Samba de Amigo (Wii)

A remake of a six-year-old game developed for Sega's doomed Dreamcast console, SAMBA DE AMIGO has players shaking a Wii remote and nunchuk (or, better still, a pair of Wii remotes) as though they were maracas in time with more than 40 pop songs, most of which fall into the genre of Latin music.

The object of the game is to follow onscreen cues that direct players to shake their maracas above their heads, at waist level, and down by their knees, as well as pull off various poses and dance moves by mimicking the actions of a cartoon dancer. Also featured are plenty of mini-games, several two-player head-to-head modes, and lots of unlockable content, including new maraca sounds and documentaries that show how the game was made.

While all of the ingredients of a terrific, casual rhythm game are present, Samba de Amigo struggles in one important area: user interface. The original Samba used a pair of maraca peripherals made specifically for the game that were generous enough to allow players a fairly wide margin of error in terms of the position in which they had to be held in order to successfully register a high, medium, or low shake. The Wii's controllers, it turns out, aren't nearly as forgiving. Players must be extraordinarily precise in their movements in order to hit all beat cues. As a result, rather than the carefree flamboyance that a game like Samba ought to inspire, players end up moving cautiously as they concentrate on their smallest movements -- and still occasionally miss beats they feel they should have hit.

The good news is that the finicky controls are less of a problem on the easiest skill level, which involves far fewer shakes and eschews the knee-level rattles altogether. Players are still likely to miss plenty of cues, but the scoring is lax, making failing out of a song unlikely. Plus, a new Hustle mode cuts down the number of shakes even further, favoring instead poses and dance moves such as waving an arm back and forth above one's head, which the Wii's controllers seem better suited to properly registering. There is fun to be had here, but it could have been greatly enhanced with more lenient controls.

Available on: Nintendo Wii
Not available online
Genre: Music
Developer: Sega of America
Released on: September 23, 2008
Price: 39.99
ESRB Rating: E for Mild Lyrics