It’s an awesome pic, but also a curse, as the rest of my week will be haunted by visions of actually owning games like this.

Cooking Heroines [GSW]

We were a bit taken aback by Activision’s choice of names for their new mini-game compilation, but Mama isn’t surprised. After all, she dated Science Papa back when she was Cooking Single Woman.

“So you want some dirt on “Science Papa” to splash on your site? I’ll shovel it. We dated briefly (when he had much better hair). And now he clearly wants a piece of the best-selling pie by associating himself with an incredibly successful, and I’ll emphasise, happily married, woman. Frankly, he never appreciated my cooking and I grew weary of his tedious “experiments.” You want real mind-bending science, go figure out how to make Toulouse Cassoulet for your next dinner party of 20 and let me know how it goes, Papa.

I’m no expert, but I’d say it could very well be on. Let’s just hope Science Papa isn’t even better than Mama at dishing dirt.

I’d use this space to explain that Science Papa casts the player in the role of newest member of Science Papa’s research team, aiming at becoming the best scientist in the world by competing in more than 30 different mini-game-driven experiments, but I am far too stunned by Activision’s choice of names to do so.

“With Science Papa, we’re taking real-world elements of science and giving players the chance to interact with them in safe and creative ways,” said David Oxford, Activision Publishing. “While the focus here is clearly family fun, the game can stimulate interest and discussion about science.”

Once again, still stunned, and I will probably remained stunned until the game hits store shelves this July.

We’ve reached out to North American Cooking Mama publisher Majesco to see what they think of this unexpected addition to the mini-game genre family, and expect a response from them later in the day.

Of course by domestically they mean in North America, with the company’s number one franchise racking up more than four million sales between the five games in the series, which includes the recently released Gardening Mama. The company is also lowering the price for Cooking Mama World Kitchen for the Nintendo Wii to $US29.99, which puts every game in the franchise under the $US30 mark.

“We are thrilled to reach this significant milestone. Majesco’s #1 franchise continues to resonate with gamers of all ages and genders,” said Jesse Sutton, Chief Executive Officer, Majesco. “We will continue to explore ways to expand the Mama brand with innovative and compelling products that offer new entertainment experiences.”

And it doesn’t get much more innovative or compelling than Crafting Mama.

Robert Snively of Port Clinton, Ohio, should be having a moment of clarity right now, because the dude is headed for town court over freaking Guitar Hero.

Snively, 33, was jamming on the game late at night this weekend, pissing off his neighbours for the last goddamn time. They sicced the fuzz on him, and they showed up and were all “Dude, not cool,” and wrote him a ticket. Since he’s a repeat offender for this sort of thing, that means he is off to court in April.

This reminds me of the time I had Cooking Mama cranked up to 11 and the neighbours, hearing “Maylee” raving about my kitchen skills – “You’re unstoppable!”, “Stupendous!”, “You’re good at this!”, “Mmm. That was quite a treat!” – reported me to Chris Hansen and NBC Dateline.

Man Arrested for Playing Guitar Hero Too Loud [Examiner.com via GoNintendo]

Reports say that about 10 middle and elementary schools in Osaka will start handing out Nintendo DS consoles to students next January. Nintendo’s plan to control the world: 80% complete.

The Osaka Board of Education signed off on the measure, according to Japanator, potentially restoring my faith in public education systems. Students will use “education software” to further their school studies; and by “education software,” I assume they mean Brain Age and not Cooking Mama.

The DS’s appearance in Japanese classrooms is nothing new. Back in 2006, Kyoto Prefecture’s Yawata City had students spend the first ten minutes of class, studying vocab on their Nintendo portables. As of 2009, the prefecture was still using the DS for study.

I can’t imagine taxpayers are too happy about this, especially if their kids don’t go to these schools. Or they don’t even have any kids. But then, Nintendo makes up a pretty serious part of Japan’s economy; it could pay off.

Maybe every DS taxes buy for a school child will be 100 yen Nintendo puts toward making games that don’t suck.

「ＤＳソフト補助金は反射的利益」　橋下知事 [Sankei via Japanator via Destructoid]

You know that Taito would never pass on an opportunity to port the 30-year-old arcade hit Space Invaders to a platform. Seems it’s doing the same for Cooking Mama, shipping iPhone versions this week.

Fortunately, both ports look like fully-fledged, non-half-assed versions of each, with Cooking Mama taking advantage of the iPhone (and the iPod touch, naturally) hardware with touch and accelerometer gameplay. We personally can’t wait to knead raw hamburger by shaking our iPhone silly.

The Space Invaders iPhone app looks like… Space Invaders. Control on the 1978 arcade classic make us a bit more wary — it features tilt, drag and on-screen touch styles. But the inclusion of character art and bonus material makes the price a little easier to swallow.

Oh yeah. Price. Cooking Mama will set you back $6.99 USD, with Space Invaders more appropriately cheaper at $4.99.

Cooking Mama & Space Invaders [iTunes]

While Taito’s offerings aren’t the stuff of attention grabbing headlines and long queues, it has a few tricks up its sleeve; Gardening Mama for the Nintendo DS for one, giving “Mama” something to occupy her time between meals in Cooking Mama 2 for the Wii. There’s also Space Puzzle Bobble, which you’ll find me hunched over at the Makuhari Messe this year.

Get excited… on a very small scale.

Taito TGS 2008 [Taito via DS Fanboy]