook.
I can't wait to try something new!!
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Re: Food and DS
Date: 2008-04-21 07:59 pm (UTC)Don't worry, it won't be long because you'll know all the video game terms because your DS wants a DS!