Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 17: My Wilting Dahlias

The Cooking Mama franchise and I have a history.  I scorned it to begin with, in the belief that it was just another method for game developers to push girl gamers into stereotyped roles.  Then I played the game.  Four iterations later (I have to confess that I didn’t really care for the Wii versions, but the DS ones stand as some of my most horrible addictions to date), Mama has moved out of the kitchen and into the garden, and given my previous enjoyment of the series, I thought Gardening Mama might be worth a whirl.

Gardening Mama is, put simply, Cooking Mama with flowers.  I don’t say that as a put-down, I just say that as a way to identify for those of you who may, like me, have enjoyed the previous games; if you’re looking for more, Gardening Mama is it.  The biggest difference gameplay-wise seems to be that while you do have a limited degree of choice in what you can do and which plants you can tend to, you actually get shuffled from place to place pretty directly; the “wilting” mechanic of the game ensures that there isn’t a whole lot of room for you to get started on too many things at once, at least not without suffering some consequences.  However, while this means I haven’t gotten started on my rose garden yet, it also means that the one-more-level lure is especially strong in this game; after all, I can’t very well stop playing when my anemone are being attacked by viruses, can I?  Not in good conscience.  Other than that, the game remains faithful to the franchise: Mama still speaks with a horribly stereotyped Engrish accent, the minigames are still addictive as all hell, and you still get rated on your progress at the end of each set of tasks.  I’m loving it so far!

I haven’t really made much gaming progress otherwise; I had a moment of sheer terror when it looked like my PS3 had eaten my now-62-hour Persona save (all is well, no worries), and I made it through some more of Resident Evil 5 in co-op mode (fuck.Lickers.), but I haven’t actually gone back to Disgaea yet.  I am, however, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Crimson Gem Saga and Steal Princess, the latter of which I ordered from Amazon due to its disappointing unavailability most other places, and the former of which should be coming in any day now… (neither is in my possession yet, though, so they don’t count on the backlog stats!)

Current backlog total: 106

Now playing: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2); Gardening Mama (DS); Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Cross Edge (PS3)

Games completed: none