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IGN reviews Samba de Amigo on Wii- 7.5

ONM review: 71%

Very detailed review of the controls. I think we can't deny the facts any longer now.

That isn't to say that the former is an absolute negative though, because it's really not. In fact, Gearbox has done one hell of a job getting the controls as good as they are. They were an unbridled mess six months ago that made the game unplayable but they're now functional and allow you to really enjoy the game without the need for constant swearing.

Granted, you still need to adjust to the quirks of how to grip the Remote and Nunchuk (or twin Remotes, if you've got them) as hitting the top and bottom markers requires you to hold them at a slight angle as well as either up or down. But that only takes a small amount of adjustment and soon enough, you can enjoy everything that Samba has to offer. Well, on the lower difficulty levels, at least.

And that's perhaps the most irritating thing about Samba from a reviewing point of view because if you take the controls out of the equation, it's almost impossible to fault. The brightly-coloured backgrounds and dancing characters that adorn each stage, built from the ground up for the Wii as they were, are impeccable, while the huge range of musical tracks available are pretty much perfect. In essence, it's an exact recreation of the game we loved back on the Dreamcast, only better - prettier graphics, more bop-worthy tunes and heck, it's even got downloadable content like the original did too. Indeed, besides a couple of the eight bonus mini-games offered being a touch on the rubbish side, we almost couldn't be happier. Almost.

But though it pains us horribly to say it, there's still no getting away from the fact that Samba's controls just aren't as tight as they need to be in the latter stages. And even more painful, the fault lies not at Gearbox's feet but at those of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

Without getting too scientific, the inner workings of the Wii's controllers are more adept at slow, smooth movements as opposed to jerky motion. While this means moving between high and middle or low and middle shakes works reasonably well, rapidly switching between high and low shakes on the same controller is actually nigh-on impossible.

It's a shame because if there's a single beat of pause between the notes, then it seems to work fine as the controller has a moment to recalibrate its position, allowing the cursor to move as a result. But this just isn't the case on the later Hard songs and almost all of Super Hard, meaning you wind up missing lots of notes and can even fail songs as a result. Considering that online high-score tables are a big part of the game's more hardcore appeal, such a thing is inexcusable and we've had to dock serious points off its final score as a result.

Basically, if ever there was a game that needed to be held back six months and have Wii MotionPlus functionality included, it's Samba De Amigo. It's just a shame that Sega couldn't hold on any longer. It's not that it's terrible, because it isn't and for those less committed players who are content with sticking to the lower difficulties, they'll undoubtedly have a blast. Sadly though, we don't pay £40 for half a game and considering we know it could have been a great deal better, it's hard to be anything but rather disappointed by this.
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http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=5858
 
IGN UK review:

However, it's not a flawless return for Samba. For a start, anyone who's been honed onto rhythm action games via the complexities of Rock Band and its ilk might find the whole thing a little lacking in depth. What's more, once beyond the game's easier difficulty levels, imperfections with the Wii's motion sensing can be frustrating, with inputs needing to be fairly exacting - the game all too often demands movement somewhat at odds with what you'd logically expect. With some trial and error, you should get yourself calibrated to the game's nuances and it undoubtedly gets better. However, as soon as you attempt to ascend the difficulty levels, problems with accuracy starts nagging again. Trying to hit beats as the game escalates ends up inspiring perturbed dances of desperation. While less of an issue among the raucousness of multiplayer, technical deficiencies get in the way of that standard rhythm action trope of reward through self-improvement, potentially limiting the game's solo longevity.
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http://wii.ign.com/articles/910/910755p1.html?RSSwhen2008-09-18_103400&RSSid=910755
 
Man, it'd be great if they could just patch this game with MotionPlus capabilities...

Wait, could they? If it was 360 or PS3, I'd be saying they would, but we're talking the Wii here. Do they even do patches on the Wii?
 
