I have not played the original Cooking Mama for the Nintendo DS, but I really like Cooking Mama 2

In Cooking Mama 2 for the Nintendo DS you use your stylus on the touch screen to prepare food: slicing, dicing, tenderizing, mixing, peeling, and cooking the food.

At the main menu you can choose from several options.: Cook with Mama, Let's Cook!, Cooking Contest, Change Design, Write in Diary and also the Options Menu.

When you cook with Mama, she'll help you out when you make a mistake, but she'll have little flames in her eyes to let you know she's not happy about the mistake. You start out with 12 recipes and can unlock 68 more when you successfully cook the dishes. If you want to practice before cooking, there is a practice option. Whenever you finish a dish, Mama will judge your cooking and award you a gold, silver or bronze medal with point totals. In this mode Mama will tell you what to do before you start.

In Let's Cook mode you cook for your friends who will judge your food based on taste, which is based on how well the meal is prepared. Mama does not help you in this mode; you are on your own, although there are arrows to follow that remind you what to do. You can choose between Mama and Chika at the beginning and unlock additional friends when you play and earn bonuses. When you save a picture of your meal in your picture diary, you have the option of "Show this diary to a friend?" and if you choose yes, the friend you cooked for will appear in the picture. You can only save 8 pictures, though.

Select Change Design when you want to mix things up a little. You can change Mama's outfit and accessories, the color of 7 utensils, the style and color of Mama's kitchen cabinets, knobs, and sink. You can also choose from 5 different backgrounds for the top screen. Not all things can be changed right away, though; you have to earn bonuses to unlock the different options.

Cooking Contest in single player mode has you trying different tasks to try to beat your records. In multiplayer mode you can compete with up to 3 other players to see who is the better chef. The nice feature of this is that you only need one copy of the game. You can also send a demo to a friend that doesn't have the game card. They will receive the apple pie recipe to try.

This is a family friendly game. There's nothing innappropriate in it. I enjoyed playing it as well as all 3 of my children. Even my 6 year old had fun - especially when she earned 1st place completing one of the tasks.