Science Papa: The Male Version of Cooking Mama

Two years ago a small company known as Office Create created an incredibly popular game known as Cooking Mama. Before their great success from this game their video games were not received with much enthusiasm from critics and gamers, but that changed rapidly soon after their creation of Cooking Mama. It was a game where even the worst chefs could create wonderful recipes through the use of a DS stylus. With this simple stylus, people could live the life of a great cook by cutting vegetables, stirring soup, frying food, and many more quick and fun mini-games. Now back in the day, nobody paid any attention to the fact that the game was called “Cooking Mama” which inferred that only moms cooked. The only activists that fought against the game were members of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and they created the flash game entitled “Cooking Mama – Mama Kills Animals.” There were no people that fought against the sexism of the title, but now with the new “Science Papa” perhaps some sexual tension will be brought up.

The game opens up with some cheesy title theme music. The logo of Science Papa is the atomic model of an atom with the words “Science Papa” in the middle of it. Apparently you can only have one save file. Is this teaching us that we’re not allowed to share our new video game? So anyways, right away Papa tells us we’re gonna have some fantastic adventures. Noting adventures personally makes me think of more manly activities, but maybe I’m just a sexist here. Despite the word “adventure,” the background music is still rather cheesy and maybe even a touch girly. Next Papa tells me that he wants me as a lab assistant and to not recreate these experiments without parent supervision. 

Now the game begins. It starts with an email that says “Cleaning Up.” Apparently Papa wants me to clean the lab and wants me to mix some blanching agent that will disinfect the lab. Of course I will accept. 

“Blanching agent can easily be created by electrolyzing a sodium chloride solution.” It’s too bad I didn’t pay attention in chemistry class last year. I have absolutely no idea what that means. Ooh! Now he says to make the solution by mixing salt and water. I totally understand that. Haha. For some reason after attempting to stir my water and salt mixture, a black cloud appeared and my solution was deemed “Bad.” Now I electrocuted my salt and water to make brine. And apparently I used that to clean up the lab, but it only gave the lab a bleachy appearance, so now I’ve gotta make some real industrial cleaners. 

It’s back to mixing up chemicals. Now I’m heating the solution to make a soap mixture. Now after heating I’ve baked it in an oven then afterwards mixed it with some sort of liquid. To be honest I’ve lost interest already. 

Activision had a good idea with making a spin-off of Cooking Mama, but they really should not have named it Science Papa. It’s such a blunt and somewhat sexist title that it’s bound to be a poor game…and it is in my opinion!! It’s a monotonous task stirring, heating, and holding down the button for the oven. Even getting to do the tasks is the lamest thing ever. There’s a button in the top left corner that tells you exactly what you need to do. You press the button with your stylus then you automatically zip over to the station where you need to work. Then you simply tap the ingredients button and out comes your ingredients. Slide them over to whatever you’re doing, let it be stirring or heating, then do some simple stylus motions until it’s ready. Now here’s the worst part of it. There’s this bar that shows you when you need to stop. In the middle is a green spot where you’re trying to aim for. The right end is a red spot and the left end is a blue spot. A marker starts at the left end and as you do your work, the marker slowly moves to the right depending on how fast you stir or heat or bake. Then when the marker reaches the middle green spot, you move your stylus off the DS and you get a perfect score. 

Activision should have stuck with its manly titles that hadn’t been spun-off from cooking games such as Call of Duty, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, and Tony Hawk. They were making perfectly good masculine games and they really didn’t have to stoop down so low as to make a sexist game called Science Papa which assumes that only men can become scientists. I mean this game doesn’t even allow you to exercise the experiments or to really live the life of a scientist where real experiments occur. This game is an all time low for me even though I’ve played plenty of poorly made games. 

I’ll have to give this game a ONE star out of a FIVE stars for being so poorly made. Perhaps I’m being judgemental on the game’s title, but then again maybe I’m not. Good day to you all my dear men, women, boys, and girls that DON’T decide to purchase Science Papa to support Activision. Purchase a copy of Call of Duty: World at War because that’s where the real gaming is at.