Damn! I've been looking forward to this as something that will make the wait for GHWT more bearable, but I think I'll skip it now :(
 
Is this DLC in the game actually DLC even? I thought it just unlocked stuff on the disc. If this is the case, which I thought it was, why do people even think there is a possibility of a patch?
 
Pre-ordered it for £22, I'm risking it for that. Sod it, I don't need to play it on hard to enjoy it anyway, I never did with the Dreamcast one. It's main purpose will be multiplayer, which reviews are still saying it's great for. I'll pop in impressions when I get it but I doubt anyone will be interested if I'm not hardcore enough. =P
 
I may still get it if Normal has some challenge to it and is fun. I never play above hard on guitar hero and havent even attempted to beat that difficulty.
The UK ign review makes it sound like hard is doable if youre super concious about your movements. Super Hard sounds broken.
 
I don't get why they couldn't have made the game not broken..

If hard and super hard don't work, why include them at all?
 
later said:
I don't get why they couldn't have made the game not broken..

If hard and super hard don't work, why include them at all?
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Ive sent a pm to TurtleSnatcher asking about what the QA people were doing to 100% super hard. I mean, maybe theres some method to the madness that these journalists whove played previous samba games havent picked up on.
 
WOO SAMBA DE AMIGO! ARE YOU READY TO PARTY, GUYS?

ei106r.gif



...guys?



...



fuck. :(



Still getting it for the dual wiimote wielding. I had hoped for better/more precise controls than the DC original, but I will settle for controls that are on par. If the controls are worse than the original, however, my copy goes to ebay ASAP.
 
Skiptastic said:
Man, it'd be great if they could just patch this game with MotionPlus capabilities...

Wait, could they? If it was 360 or PS3, I'd be saying they would, but we're talking the Wii here. Do they even do patches on the Wii?
Click to expand...

Only for firmware and downloadables right now.

Haunted said:
WOO SAMBA DE AMIGO! ARE YOU READY TO PARTY, GUYS?

ei106r.gif
Click to expand...

Did they just shut that monkey's foot in the door?
 
EmCeeGramr said:
Ive sent a pm to TurtleSnatcher asking about what the QA people were doing to 100% super hard. I mean, maybe theres some method to the madness that these journalists whove played previous samba games havent picked up on.
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How QA people play is frankly not a good judge of how the game is meant to be enjoyed. They will have rinsed that game dry, they will have techniques learned from dozens of hours staring blankly at the same song.

If you want the damned game just buy it, but there's little point in trying to find flaws in reviews before the game is out.
 
Well I guess that`s that then, no buy :(

I don`t blame Gearbox, I blame the hardware. Here`s hoping for a second Samba Wii game with motion + support (Oh who am I kidding, that`s never gonna happen :( )
 
Skiptastic said:
Man, it'd be great if they could just patch this game with MotionPlus capabilities...

Wait, could they? If it was 360 or PS3, I'd be saying they would, but we're talking the Wii here. Do they even do patches on the Wii?
Click to expand...

Wii Ware only. Wii games can`t be patched (Blame Nintendo`s badly designed OS that doesn`t allow it) but Wii Ware games can be updated by redownloading the game when prompted on the shop channel (PSN downloadable game updates work the same way I think)
 
Nuclear Muffin said:
Wii Ware only. Wii games can`t be patched (Blame Nintendo`s badly designed OS that doesn`t allow it) but Wii Ware games can be updated by redownloading the game when prompted on the shop channel (PSN downloadable game updates work the same way I think)
Click to expand...

Not that Nintendo would ever allow it, but there is a possible solution - by downloading a patched binary via Wiiware/ect which would contain the entire executable, which would then access all of the music and data resources of the DVD... however, such a binary would probably be too big in order to fit on the Wii's storage compartment, so that makes such hypothetical solutions impractical. Actually, there would be ways to solve that problem, by having the downloaded binary just load portions of the main binary on the DVD as needed, ect, but that would be a lot of effort - however, SEGA (and Gearbox) could probably ask for 1000 points for such an update "Motion Plus Version, ahoy!" and probably make it profitable, too.
 
