Well, after a few hours of gameplay, I’ve managed to complete this little Nintendo DS game called Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends (which is actually the third one on the series since a sequel for the Wii came out before this one), and now I guess I can safely this: if you really enjoy cooking… avoid these kind of games!

At first, it feels like it’s gonna be a lot of fun since you’ll be able to cook a lot of different international dishes and stuff, but the truth is that most of the time you’ll find yourself feeling either tired of doing the same things over and over again, or annoyed at how the food always ends up looking like total crap no matter how well or badly you did on the minigames.

Also, Mama seems to think that pounding my own hand while making mochi is reason enough to give me a silver medal… even if I managed to complete the minigame on time. Maybe a little blood fell into the rice without me noticing and that ruined the whole dish, or maybe Mama is actually judging my levels of stupidity, but I don’t really care anymore since I’m finally done with this game.

Whatever. I think it’s about time for me to move on to better stuff… or at least better games (like the upcoming Higurashi no Naku Koro ni DS remake or that one JP-only game that’s actually like a recipe book and it shows you how to cook for real).

…is coming out tomorrow. (or maybe it’s already out, I dunno)

Now, I haven’t played any of the previous Hiiro no Kakera titles before… but I guess it doesn’t really matter that much since I’ve heard this is gonna include both the original “Hiiro no Kakera” and the “Hiiro no Kakera: Ano Sora no Shita de” fandisk (as well as some new additions such as minigames and a special scenario), so this should be a good place to start. As for the game itself, all I know it’s an otome game with full voice acting… which is a good enough reason for me to get this one for my DS. Woo.

To show us how disastrous fun and exciting schooltime can turn out to be, TNK decided to make an adaptation of School Days, an eroge which popularity pretty much is derived from its gory bad-endings.

Makoto: Magnet for disaster and dumb girls.

That’s right, in the School Days game, if you screw up badly, you could end in one of the following bloody situations:

• a) Eternally. Kotonoha becomes an emo zombie and kills herself.
• b) To my Children aka THE BEST END. Sekai stabs Makoto.
• c) The Bloody Conclusion. Kotonoha pwns Sekai with a saw.

Now, I’m not sure why they’re called bad endings since all of the main characters really deserve to be dead, not just Makoto. I’ve never played the game, but after having watched the anime, I can safely say this is one of the worst harem cast I’ve ever seen.

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