The Cooking Mama concept has always been a strange one. With all of the things you can do in video games to escape the humdrum of your normal life, why would you choose to spend your gaming time cooking, when cooking an actual meal isn’t that difficult? Granted, it’s hard to whip up a batch of Shrimp Tempura in the time taken to do so in the game, however you can’t eat what you’ve made in the game, so it seems like a draw. Even with this seemingly banal concept, Mama has garnered her fair share of fans and has returned to serve up more culinary excitement. There’s not a whole much new here, except for 80 new recipes and the ability to cook for some friends, or in the case of this game, judgmental freeloaders.

The gameplay boils down to sets of cooking mini-games strung together under Mama’s watchful eye. You’ll chop vegetables, stir ingredients, work a blender, fry steaks, fillet fish and so on, all with nothing but the stylus and the spirit of Julia Child to work with. Players can choose to practice sections of a particular recipe over and over again until they get it completely right, or just jump right into cooking it with Mama.

When cooking with Mama, each mini-game is judged separately and it’s impossible to fail as Mama will fix whatever you screw up. Seeing Mama’s eyes lit with fires of rage when you drop the pizza dough is an odd sight, especially given how supportive and cheery she is the rest of the time. These fierce mood swings lead you to believe that Mama is seriously unhinged and will have you checking your closets to make sure there are no more wire hangers. On the plus side, it’s fun to botch every part of a recipe just to see how far you can push Mama before she tries to jam a fish scaler in your eye.

Once you’ve completed a recipe, your performance in all of the various mini-games is tallied up and you receive either a gold, silver or bronze medal along with a bonus for any sections you’ve done particularly well at. Do well enough with a recipe and you get to choose one of three presents from Mama which end up being new accessories for the kitchen or for Mama herself. You can also take a picture of your creation and save it to your diary. That way you can show all your friends the day you fried up that perfect steak.

Along with the cooking with Mama mode is a new “Let’s Cook” mode that involves making dishes for your so-called friends. Mama can’t, or won’t, help you out with these recipes and screwing up one part results in a completely botched meal as well as tears or fits of anger from your guests. If you do complete a meal successfully you’re rewarded with your friend eating said meal and then assigning it a number score as all good friends invited to your home for a home cooked meal would do. While it’s a nice variation on the cooking theme, you may find yourself inordinately miffed at a friend who would have the audacity to score your Mama Cookies anything less than a full 100 points.

There’s also a multiplayer mode to the game, however in this mode you’re not following recipes, simply competing in various cooking related tasks such as breaking the most eggs or making the most hamburger patties in a set amount of time. There’s not a lot of depth to the multiplayer, but at least it only requires one copy of the game to find out which of your friends is Lord of the Eggs.

Visually, the game is awash in bright colors and a cheery atmosphere, to the point where anti-nausea medication is probably warranted. The picture of your final dish nicely coincides with your final score with low scoring meals showing up as drab affairs seemingly cooked in a sewer and gold medal dishes end up covered in flowers that bloom before your very eyes. On the audio side, there’s plenty of upbeat music to make you forget that you’re pulling the legs off of shrimp. Mama’s upbeat tone can get a bit grating; however everything about Mama is upbeat, so until they release the Cooking Mama goth expansion pack, her happiness isn’t going anywhere.

In the end, your enjoyment of Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends will be based solely on how much you liked the original. Those happy with the original and just looking for new recipes will find plenty to do here and may enjoy the challenge of cooking without Mama to help out. Those that weren’t impressed with Mama’s first outing won’t find anything here to change their mind. Newcomers to the series will probably best be served by finding a less expensive copy of the original. Cheery presentation and new recipes can only take you so far, so hopefully Mama will pull something new out of her apron for the next outing