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Samba de Amigo
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Release date(s)	JP 1999 NA October 18, 2000 EU December 8, 2000
Genre(s)	Music
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Platform(s)	Sega Dreamcast, Arcade

Samba de Amigo is a video game developed by Sonic Team and released in 2000 by Sega in arcades as well as for the Sega Dreamcast video game console. It can be played by one or two players simultaneously.

A rhythm video game similar in theme to Dance Dance Revolution, Samba de Amigo is played with a pair of maracas. As a song plays, the player (guided by on-screen graphics) must shake the maracas at high, middle, or low heights with the beat of the music, or occasionally must strike poses with the maracas held in various positions. The player is represented on-screen by "Amigo", a grinning monkey with a square head and a sombrero. If the player does well, the scene around the monkey (usually a concert or a dance) will attract more people and become more vividly animated; if the player does poorly, characters leave and eventually all that's left is the monkey alone, looking sad.

In the primary game mode, each player has six spots arranged in a circle on the screen: two red meaning 'shake high,' two yellow meaning 'shake middle,' and two green meaning 'shake low.' Blue dots will appear in the center of this circle and move towards the spots; as soon as the blue dot touches a spot, the player must shake a maraca at that location. For example, if a blue dot touches the upper left spot, the player must shake either maraca above his left shoulder. If both maracas are shaken in that location, the player gets an 'Amigo' bonus. Occasionally a long line of dots will flow into a spot and the word 'Shake' appears, telling the player to continue shaking his maraca rapidly there. Sometimes a stick-figure (named "Pose-kun") appears on the screen holding its maracas in a certain position; the player has a second or two to match the figure's pose for points.

The home game adds a "party mode," with minigames such as Guacamole (pronounced and played much the same as "whack-a-mole"), Strike A Pose (consisting of a long sequence of poses to make), and 1-2-Samba! (where spots must be hit in sequence - the Japanese version's name for this minigame, "Ichi Ni San-ba," is a pun on counting to three in Japanese). The home version also has features which can be unlocked, such as sound effects and hidden songs.

For the home version of the game, the Sega maracas controllers are red, and the rattle part can be unscrewed from the top of each for quieter play. Each maraca has a cord which is plugged into to a bar that lays in front of the player's feet. The bar is slightly more than two feet in length and has a sensor at each end, and each maraca has an ultrasonic transmitter mounted on its cord; presumably this allows the system to triangulate the position of each maraca as the player holds it. The game can also be played with the standard Dreamcast controller, but this makes the game trivial to play.

Songs in the game (mostly covers) include "Macarena," "Mas Que Nada," "Soul Bossa Nova," the cover version A-ha's "Take On Me" by Reel Big Fish, Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" (covered by No Smoking) Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "Cup of Life," (both of which are performed by a sound alike and were not included in the Japanese home version of the first game) and "El Ritmo Tropical" (which also appeared in Dance Dance Revolution). Hidden songs, which are unlockable via downloads or game-cheat devices, include themes from other Sega games such as Sonic Adventure and NiGHTS Into Dreams.

Samba de Amigo was named Best Puzzle Game of 2000 by GameSpot. It also was nominated for the Excellence in Audio award and for a Game Spotlight Award in the 1st annual Game Developers Choice Awards. [1]

Samba de Amigo: Ver. 2000, a sequel to this game, was released in Japan for Dreamcast. It had been announced for U.S. release, but was cancelled in that region. The maracas were never officially used for any other games than these two, although they can be used with Namco's Mr Driller for approximate control of the player's character. A single maraca could also be used to control the SNK produced game Cool Cool Toon.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Awards 3 See also 4 External links

• Amigo: The protagonist of the game.
• Amiga: Amigo's tambourine playing sister. Only appears in Ver. 2000.
• Linda: A beautiful "butterfly girl" who loves to dance.
• Bingo and Bongo: Two large mechanical bears who play bongos. Bingo is blue and male; Bongo is pink and female.
• Rio: A male (but often taken as female) animal of indeterminate species who wears cheetah pattern clothing. He carries a horn but apparently prefers dancing.
• Chumba and Wamba: Two male cheetahs who play mandolin (Chumba) and conga drums (Wamba). They were named for the band Chumbawamba, whose song Tubthumping appears in both games (although it's a cover version by No Smoking).
• Pose: A stick-figure-like character who tends to only appear as player instructions, although he is a computer opponent in one of the mini-games.

• E3 2000 Game Critics Awards: Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game
• GameSpot's Best and Worst of the Year Best Console Puzzle Game, 2000

• Dance Pad Games
• Dance pad
• List of dance video games

• GameSpot entry
• GameFAQs entry
• Samba de Amigo page at The GHZ
• Category at ODP
• The Chaos Rift entry
• Samba de Amigo at MobyGames