Ratatouille
Ages: Everyone

The game, after the movie of the same name, is about a rat with both a fine sense of smell and a discriminating palette who dreams of becoming a cook. He does so with the encouragement of the ghost of the original restaurant owner, who committed suicide after losing the restaurant's four star rating, and with the helpful partnership of busboy Linguini.

This is basically a platformer and fetch game, with too much action taking place in the dark underground and sewers. The cooking is the most fun, and you can select cooking games from the beginning. Yes it's 3D but after playing it on the consoles where the athletic feats were made easy -- I'm spoiled.

Unlike some games on the DS where most of the action is on the touch screen, here you have the option of the usual D-pad controls and the touch screen. This is one choice too many. Remember – this is basically a kids' game. For example; instruction to get Scent Vision – that blue smoke that leads you to your next location, reads as follows:
"Press Y in Type A controls (the d pad) or right arrow in type B (stylus) to find nearby food objects." Imagine holding onto the stylus and pressing buttons at the same time. So forget about using the touch screen until you come to the cooking part. It feels like the touch screen option was just tacked on to make a DS version.

Surprisingly, things are different with the GBA -- remember that old platform? The game seems most appropriately designed for this platform. You avoid all the rat rafting, and scurrying around in the Paris sewers and you get to the coking part early on. It is a combination of a side scroller with the running jumping actions and by going into a rat hole you are in top down view. Nicely done. Levels are timed instead of bumping into hazards and losing lives. You must gather the necessary foodstuff before you can exit each level, and must satisfactorily complete the cooking game to be able to access the others. The cooking is a mini-version of the other games, you have to put in the right ingredients, time your cooking properly by keeping an eye on the temperature and switching burners. Humph – I would have just made it so you could turn the flames lower.

A version of this game is also available for the PSP.

Fun Factor: GBA is the most fun -- has everything.
Female Factor: No girls have been harmed inthe production of this game.
Player Friendly: The combined DS controls are confusing. GBA is fine.

Reviewed by: Editor - 07/07