By Sega for Dreamcast

Ah, rhythm-based music games. This genre has pretty thoroughly taken over Japan, and Konami has cornered just about every instrument imaginable with its Bemani series of games. Whatever you’re into, be it turntable, guitar, drums, keyboard or just plain dancing, Konami has the game and the custom controller for you. This left precious little in the genre untapped, but Sega and Sonic Team managed to snap up the maracas and create a game around it before Konami thought of the idea. What’s better, the game is now available here in the states, and if it does well, we may very well see more music games in the near future.

Now, before we go further, I should state that these games cater to a niche market of gamers; you’ll either need a love of music, dance or an open, experimental attitude about different kinds of games, in order to really get into Samba de Amigo.

Using the maracas controller (or a standard DC pad, which is also excellent, if less fun, for this game) you must follow patterns of little spheres as they move toward twin sets of targets (left and right side) placed high, middle and low. Shake the maracas in the appropriate place when the sphere reaches the target and you get points and build a rating meter up, miss and you’ll lose rating points. It’s incredibly simple to pick up and play, and definitely the easiest of the various music games currently available.

The simplicity of play extends to the various game settings as well. Where other music games have songs ranging from easy to hard, you can apply any of the three difficulty levels to any of the songs in this game. This means that even novices will be able to shake along to pretty much all of the music in the game and do well, while Maracas Kings can bump the difficulty up a notch or two and get a real workout.

Samba de Amigo features the standard arcade game, an original game that allows you to play any of the songs you’ve unlocked, a training mode that lets you practice different difficulties without losing after you reach the dreaded "E" rating, and various challenge and party games. The challenges in particular add immensely to the replay of the game. There are five courses, each with several individual challenges to complete, which unlock new songs for play in the original and arcade modes. As you’d expect, the challenges grow increasingly more difficult as you progress, and eventually you’ll have to be able to play certain songs perfectly on the hard setting to progress. The party games and mini-games are a neat diversion, and range from things like a maracas-compatible version of whack-a-mole to a couples mode that forces you and your mate to share a ratings meter and work together, and gives you compatibility advice when you’ve finished.

As with all music games, Samba de Amigo is only as good as the music you’ll hear countless times as you play. If the music sucks, you won’t want to play the game – just look at Bust-A-Groove 2. While almost all of the music in Samba has a distinctive South American flavor, it’s also all very good, and mighty catchy. There are a lot of well-known tunes, from Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca, the Macarena, Tequila, Soul Bossa Nova (you know it – it’s the tune from the opening of the Austin Powers sequel, during which Austim prances around in naught but his Birthday Suit) to La Bamba and Take on Me. I’m not a Ricky Martin fan, and I generally hate the Macarena, but, in this game, these songs work. And they work well. There are also several original tunes, also very good, and the game ships with the ability to download new tunes based on popular Sega games from the Samba de Amigo website. Pretty cool.

If you’re willing to give something new a chance, and aren’t afraid to look like a fool in front of friends, give Samba de Amigo a shot. It may sound silly, you may be convinced you’ll hate it, but there’s no denying the power of fun this game emanates.

Graphics: 8 (Bright, vivid 3D polygonal characters dance like crazy over backgrounds that get gradually more freakadelic when you shake out monster combos. Plus, there’s a dancing, maracas-shaking monkey – you can’t beat that!)

Sound: 10 (Music games need good music. Sega understands this, and they nailed it with a dead-on soundtrack that should please just about everyone)

Gameplay: 9 (shaking maracas to a latin beat isn’t hard, the interface is great and this is the easiest music game yet, making it a perfect party title)

Replay: 9 (Arcade, Original, Challenge, Mini-Games, Party Games, Internet Ranking and Downloads… this game will have you shaking like a madman for months)

Overall: 9 (It’s quirky, it’s not the first special controller-centric music game I expected to see in the states… I though Guitar Freaks would have been a sure thing for Americans… but it’s also a great, fun game, and open-minded gamers would do very well to grab a copy and a set of maracas as soon as possible)