Virtual Cooking: Teaching Rudimentary Cooking Skills

If you've ever loved cooking but hated the mess, would you ever consider cooking through a video game instead?

Cooking video games now abound in the gaming industry. From cooking video games on the Nintendo DS and PSP, cooking games are also available via online gaming sites. Cooking video games are not only engaging, but they are actually quite educational as well.

The great part about cooking video games is that they give the emphasis on the precision of the measurements and processes of cooking. This gives the gamer an understanding that in real life, in order to make chocolate chip cookies just like Toll House or Chips Ahoy, you have to have the oven exactly at that temperature, and the ingredients tossed in the bowl at those exact weights and measurements.

Other than the precision, cooking video games also help emphasize the importance of certain oft-neglected ingredients like salt and spices. While a bored and jaded gamer may just click through everything in routine motions, if a gamer actually pays attention, he or she gets to understand the essence of using every single ingredient on the recipe list. Hopefully, the gamer gets to understand that even the littlest details count, and would make the dish complete.

More on the skill of measurements, cooking video games also help in letting the gamer understand the difference between the teaspoon and the tablespoon, and the weight of why 1 cup of sugar should be used for a particular recipe, instead of 2 cups or just half a cup.

Another skill that cooking games pose to develop is the skill of substitution. There are some ingredients in a recipe that can actually be substituted for a similar item, and would actually make the dish even tastier at times. If a gamer pays attention to that detail, he or she learns one secret of top chefs: knowing how to substitute ingredients in a recipe.

While these skills taught are not exactly as close to real life as they should be, these are quite well-taught as basics in cooking video games. It is only up to the gamer if he wants to absorb these skills or not.

The best part is that cooking video games engage the mind and help a gamer learn, as well as entertain him. The bad part is that the reward of executing the process perfectly is just a level up or a score. Unlike in real-life cooking, where one gets to taste the actual product of executing a cooking process perfectly, video game cooking just gives you virtual rewards for a job well done. Either way, you can surely while the hours away by learning how to cook on your Nintendo DS, PSP, or even through Y8.com.

Cooking Games:

http://www.games2win.com/en/romance/play-choco_mania.asp

http://www.y8.com/tags/Cooking

Playing Life: 2 Simple But Addictive SIM Games

When it comes to Simulation games, or SIM games, nothing beats the success and fame of the SIMs series. However, there are two offbeat, not-as-famous SIM games that are equally as addictive: "Game of LIFE - The Path to Success" the video game, and Y8.com's "Daily Life."

Game of Life was originally a board game developed by board game company Milton Bradley Company. Among its other famous products are Jenga, Twister and Yahtzee. The objective of the game is to "retire" with the most success possible.

In the video game version, your character needs to satisfy the people around him, as they make requests, or require "interaction" with your character. If you successfully meet all their needs, you get the points needed to level up, and you get to juggle more and more responsibilities, progressively.

The great part is that this game really tests your multitasking skills. It also gets more fun as you "automate" your character by clicking through the tasks he needs to get through in advance, and he just "automatically" goes through all of them, meeting his targets, as you sit back and enjoy the game.

The only downside to Game of Life - The Path to Success is that its graphics are rather, pardon the blunt language, lame, and the tasks are repetitive that the game gets boring.

On the other hand, where Game of Life fails, Daily Life may be able to have an advantage. Daily Life boasts of good, clean, attractive graphics, and the tasks are quite challenging. While it's not exactly Game of Life where you get to see everything you need to do in one space, in real-time, Daily Life may well be a great free substitute to Game of Life.

In Daily Life, you need to "enter establishments" and do your tasks, make friends, and even balance all that activity with "resting." Even if the system of earning your "life points" is pretty lame: just clicking through the task hours, it is still one SIM game worth wasting minutes to an hour on, if all you need to do is to clear your brain. There is a level of challenge anyway, as you need to get a perfect balance of getting promoted at work, getting the right amounts of food and rest, on top of getting your main goal of earning a diploma by the end of one level.

SIM games may have their appeal in that it helps you escape real life with amusement while actually letting you "play through" or practice the skills needed in real life in a safe venue. These are two SIM games worth trying out. If you get addicted, don't hesitate to thank us!



Links:

http://www.macgamestore.com/detail.php?ProductID=992
http://www.y8.com/games/Daily_Life