Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends review

You'll appreciate that assistance if you cook for Mama's friends. While Mama offers tips throughout a meal's preparation and will even correct insignificant mistakes, her pals won't tolerate any blunders. They also demand the most complex dishes, so occasional goof-ups are unavoidable. There's some experimentation involved the first time you attempt pretty much any recipe. Before you even understand an objective, you might blow it.

Even when you aren't working overtime to feed your digital friends, you'll want to excel and earn prizes. You can snag new attire for Mama and junk for her kitchen, plus decorative seals for your food diaries (where you can store records of up to eight of your favorite performances). Medals and new recipes are also awarded based on your culinary creations, so there's a lot on the line with every stylus swipe or scribble. Naturally, that means that the rare instances where your touch screen fails to respond properly could have you howling in frustration.

New to this sequel is a basic multiplayer mode. It's just a race to see who can prepare a certain dish faster, but it's a good addition that gives the game a little longer legs - provided you have a buddy you can challenge to a cooking showdown.