Cooking Mama<\/a>. Totally different video game company and everything. It’s obvious they’re just using the similar name to ride the coattails of the more popular Mama titles. And I think that’s a little cheesy and dumb.<\/p>\nBut Science Papa DOES play a lot like the Cooking Mama games. And in some ways, gameplay-wise, it’s “even better than Mama,” as she would say. Instead of culinary recipes, you’ll be performing various multi-step science experiments using the Wii remote to execute actions. Tilt the Wii remote to pour out liquid from a test tube, or make swirling motions with the remote to stir chemicals in a beaker, for instance. Control with the Wii remote is very responsive and it’s always clear what you are supposed to be doing, unlike a few of the mini-games in Cooking Mama. Some of the experiments are fairly realistic, like making potato-based sugars, while some are a little more \u2018out there’ like gene splicing to make blue tomatoes. But hey, what’s science without a little imagination, hm?<\/p>\n
One neat aspect about Science Papa is you don’t have to do each step one at a time, like in Cooking Mama. You can start doing one step, leave it going and come back to it later after finishing quicker steps. Completing experiments successfully unlocks more activities as well as earning you money and reputation points. Use the money to buy better upgraded equipment for your lab to make performing tasks easier and faster. Once you earn enough reputation points, you can compete against another scientist head to head for a chance to win the Helix Award for Science! You and another player can also compete against each other in split screen two player mode as well.<\/p>\n
![\"science_screen\"](\"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/science_screen.jpg\" "\\"science_screen\\"")
<\/p>\n
Really the only problem I have with this game (other than the title and slightly repetitive gameplay) is the two-player competitions with the CPU. They’re pretty challenging and you can’t move on to new experiments until you pass them. And if you lose, you have to sit through the whole dialogue before the competition again, and you can’t skip it! But if you like the gameplay of Cooking Mama styled games, you may still want to give Science Papa a try.<\/p>\n
Kid Factor:<\/strong>
\nScience Papa is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Comic Mischief. Really the only violent thing you do is make and toss bombs to distract the other player and cover their screen for a second or two. And these explosives are pretty silly, like a bubblegum bomb. Reading skill is helpful as the instructions are all in text. Younger, less experienced players may get frustrated at the two player competitions against the CPU, as they are very challenging. Heck, it took me a few tries to even get past them. The rest of the game is fairly slow paced, though.<\/p>\nI wouldn’t say Science Papa is completely educational, but it may encourage kids to learn more about the stuff they make in the game, and encouraging kids to learn more about science is always a good thing. Plus it gives kids a chance to play around with science lab stuff without blowing anything up or causing injury. There are even a few lab and science safety tips in the loading screens. I would’ve liked to have seen more emphasis on lab safety, but at least it’s better than Cooking Mama, which offers no kitchen safety advice whatsoever. Kids who love learning about science and watching Discovery Channel shows like Mythbusters and How It’s Made will probably enjoy Science Papa, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Remember TV shows like Bill Nye: The Science Guy, Beakman’s World, and Mr. Wizard (for us old folks) who made learning about science fun? Well now you can make science fun on the Wii with Activision’s new video game: Science Papa. \u00a0 First and foremost, I have to get this out of the way. Science […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"science_box\"](\"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/science_box-106x150.jpg\" "\\"science_box\\"")
Remember TV shows like Bill Nye: The Science Guy, Beakman’s World, and Mr. Wizard (for us old folks) who made learning about science fun? Well now you can make science fun on the Wii with Activision’s new video game: Science Papa.<\/p>\n