Visualante said:
How QA people play is frankly not a good judge of how the game is meant to be enjoyed. They will have rinsed that game dry, they will have techniques learned from dozens of hours staring blankly at the same song.

If you want the damned game just buy it, but there's little point in trying to find flaws in reviews before the game is out.
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My hope is that its possible to 100% superhard and hard. Id probably only play on normal for enjoyment anyway. But higher difficulties and leaderboards are pointless if the controls are broken. However it could just be a high learning curve that the reviewers arent attempting to overcome.
 
[Nintex] said:
They almost got Kuju to develop a sequel... almost
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I never heard that. Only wishful thinking from members on this message board. Please provide a link were Kuju said this. Not a link to a member saying they know someone that said this.
 
My6cats said:
I never heard that. Only wishful thinking from members on this message board. Please provide a link were Kuju said this. Not a link to a member saying they know someone that said this.
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Kuju originaly approached Sega with the desire to do a Jet Set game. Some artworks were made. Nothing materialized beyond that.
 
later said:
Apparently Nintendo Power gave it 9.0

Anyone got details? (Maybe they didn't play on hard :))
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They loved everything about it including the controls. However the review was written by the Sega fan of the group who also gave Nights and Shadow the Hedgehog really good scores :/
 
grandjedi6 said:
They loved everything about it including the controls. However the review was written by the Sega fan of the group who also gave Nights and Shadow the Hedgehog really good scores :/
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NiGHTS I can understand, but SHADOW got good scores?!?!?!

What did it get?
 
HUELEN10 said:
NiGHTS I can understand, but SHADOW got good scores?!?!?!

What did it get?
Click to expand...
8.0 and Nights was a 9.0. Steve is a good reviewer and writer but he's kinda abnormal when it comes to Sega games, especially Dreamcast ports/sequels.
 
Actually instead of continuing on about the reviewer's history (which is ultimately pointless) I'm going to just redirect people to Steve's actual comments on the controls which he posted in this thread (but most people missed)

thomasos said:
The controls work differently in the Wii version than they did on Dreamcast. The different shakes are based on where you're pointing the Wii remotes rather than how high you're holding them. Once I adjusted to that fundamental difference, I found the controls to be every bit as reliable as the DC maracas (which others have pointed out weren't perfect).

We gave the game a significantly better score in Nintendo Power.
Click to expand...
 
later said:
Can you tell me if they discussed/played the harder difficulty levels as well?
Click to expand...
They don't mention anything about difficulty levels though I can only assume they tried it on all levels. They do mention that veteran Amigo players will probably take a little while to get use to the new controls
 
EmCeeGramr said:
Kuju originaly approached Sega with the desire to do a Jet Set game. Some artworks were made. Nothing materialized beyond that.
Click to expand...
Yup, I can back that up. It's also how they ended up doing the new HotD.
 
Meh.
After unexpectedly buying Boogie for cheap recently I am now all burnt out from music games for a while again.

I canceled my Samba preorder and got de Blob instead. It ain't going to run away from me thanks to the usual staying power of Wii games... I will own it one day. It's Samba de Amigo. I can't NOT own it. I can, however, prioritize other games over it.
 
Andrex said:
Did they just shut that monkey's foot in the door?
Click to expand...
:o


CTLance said:
Meh.
After unexpectedly buying Boogie for cheap recently I am now all burnt out from music games for a while again.

I canceled my Samba preorder
Click to expand...
So you basically bought Boogie over Samba de Amigo.


smh
 
It's not Sega, it's GEARBOX.

Anyways, the shitty controls don't surprise me. This would have needed Motion+ for it to work properly, which wasn't revealed until far too late.
 
Gagaman said:
Boogie technically isn't even a game in the fact that you pretty much win no matter what you do in it.
Click to expand...
You mean I could have been playing Wii Music for a whole year now!? :o
 
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