Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen

The Cooking Mama phenomenon is not one that lends itself to sequels, really. No more starkly is that point highlighted than in the Wii edition of Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen, which has almost no redeeming features whatsoever.

I understand that because I’m a guy, I’m not “supposed” to like the Cooking Mama games and that’s fair enough. However, I genuinely enjoyed the first Nintendo DS version – as did millions of gamers worldwide – and was expecting to find the same level of fun here in World Kitchen. It was not to be.

From the outset, things look ropey. Graphics which have clearly been designed for a smaller screen (*cough* Nintendo DS *cough*) dance about in front of you, pixellating at every turn. At times, the definition is so bad that you have absolutely no idea what ingredients you’re looking at, and that can affect your scores as you head for something that you thought was butter, only to find out that it was actually cheese. As far as cartoon-styled games go, Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen just doesn’t cut the mustard, and could viably be compared to a first-generation PSOne title.

But, this dishes flaws aren’t only presentation-based. The game frequently expects you to just know what it wants you to do by presenting you with one of several movement-based icons and these are incredibly easy to mix-up.  One indicates that you push the Wii remote forwards and backwards like you’re cutting bread with it, whilst another identical one wants you to lift the remote up and down as if you’re flipping a pancake. Of course, these actions are contextual, so when you’re asked to cut bread, you should know that the developers want you to slice away. Frequently, you’ll fail at something that just isn’t your fault because the on-screen indicators either aren’t clear enough, don’t make any sense or – in the worst cases – are non-existent.

And to add insult to injury, the audio presentation is absolutely dire. The voiceovers are done by a sweet-sounding Japanese woman who is clearly trying her best. Unfortunately, her pronunciation of the English words that she’s been tasked with reading out is just not clear enough, and it becomes somewhat laughable after only a few short moments. You’ll misunderstand a lot of the words she says, especially when the poor girl has constant (and ridiculously loud compared to the voiceover) background music to deal with.

The overall point of the game is lacking, too. You can take on the “Cook with Mama” modes as you did before – which never seems to end in failure since Mama is always there to help – or take on a co-op or single-player challenge on one of the sub-tasks that would usually make up a stage in cooking an entire dish. The co-op can add a little fun and I imagine that it would be a bit of a laugh after a drink or two – but certainly not more than almost every other multiplayer Wii game available. The fact is that Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen is incredibly light on challenge and somewhat of an undercooked main course, and this means that you most certainly won’t want to come back for seconds.[rmgallery id=70]