Now it is time to put down my Samba De Amigo Maracas

Towards the end of last year I was introduced to a special game that would truly change the way I play games forever, Samba de Amingo [Dreamcast]. This game was a dancing game where you use a pair of maracas to play the game and the game provided hours of glorious gameplay and aching arms. I was so happy with the game I just couldn’t wait for it’s squeal, Samba de Amingo Ver.2000, to come out for the Dreamcast this year. Well, if you didn’t hear already, Dreamcast is going the way of the reaper while Sega goes out and develop games for other systems. This made Samba de Amigo Ver.2000 abruptly cancelled for the Dreamcast and now the only hopes of me even playing the game is by finding it in a Arcade [For some strange reason Samba De Amigo is non-existent in Arcades] or importing it. After this, I thought I would never see another dancing game on a console again. Well, luckily I was wrong when Dance Dance Revolution came out for the Playstation this year which is just as good, if not better, than Samba De Amigo.

Gameplay- This game very simply, you can pick to dance to 1 out of 24 songs [which are all unlocked in the beginning of the game]. The way you dance to a song is by hitting the arrows on the DDR Pad [basically a over-sized d-pad] to the arrows that hit the top of the screen. Depending on how much rhythm you have, you will either get rated a Perfect, Great, Good, Almost, or a ever-insulting “Boo!” on ever step you do. Getting good scoring is very important in this game because if you miss one too many steps and your gauge hits zero [in Game Mode] you will fail. But in other modes [Workout Mode, Training Mode] you will not fail if your gauge hits zero, you will just look bad and continue with the song no matter what. The good thing about this game is that it has a very good lesson mode where you are taught some of the hardest moves in the game in a very quick amount of time. The lesson mode even has a diagram on the right of the screen as you do you lessons that shows correct foot placement for all moves attempted [but remember that you can make your own ways of doing moves if you want to]. If you need any more help with this game, make sure you read the helpful tips on the back of the manual and visit the site www.ddrfreaks.com and read there hints and tips as well.

Graphics- This game makes you feel like you are dancing in a music video with it’s cool backgrounds for every song and the character designs are good as well. I don’t really except anything better or worse with these game’s graphics and they fit with this game very nicely. Also the options mode gives you the option to turn off the background graphics for people who think it is too distracting and also you can change the arrow colors on the screen and other cool graphic perks can be changed to your tastes.

Sound and Music- This section will get a lot of controversy from hard-core DDR fans that think that some of the better songs from the arcade version were taken out of this one. But in my opinions every single song in this game is very good and well done [there is even a song from Samba De Amigo in it!]. But this section really deserves your honest opinion instead of mine because many people like different kinds of music.

Extra things to be mentioned- DDR has two big cons going for it, in order to get the pad, with the game included costs 80 dollars [which I think is worth it, but it is still steep]. I suggest for someone looking to save money to buy the pad separately [50 bucks] and buy a used copy of DDR. The other problem is that the pad is hard to find, and you have to flock to many stores in order to find it. To avoid this try to buy the game and the pad online or ask a store to order it for you. Finally, I would like to mention that for any one looking to lose weight, DDR provide good exercise and playing it a few times a week with a good diet might actually help you lose weight or at the very least be healthier. There is a workout mode in DDR which times you and counts your calorie burn [I don’t think the counting is accurate, though] and is very similar to other modes except that you can choose different speeds and other cool things to modify your songs.

Overall- If you are looking for some spunk or uniqueness in your games than this is it and make sure you try out the arcade versions as well [there is actually 4 remakes of DDR in arcades called DDR 2nd-5th mix]. Also Konami is planning to release an other DDR game for PS soon and the songs for the game are being picked by visitors at www.ddrfreaks.com, so hard-core fans go out and vote for all the cool songs! Another DDR game is already out for PS and it is called DDR Disney Mix, this game includes songs from Disney movies and is suppose to be really good. I will try to get it as soon as possibly and review it for all of you. Dance on!