Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, released as in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, is the sequel to the Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS

The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

 video game Cooking Mama

Cooking Mama

is a cookery simulation-styled minigame compilation video game for the Nintendo DS and iOS developed by Office Create and published by Taito, Majesco Entertainment, and 505 Games. It was awarded IGN's "Best Of E3" award for 2006 and was joined by a sequel for the DS, Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with...

 and its Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

 successor, Cooking Mama: Cook Off. The game has twice as many minigame

Minigame

A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...

s as the original, all new recipes, and a new multiplayer "Cook Off" mode. The game also includes voice clips similar to the ones used in Cooking Mama: Cook Off, although not as commonly used. Dinner with Friends is the second Cooking Mama game to include desserts, the first being Cooking Mama: Cook Off for the Wii.

The successor to this game, Cooking Mama: World Kitchen

Cooking Mama: World Kitchen

Cooking Mama: World Kitchen, is the fourth game in the Cooking Mama series developed by Cooking Mama Limited...

 for the Wii, was released on November 18, 2008.

Gameplays

As in the original The Cooking Mama, players in The Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, prepare various culinary dishes using the Nintendo DS's touch screen. Following the on-screen instructions of the titular "Mama", the player uses the stylus to perform various activities such as chopping vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

s or mixing ingredients. Each of these tasks is performed by completing a short minigame, with a number of minigames strung together to form an entire dish from a catalog of 80 different recipes.

After completing a dish, the player's cooking performance is evaluated and given a numerical score (out of 100) along with a corresponding medal. Failing to accomplish a step in Let's Cook mode or getting a "fail" within steps (in various ranges), the player will receive a "Broken Silver" medal, in which the medal is similar to that of the Silver medal with an addition: a crack. Unlike in previous Cooking Mama titles, bonuses earned during minigames do not influence the overall score, but instead accumulate as "bonus stars". For every 5 such bonuses which are earned, the player earns an unlockable item upon completion of the recipe.

Recipes include baguettes, T-bone steak

T-bone steak

The T-bone and Porterhouse are steaks of beef cut from the short loin and including a T-shaped bone with meat on each side: the larger is a strip steak and the smaller a tenderloin steak...

, california roll

California roll

The California roll is a maki-zushi, a kind of sushi roll, usually made inside-out, containing cucumber, crab meat or imitation crab, and avocado. In some countries it is made with mango instead of avocado...

, ravioli

Ravioli

Ravioli are a traditional type of Italian filled pasta. They are composed of a filling sealed between two layers of thin egg pasta dough and are served either in broth or with a pasta sauce. The word ravioli is reminiscent of the Italian verb riavvolgere , though the two words are not...

, churros, crepes,sliced burdock

Burdock

Burdock is any of a group of biennial thistles in the genus Arctium, family Asteraceae. Native to the Old World, several species have been widely introduced worldwide....

 root, bananas foster

Bananas Foster

Bananas Foster is a dessert made from bananas and vanilla ice cream, with the sauce made from butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, dark rum, and banana liqueur. The butter, sugar and bananas are cooked, and then the alcohol is added and ignited. The bananas and sauce are then served over the ice cream...

, apple pie

Apple pie

An apple pie is a fruit pie in which the principal filling ingredient is apples. It is sometimes served with whipped cream or ice cream on top...

, pizza

Pizza

Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...

, escargot, pancakes, waffles, meatloaf

Meatloaf

Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat formed into a loaf shape and baked or smoked. The loaf shape is formed by either cooking it in a loaf pan, or forming it by hand on a flat baking pan...

, ice cream

Ice cream

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...

, chili dog

Chili dog

A chili dog is a hot dog that is served topped with chili con carne . Often, other toppings are also added, such as cheese, onions, and mustard. One popular variety of chili dog is the Coney dog, which despite its name originally came from Michigan and not Brooklyn...

s, corn soup

Corn soup

Corn soup is a soup traditionally made of corn It is normally made in corn producing areas of the world, however is now widespread due to greater corn distribution. The basic recipe is some type of soup base with corn added followed by whatever ingredients give it its distinct style...

, kimchi

Kimchi

Kimchi , also spelled gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee, is a traditional fermented Korean dish made of vegetables with varied seasonings. There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi made with a main vegetable ingredient such as napa cabbage, radish, green onions or cucumber. It is the most common...

, macaroon

Macaroon

A macaroon is a type of light, baked confection, described as either small cakes or meringue-like cookies depending on their consistency. The original macaroon was a "small sweet cake consisting largely of ground almonds" similar to Italian or Moroccan amaretti.The English word macaroon and French...

, scones, popcorn

Popcorn

Popcorn, or popping corn, is corn which expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Corn is able to pop because, like sorghum, quinoa and millet, its kernels have a hard moisture-sealed hull and a dense starchy interior. This allows pressure to build inside the kernel until an explosive...

, peanut butter

Peanut butter

Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts, popular in North America, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. It is mainly used as a sandwich spread, sometimes in combination as in the peanut butter and jelly...

, Sea Bream Carpaccio, Eel rice bowl, Squid fried rice and more.

Other modes

In the (marginally) more advanced Let's Cook! mode, the player is tasked with preparing a recipe without instructions between steps and without making a major mistake. This is done ostensibly at the request of Mama or one of 9 different "friends", who "taste" the dish and provide feedback such as "It's Delicious!" if the recipe is completed without failing any individual step. Assuming the dish is edible, the player may then be rewarded with an unlockable item or introduced to a new friend who was not previously available. If the player fails to complete a step, or makes a serious blunder, such as dropping an entire egg (excluding the shell) while separating the yolk, or spilling the ingredients while mixing with a whisk, the "friend" ordering the recipe declares the dish inedible, and as done in the "Cook with Mama" mode, a "Broken Silver" medal is awarded instead.

Lastly, in the Cooking Contest mode, Cooking Mama 2 supports wireless multiplayer, with up to 4 players able to play using a single copy of the game (leveraging the DS "Download Play" feature). During such a contest, players compete in individual minigames without actually working towards completion of dishes.

Reception

Continuing in the same vein as previous titles in the series, reviews appear to indicate that Cooking Mama 2 is still entertaining but does relatively little to move beyond existing gameplay elements. Awarding the title a 7.0 out of 10, the IGN

IGN

IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 review noted that the title was extremely similar to the previous offering, stating that "Cooking Mama 2 is just as fun as the previous game. In fact, it pretty much is the previous game." The GameSpot

GameSpot

GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...

 review echoed this, noting that the graphics were re-used and that "It's more Cooking Mama for people who just want more Cooking Mama". As a result, GameSpot rated the title a 6.0 out of 10 ("Fair").

As of March 2008, Cooking Mama 2 has a review average of 71% at Game Rankings

Game Rankings

GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...

, making it the best received game in the series to date.

Awards

In their "Best of 2007" Awards, 1UP.com

1UP.com

1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....

 editors awarded Cooking Mama 2 "Best Console Casual Game".

In 2008 Cooking Mama 2 was nominated for BAFTA Children's Kids Vote Award. BAFTA Children's Kids Vote 2008 nominees

External links

• Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends Official Majesco Website
• English game audio samples at AudioAtrocities.com
• Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends reviews at Metacritic
  Metacritic
  Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...