The good folks at SEGA Australia last week invited us for a hands-on preview of Samba De Amigo, giving us a chance to try the “”dual Wii remote”” mode. To play this, obviously, you will need two Wii Remotes. The option was likely created due to complaints of the Nunchuk being less responsive to motions, but just being able to play without a tether holding the maracas together is no doubt a huge advantage. Naturally, you will be unable to play with more than 2 people this way – so if you’re looking for 4 player fun, you’ll have to stick with the Nunchuk. More inside It would be difficult to imagine 4 players in this game, however. Not because it isn’t fun – far from it – but the game needs a lot of room (unless, of course, your goal is to hit each other in the face with plastic maracas). The fact that it really helps the shake recognition if you get into the actions only makes this more of a problem. The most common problem, though, seemed to be that people wanted to hold their maracas upwards and doing this causes only the upper ‘notes’ to be detected. For side and bottom shakes you will actually have to point the remote to the side and bottom. This contributes to the space issue even more, as there were several instances where maracas collided. The good news? Those maraca shells are tough. As a nice little touch, they actually shake – they’re not just a cheap plastic casing for the sake of looking pretty.

You don’t need the maraca shells to play the game, though. A Wii remote and Nunchuk or 2 Wii Remotes will be sufficient. The screen displays a ring of 6 circles, corresponding to the left and right sides and top, side and bottom – these are the directions to shake your ‘maracas’. From the middle of the ring a small ‘note’ will fly towards one of these circles and you must shake your maraca in the corresponding direction to ‘hit’ it in a similar manner to other rhythm games. On occasion you will be required to “”pose”” and match the directions shown by the on-screen figure. These prove more of a challenge because they can somewhat upset your rhythm – which is a pretty large component of rhythm games like this. Besides the normal shake patterns and poses, there are arrows spanning several circles with a figure to indicate how to swing your maracas in the given area. The faster you swing in these sections, the more points you gain. Indeed, the easiest way to describe it is “”Maraca Hero”” – although Samba De Amigo pre-dates the Guitar Hero franchise by 5 or 6 years, originating as an arcade and Dreamcast game. Your goal is to match the rhythm pattern set for you, gaining points for each successful shake with bonus points for perfect timing.

Your performance is graded by letter. (A is good, D is bad and so on). Hitting successive notes or missing notes will make your grade go up and down respectively. Your grade is shown in real time as you play, so you know how you are doing right at that moment. Although you probably shouldn’t be worrying about that too much and pay more attention to the rhythm patterns on screen. But the game is really more about frantic maraca-shaking action than anything else, and as long as you’re having fun it’s doing its job.

As with most rhythm games, there are covers of popular songs and some master recordings performed by the original artists. From the original Samba De Amigo comes a sped-up samba-fied cover of “”Tubthumping”” by Chumbawumba. This track for example, though not sounding 100% like the original recording, makes sense from a gameplay perspective. The master tracks are usually regarded as superior, but in Samba De Amigo? The non-samba master tracks more often than not include no maracas, nor do they really suit the style, making the whole thing sound and feel a little odd. Thankfully, the rhythm patterns are top-notch. They feel completely on-beat, letting you really get into the music and shake along. If you have played the GameCube game Donkey Konga, with its at-times-odd tracklist for bongo drums, you will know the feeling. If you are not a fan of the samba music, you could get a little enjoyment out of the master tracks and downloadable songs (which Sega promises will all be master recordings) that are less likely to be samba music. (Perhaps Jet’s downloadable “”Are You Gonna Be My Girl”” is more your style?) It is quite interesting to hear the maracas played to something like a rock song, but if you won’t enjoy the majority of tracks – a complete pre-DLC list can be found here – you would be better off saving your time, money and energy for something else.

If you were one of the people complaining how tired Wii Sports made you, you will probably want to give Samba De Amigo a miss. As previously mentioned, it helps to get into the actions and all that shaking is probably going to tire your arms out pretty fast. It’s not a game you’ll want to play for hours on end by yourself; in fact, after you’ve unlocked all the songs, it’ll probably sit on the shelf until friends come around: It is a great multiplayer game.

Samba De Amigo is the kind of game you set up and invite your friends over for a party. If you’ve got enough controllers – and room – to have everyone playing, you’ll all have fun looking stupid together. If you don’t have enough? Well, you can take it in turns to laugh at each other. It’s just as much fun to watch it played as it is to actually play the game. Another potential issue comes from multiplayer, though, in regards to smaller televisions. The screen we played on was quite large, and the shake prompts were a little small – this was only two player – so could 4 players really get a good enough view on a smaller set?

The game really is party-focused, so 4 player usability would be essential. It’s also very easy to pick up, but quite hard to get good at; perfect for casual or non-gamers and hardcore players alike. Multiplayer mode works with a selectable difficulty level for each player, giving experienced players the choice of hard, without newcomers having to struggle to keep up. Another great party game aspect. Because of this multiplayer focus, the game may not be as enjoyable for a single player. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be any good on your own: It’s just going to be more fun with a group.

The game will be released this September in Australia for $79.95, or $89.95 for you New Zealanders, so grab a copy of the game and throw yourself a party! It’s probably the most enjoyable way to get the Samba De Amigo experience.

Thanks to SEGA Australia for inviting us to come play some Samba!