Shakin' It With Samba de Amigo For Wii [Nintendo Media Summit]

[GamePoster]

Sega is revitalizing one of its most endeared and niche properties with Samba de Amigo for the Wii, handing of development to Gearbox Studios and trading in expensive, dedicated and unreliable maraca peripherals for a pair of Wii controllers. The Wii version can utilize either a nunchuk-and-Wii-mote combo or, preferably, a dual Wii Remote set up. The latter scheme feels more natural and, if Gearbox Studios gets force feedback and proper embedded speaker output working, potentially more authentic.
But how true to the original will Sega's casual-friendly music game ultimately be?

The alpha version of Samba de Amigo for Wii looked to borrow heavily from the Dreamcast classic and its semi-sequel Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000, as a good portion of the stages were lifted from the original with the "Hustle" mode from 2000 included as a gameplay option. (For those unfamiliar, it adds more "dancey" arm swinging moves to the violent, rhythmic shaking that made the game famous.)
While the game's soundtrack is still to be finalized, a grouping of classic Samba jams was already in place, including "Samba de Janiero," "Cup of Life," "Hot Hot Hot" and "Vamos a Carnaval." We heard that over three dozen tracks would make it into the final version, but Sega reps were mum about what exactly those songs may be.
The game played as one would expect Samba de Amigo to play—simply shake the controller in time and in the right position for maximum monkey satisfaction. A handy calibration mode makes things more accurate, but even factoring that in, there were more than a few shakes that felt a touch off. That may be due to the way that Gearbox is determining the location of the controller, but whatever they're doing, it's better than not having Samba at all.
Samba de Amigo's Wii port was obviously still in the very early stages of development, yet it still remained to capture the gleefully fun experience of flailing about to Ricky Martin songs with plastic controllers in-hand. That said, not having actual maraca controllers, ones that rattle realistically, hurts the experience somewhat. We sincerely hoping that Sega and Gearbox Studios release a proper maraca controller alongside the game for the million of Wii owners who will want the authentic feeling that only maraca shaped controllers can provide.
Check out a new batch of screen shots—portions of which look suspiciously crisp—in our gallery.


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