Samba de Amigo
Samba de Amigo is a music game by Sonic Team for the game consoles Dreamcast and Wii , in which the running songs must be accompanied by means of the included Maraca controllers. The height of the hand movements is determined via infrared sensors and compared with the specification on the TV screen, with the Dreamcast version using ultrasound. The soundtrack features well-known Latino hits à la "Macarena", "Samba de Janeiro" and "Tequila".
Release dates:
- Japan: December 1999 ( Arcade )
- Japan: April 27, 2000 (Sega Dreamcast)
- USA: October 17, 2000 (Sega Dreamcast)
- Europe: December 8, 2000 (Sega Dreamcast)
control
| Samba de Amigo | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Sonic team | ||
| Publisher | Sega | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
December 8, 2000 (Dreamcast) | ||
| platform | Arcade , Dreamcast , Wii | ||
| genre | Music game | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Dance mat , 2 maraca controllers | ||
| medium | 1 GD-ROM (Dreamcast) and DVD (Wii) | ||
| language | German | ||
| Age rating |
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You have two maracas, one in each hand. There are six small circles arranged in a ring on the screen, in the positions top left, center left, bottom left, bottom right, center right and top right. From the center of the screen, small blue spheres come flying towards one of the circles. As soon as a blue ball is in the middle of a circle, a maraca must be shaken in the appropriate position. An example: a blue ball flies from the center towards the left-bottom circle. As soon as it is in the middle of the circle, you have to shake a maraca at the bottom left; this maraca can be both the left and the right, but it makes more sense to use the left one, because then the path to the left-down is shorter.
But it is not always made that easy for you, normally you always have to serve two maracas at the same time, for example shaking the left one at the bottom and the right one in the middle. Good eye-hand coordination is absolutely necessary, otherwise you have no chance. From time to time stick figure images are also displayed that stylize a certain maraca pose. Then it is important to position yourself in just a few seconds.
The player's performance is rated on a scale from A to E. The player starts with ranking C and as soon as you improve, you move up one rank. If you already have the worst ranking "E" and get even worse, the premature game over appears (except in training mode, where the restriction does not apply).
Game modes
- Arcade: The original arcade version. Three songs ( Samba de Janeiro, Tubthumping and Cup of Live ) are available, if you finish one with ranking "A", you can unlock a new song each time.
- Original: This mode is similar to the arcade mode of the arcade version . You can choose from all the songs in Arcade mode, as well as songs downloaded from the Internet.
- Challenge: There are different missions that you have to fulfill one after the other. If you do well, you get new songs and at the end you can even call yourself "Maraca-King"!
- Party: Multiplayer modes, in which the Dreamcast emulates the second player if necessary, as well as a bunch of mini-games. In pairs you can either play the battle mode, in which everyone has an energy bar that the opponent can reduce, if he plays well, if you make a mistake, energy is drawn off yourself. In Couples Mode, instead, the synchronicity of the players' movements is assessed and then a percentage is spewed out indicating the chances of love between the two players. And at the end there are five varied mini-games that make completely different demands on responsiveness and muscle strength. A mini-game is a Whac-A-Mole game.
- Training: Nothing more than the original mode for training purposes, i.e. without game over. Otherwise there are actually no differences.
- Internet: Connects to the Samba de Amigo homepage, where you can download new songs, for example "Open Your Heart", "Burning Hearts" (Japanese version), "Dreams Dreams", but also all-time Hits like the after-burner or rent-a-hero main theme.
- Options: view records, sound test, switch sound effects for the maracas on or off or 60 Hz mode.
Song list
The following songs are included in the Dreamcast Samba de Amigo version:
- Samba de Janeiro
- Tubthumping
- Mambo beat
- Macarena of Los del Río
- Mas Que Nada by Sergio Mendes
- Take on Me by Reel Big Fish
- La Bamba
- tequila
- Soul Bossa Nova
- Love Lease
- The Theme of Inoki
- El Mambo
- El Ritmo Tropical
- The Cup of Life by Ricky Martin
- Living la Vida Loca
- Samba de Amigo
- Open your heart
- Sonic - You Can Do Anything
- Super Sonic Racing
- Burning Hearts
- Dreams Dreams
- Magical Sound Shower
- After burner
- Grandpa-Grandpa!
- Rent a Hero No.1
Alternatives
Since the Dreamcast is no longer in production, "Samba De Amigo" is hardly available any more. In Germany the game was limited and with maracas had a price of 400 DM.
The Playstation 2 game "Sega Superstars" is an inexpensive alternative to the original game. The game is not controlled, as in the original, by maraca controllers, but by the EyeToy camera.
In October 2008 a new edition of the same name appeared for the Wii from Nintendo . Since the Wiimote already has a motion sensor itself, expensive additional hardware is no longer necessary.