Extreme Shopping

I’m reviewing Cooking Mama 3 for ThumbGods right now. I was expecting more of the chopping and frying fun of Cooking Mama 2, but a new shopping game has me hungry for melon popcorn, drinking yogurt and hawthorne strips.

Cooking Mama 3’s shopping game is uncannily like shopping in a Chinese supermarket. Mama sends you out to find 4 pieces of unwrapped, unrefridgerated meat, but as you search the store to fill your reusable carrier bag, you’ve got to avoid oddly familiar  store characters — shouting shop assistants in pastel uniform aprons or a girl with a basket of  squid, shellfish and other distinctly Yantai seafood — who’ll slow your shopping progress by trapping you into minigames. Higher levels add loose eggs, heads-on fish and mushrooms to your shopping list, and more people to the store. I keep trying for the elusive perfect score, since I imagine it’ll unlock a “Sunday In The Auchan” extreme challenge level.