The frantic nature of last week meant I didn't have a chance to share the photographs I took at Nintendo's fall summit here in San Francisco.

Now, though a week later, I have time to show them to you.

The highlight came when Nintendo hired the hotel chef to prepare part of the day's meals with their upcoming "Personal Trailer: Cooking." His food was delicious, and made me wonder if I could cook myself. Probably not!

For more snaps of his handheld-trained cooking and other parts of Nintendo's event -- including a look at the back of Reggie's head -- keep reading.

Read more...

Long time Wii owners may have developed a preference for their motion-controlled mini-games. Do you like pointing? Or do you like shaking? Would you just like whatever you're being asked to do to be simpler?

The creators of "Cooking Mama: World Kitchen," have learned from their first "Cooking Mama" Wii game, representatives from the games' North American publisher, Majesco, told Multiplayer today. And the lesson they've learned is that shaking is preferable to pointing. The new game will have more shake-based cooking activities and fewer that involve aiming the Wii remote at the TV screen.

The "Cooking Mama" team's shift to more streamlined controls shouldn't surprise avid and sometimes-frustrated Wii players. Motion controls have been tricky for developers and gamers to handle. Read more...

I may be a master chef in Cooking Mama's starry eyes, but in real life I can barely boil an egg.

Besides, the recipes in the "Cooking Mama" games can't be followed step-by-step (well, maybe the instant ramen is an exception). They were designed in a way so I could slice, dice and stir with my stylus, and they don't tell me the requisite measurements for actually cooking the food if I wanted to.

So when I saw that "Gourmet Chef" was coming out for the DS, and that it included "more than 70 recipes you can make at home," I just had to try it. After all, I still had France on the brain from my recent trip, so what better way to reminisce than by making some authentic French food?

Read on to see the results (photos and all) of the five dishes I made, and the ratings my hapless, taste-testing boyfriend gave them.

Read more...