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SAMBA DE AMIGO Posted by Dan Pearson on Oct 2, 2008 19:10 (Oct 2, 2008 19:10) |
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Every publisher of late seems to be really going through their back catalogues, Capcom keep on bringing out winners on the Live service, Nintendo recently gave us the long lost Mario RPG and Sega brought us Rez. So now it’s Sega’s turn to revive an old game and brought back another great Dreamcast title, the ultra rare Samba De Amigo. Samba De Amigo is a rhythm based music game, like your dance stage games but instead of a dance mat you have maracas to shake in time and point in the right direction, this game was long forgotten due to the high price tag both from the shops and collectors due to the game coming with motion maracas. Due to this, Samba is ideally suited for the Wii with the maracas being replaced by the Wii-mote and Nunchuck.
 As with most rhythm based games the idea is simple, music is played and you need to perform the right move in time to the beat on screen. Where Samba differs is that the screen has 6 areas to match in time, top, middle and bottom and both on left and right. What you need to do is shake the correct controller in the right area in time to gain points, the more you get in a row, the higher combo bonus you earn. Whilst the front end graphics are very simple, with just 6 hoops and a ball that represents the beats, in the background is a carnival of colour and people, including a few cameos from your Mii’s dancing around in Mexican clothing.
When I first heard about this coming out I was elated, being a fan of the original this means I no longer have to dust off the old Dreamcast when the mood sees fit, but unfortunately it seems those days will still come in the future, and I will tell why. You would think that a game like Samba is tailor made for the Wii and its original controllers but Sega has left us a bit of a mess when it comes to sensitivity. There are moments when the nunchuck just does not register, it will work for ages, and then it just gives up, as far as I can tell I am doing the same moves, but it just stops, which is infiltrating when a big combo is on screen. I have tried numerous other controllers but the problem is the same, even other players have difficulty. There is a calibration at the start of the game but even this does not work correctly. I do not understand how the controllers work, but you would of thought they would be made to work with this game. This is a shocking flaw in what could have been one of Sega’s best games for a long time.
 As far as the game options go, there are a few play modes to choose from, the campaign mode is the main single player option and this has to be played to open some of the later tracks. Love Love has you going for synchronised games, Battle has you fill up a bomb gauge at the top of your screen, with the first person to lose all of their life losing the game and finally there is Survival mode, where you play until someone makes too many mistakes. There are also some Mini-games which will pass the time but don’t have any replay-ability, these include a Simon Says type of game and a bash the piñata style game where you break him open as fast as possible.
Out of the box there are over 40 songs to play through, most you will recognise from either samba style pop songs like Rhianna, Rob Thomas and Ricky Martin to little snippets from adverts, a great addition is the downloadable content that is on offer, a song pack comes in at 500 Wii Points, with 3 songs including Mambo Mambo and Jet “are you gonna be my girl” this seems a fair price when compared to Singstar and Rock Band and hopefully Sega will continue to support this game in the future.
Overall Samba de Amigo is an enjoyable party game that will keep people entertained for a good while, but the lack of response on the controls really spoils the game, especially on the harder settings.
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