Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam Review (PS Minis)

The health concerns in Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam's case are not related to weight concerns, but instead hand cramps. Y'see, before we get started we want to clarify our biggest gripe with Cooking Jam is it's cack handed control system. To explain our problems, first let us gloss over the concept.

Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam puts you in the enviable shoes of a fast-food restaurant clerk. If you always thought that a job in the local Burger King was the career of choice for a nit-wit, you'll likely change your mind after playing Cooking Jam. Serving burgers, hot-dogs, pizzas and tex-mex in a restaurant setting is not as easy as it looks.

Facing a host of garishly designed fast-food customers, you are tasked with fulfilling their order. After handing the customers a menu they'll ask for a variety of foods and it's your job to prepare, cook and serve the food. You operate a cursor on the screen and; for example: drag a burger pate onto a grill to cook it, flipping it to cook both sides. You then need to place the cooked burger in a bun and apply any cheese or sauces that were ordered alongside the food. It sounds simple, but it gets extremely hectic when several people are ordering different things. And this is kind of where Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam falls apart. The controls just aren't accurate enough. Using the PSP's analogue nub, the cursor feels too stiff and is clearly designed with a Wii Remote or PC mouse in mind. When applying sauce to a dish, you're asked to draw a wavey line over the food, something which is rendered practically impossible due to the control's clunky nature. The result is you waggling the analogue nub until your thumb hurts. Thankfully, a lock on system makes much of the rest of the game at least playable, if not ideal.

It's a shame because we genuinely enjoyed the game's mechanics. Serving food in four minute chunks is an enjoyable toilet-break past time, if a little limited.