It figures. After months of therapy and medication we've finally found a way to cope with our debilitating Kororinpa: Marble Mania. And now, just as the light appears at the end of the tunnel, we're stricken with Cake Mania. All quasi-humorous critiques of wildly unimaginative game names aside, Cake Mania is the latest casual title to slouch its way onto the Nintendo DS. Like many games that originate on the web, this game swipes its core concept from a much better game – Tapper. The original arcade game was a twitch-centric affair that cast players as a beer-slinging bartender. The game was fast, innovative and, thanks to the machine's a unique beer tap joystick, reasonably entertaining. Cake Mania expands on the idea of customer juggling, but feels more like drudgery than frenzied fun.

Welcome to the Layer Cake, Jill

Cake Mania's protagonist, Jill, is out to rebuild her grandparents' bakery empire from the ground up and fight off the encroaching MegaMart who evicted her kin from their storefront. Jill's plan revolves around a bone-headed business plan – she prepares and sells her intricately designed cakes on the fly like a fast-food fry chef. To keep her customers happy she has to juggle the one-person job of baking, icing and decorating each treat herself. Ticked off customers will walk out, costing Jill business and sometimes they'll even take money with them. We're not entirely sure how that works. Impatient customers can be dealt with by shoving free cupcakes into their greedy mouths which is pretty much the only act in Cake Mania that is remotely satisfying.

Hurry Up And Wait

Don't expect intricate batter stirring or icing decoration mini-games from Cake Mania. This is a straight up point and click affair. Touch the oven and Jill will mosey her way over there. Select the shape of the cake or the color of the icing and the machine will automatically do the job. If Jill was really smart she'd put all the buttons on one control panel and take a load off. The biggest frustration is how slowly and inefficiently Jill moves around her bakery. She often take the long way around the island in the middle of the room. And the woman really doesn't have a lot hustle in her. Watching her trudge from one point to another is torture, especially when Jill failed to pick up the cake she was suppose to be delivering.

Cooking Mama She Ain't

For all of its sugary subject matter, Cake Mania is as low fat as Nintendo DS games get. Sure, the game throws some upgrades and scenery changes at the wall, but none of them are really game-changing. Play the first level of Cake Mania and you've played them all. By comparison Cooking Mama feels like a deep, nuanced experience. Which, frankly, it isn't. Cake Mania is best left to those with masochistic streaks, bundt cake fetishes or the genetic inability to identify and run screaming from crappy box art.

Article by: Gus Mastrapa