Samba De Amigo. Nintendo Wii


** Samba De Amigo **
When I found out I was getting a Wii for Christmas a couple of years ago I decided to get a few games before hand so there would be a good selection ready to play with on Christmas day. One of the games I had seen advertised and decided that it looked like a fun party game was Samba De Amigo, a game which involves using the Wii remote and Nunchuk as maracas and dancing to music shaking the 'maracas' as you dance. So after a little online search I found this game and ordered it.


** In The Box **
Samba De Amigo comes in a normal white Wii box, the size of a DVD case, inside the box is the game disc along with an instruction manual for the game and also a separate manual containing safety instructions. The game instruction manual is written in English and is clear and simple to follow with pictures to accompany the written instructions.


** The Set Up **
The first time I played Samba De Amigo I found the set up of a game to be a little more long winded than I wanted, this was because it was Christmas day and like a child I just wanted to play the game without all the set up.

When you play Samba De Amigo for the first time you will need to enter your name and set up the wii remote and nunchuk as your maracas. Looking back now it took less than 5 minutes to do this. Entering your name and whether you are left or right handed takes a matter of seconds and the calibration of the remote and nunchuk to turn them into your maracas is only a couple of minutes.

To calibrate the Wii remote and nunchuk you will be taken to a screen with Amigo. Amigo is the main character in the game, he is like a funny looking monkey and he will help you calibrate your maracas by showing you a little tutorial of how you need to hold them and the directions that you need to point them for the different moves.

After calibration you will be free to choose single player or multiplayer and which songs you want to shake your maracas to.

When you first play the song choice is limited and you will need to play quite a bit to unlock more songs. I thought I could get away with my usual trick of leave my brother on it for a few hours and let him unlock it for me, however, all of the songs he unlocked are only available under his name which meant that I had no choice but to dance myself to get things unlocked for me as well.

The songs on the game are a selection of well known ones such as Feeling Hot Hot Hot and Rhinana's Pon De Replay. There are also a large number of lesser well known ones which are still fun and catchy and very good to shake your maracas to.



** Game play **
Once you have got through the set up, calibration and song choice you will be presented with a really colourful and bright screen, usually Mexican themed with game characters and some mii's appearing in mexican hats and ponchos dancing around in the background. To be honest it all looks kind of crazy, yet bright and fun.

The song will start with a 3, 2, 1... GO! On the screen you will see two large red circles at the top, two yellow in the middle and two green at the bottom. These circles represent the direction you should shake your maracas. Once the music starts there will be little balls appearing from the centre of the screen, these balls will move towards the coloured circles and as they hit the circle you must shake your maracas in that direction. On the easier levels this can get quite monotonous as they only go to the top and the middle circles, usually at a slow speed and both maracas in the same direction, however once you have got though the first couple of levels the difficulty steps up a bit and the balls start flying everywhere in all directions. This is where I found the fun to really begin as if you are anything like me you will loose track of which hand is pointing where and end up in some unusual positions.

The harder levels also involve you waving the remote rather than shaking it to add a bit of variety and all of the levels and songs involve some kind of 'pose'. The pose will appear on the screen as a silhouette of a person showing the position you should be in and the direction you should point your maracas. The poses are always a cause of laughter and often a good distraction from the moving balls which after getting the all clear for completing the pose you must go straight back into shaking the maracas at the right circles to avoid getting boo'd by the game.

While you are dancing the background screen can be very distracting as there are mii's dressed in ponchos and giant animals including teddy bears dancing around! The whole game is basically a bit crazy and colourful. But I like this, it adds to the party feel.

When the song is complete your score will be displayed along with a grade from A to E and a percentage of how many moves you completed successfully.



** Multiplayer **
Multiplayer on Samba De Amigo is good fun, in fact it is the only time that I play this game anymore. When we have our Wii nights I always find this is a great ice breaker as everyone seems to get into it and find it funny to be dancing with imaginary maracas.

The multiplayer options are varied from little challenges and knockout competitions which we do find fun but in general call us boring but we enjoy the mode of just selecting a song and dancing to it.

Multiplayer is played in the same way as single player with regards to the way you dance and pose.

The game can be played with up to 4 people if you have four remotes and four nunchuks however I only have two nunchuks and also find that just two people dancing around is often enough with limited space.


** Controls **
The controls are pretty simple, hold the Wii remote and nunchuk and shake them around like they are maracas in time with the coloured balls on the screen. The frustrating part for me is that I often find that when I shake the maracas forward to get the middle moves, they aren't detected, I'm not sure why this is, I have tried re-calibrating the remote and nunchuk many times which seemed to work at first but within a couple of songs it seems out of sync again. My friends also have the same problem so I'd say it is more to do with the game than us.


** Graphics and Sound **
The graphics in the game are good. The game screens are always bright and colourful and very smooth moving, which in a dancing game is very important. The loading times between screens is minimal.

The sound is great! Most of the music in the game is the songs you are dancing to, and when you aren't dancing the music is still along the same lines of party music.


** Price and Availability **
I paid just £9.99 for this game a couple of years ago and at the moment on Play.com you can buy it from around £5!


** My Experience and Opinion **
While I don't tend to play this game as much as I do my other dancing games I do still enjoy it and have no intentions of getting rid of it. I don't play it alone as I don't find the fun in it, but when I have friends round it is almost always played as for multiplayer fun it is fab. I do recommend it, it is good fun for all ages and the game itself is certified as a U rating. The bright colours will make it attractive to children and the fact that you are using the wii remote and nunchuk as maracas is something completely different to other dancing games which simply makes it a must have purchase!

Thanks for reading :)