Developer: Gearbox

Publisher: Sega

Release Date: Sept. 23, 2008

System: Wii

ESRB Rating: E

0:00 I really enjoyed the Dreamcast original until my cheap third-party maraca controllers gave out on me. Here's hoping the Wii remotes are both more accurate and less prone to breakage that those old things.

0:01 "AMIGO!" screams an unseen crowd on the preview screen, causing a big grin to spring across my face already. Island rhythms play over a high shot of an island. The sun is also grinning and wearing sunglasses. A monkey with maracas and an equally big grin jumps up and down on a parade float traveling through a crowded street. Cut to a spotlight in a dark room, where a bunch of trippy characters are generally jumping around like they're high on a potent mix of crystal meth and ecstasy. Cut to a sandy beach, where they continue to jump and be crazy. Finish on a dramatic edge of a cliff, as they look out into the middle distance. Weird...

0:04 On to the tutorial to learn how the Wii controls work. I'm asked to shake my left hand to determine which remote is which. Intuitive! Then there's a quick calibration where I have to point the Wii remote up, down, left and right. Seems to work pretty well so far.

0:06 "Samba de Amigo turns two of your Wii remotes into a pair of maracas!" The woman saying this sounds like she is on the same mix of meth and ecstasy as the characters. "Try to hit these balls." That's what she said! Really, it is!

0:08 The game is much like the original, with blue rhythm balls coming out from the center towards six spheres set around a circle. I have to move the remote to the right position, then shake when the blue balls reach the spheres. The sensor seems to jump around a bit when I shake the remote, but the game is relatively forgiving so far.

0:10 I have trouble matching the on-screen poses by "Mr. Pose." (That's really his name. I didn't make that up!) The game has trouble recognizing when I reach one arm over to the other side of my body unless I hold the remote juuuust right.

0:12 A new feature for this game: Dance moves. Basically these involve swinging the Wii remote back and forth, as shown on screen by Mr. Pose. The game is still having trouble detecting a few of these. I feel like WiiMotionPlus would help out here.

0:13 On to advanced training, where I'm explicitly taught about crossing my hands over to the opposite side of my body. I find myself concentrating way too much on remote orientation and placement, rather than rhythm and general hand placement.

0:15 Apparently you get a "Wide Selection" bonus if you hit a ball with both maracas at once. Given the difficulty of crossing over, though, I doubt I'll be trying this much.

0:17 The "Fast Move" training asks me to alternate between high and low shakes rather quickly. Problem is, the quick swing from high to low seems to be detected as a swing, meaning the game doesn't react correctly when the remote finally gets where it's going. This doesn't bode well.

0:19 Enough training, on to the Career mode and "Wamba's Challenge." Wamba is a bongo-playing leopard, it seems. Everything but "Easy" and "Normal" difficulty is locked. That's OK ... Normal seems a good enough place to start.

0:21 I score a 93 percent A on "Bamboleo." The rhythms are incredibly simple ... most of the notes I missed were due to what I'm convinced is faulty recognition.

0:23 I miss a total of one note on "Livin' La Vida Loca" for a 99 percent A. The cover version singer is distractingly bad. He sounds a little drunk, slurring his words...

0:27 "Volare" starts out slow enough, but ends with a section that alternates quickly between high, middle and low shakes. There are some rather large detection problems on these quick changes, bringing me down to a 94 percent B. Groan.

0:31 A relatively easy 98 percent A on the generic "Cha Cha." The experience is marred by my experimentation with a newly unlocked maraca sound effect, dubbed "Weak Guy." It's incredibly annoying. Like a cross between a sick kitten and dry heaves. Back to the generic maraca sound effects we go.

0:34 "Papa Loves Mambo" again suffers from the quick change recognition problem. Maybe it's my fault ... perhaps I'm not going to the exact correct position with the remotes. Still, I feel I didn't have this many problems with the old Dreamcast maracas. I know only whiners blame the equipment but ... I'm blaming the equipment.

0:35 I've unlocked Mr. Cactus' Challenge with five new songs. The only one I care about, though, is A-Ha's "Take On Me." Woohoo for '80s cheese!

0:38 It's actually a charming, Latin-infused cover of "Take On Me." I love the music, but I'm less in love with the in-game rhythms, though. For most of the song I'm just waving the remote above my head back and forth. Bo-ring!

0:39 Exploring the menu a bit, I find that the single-player Normal mode not only has more selectable songs, but also an unlocked Hard difficulty. Makes me wonder why anyone would play Career mode.

0:43 Hard mode "Magdalena" is ... indeed harder. I score an 83 percent D. Again, I blame most of my problems on the remote recognition I talked about earlier. It's like there's a half-second delay between the time I get the remote to a new position and the game recognizes it as such. This means that, on quick sections, the game just doesn't know where the remote is. This is a deal-breaker on the harder difficulties, which is a shame since these are where the rhythms finally get interesting.

0:44 The online leader boards show some people are getting great scores on this game and difficulty. Maybe it's just me? I'll give it one more try.

0:45 For some reason, the game spits me back to the main menu after each song. Also, quote of the moment from the announcer: "Select a Music!"

0:46 "The Wedding March" is locked. "Tubthumping" is not. I think I'm going to cry.

0:49 "Tequila" is a lot of fun to play, but much less so because the game decides not to detect a good half of my high and low shakes. This is getting really annoying. I was performing much harder songs than this on the Dreamcast.

0:50 There's a Volleyball mini-game? What the hell does that have to do with dancing? Oh well ... let's try it.

0:52 This is actually kind of fun. Both remotes are used as pointers to control two disembodied hands on a 2-D volleyball plane. It's impossible to hit it out of bounces as you bump, set and spike. My computer opponent isn't very good, but it's still decently entertaining.

0:55 With an 11-5 lead, I decide this is taking too long. Next mini-game, please?

0:56 "Dance Dance Amigo" is a 20-second series of those annoying Dance moves. Bleh. I score an 83 percent C.

0:58 "Monkey See Monkey Do" starts out as a boring game of Simon Says, then turns into a frustrating game of Simon Says. Sort of like the rest of the game.

0:59 "Smash the pi?ata for the highest score," says the instructor. So I shake the remote a lot and bust the pi?ata. This is what passes for a mini-game these days? Really?

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Maybe.

Why? The core gameplay idea is as appealing as ever, but the wonky Wii remote controls are hampering my enjoyment. I'll probably give it a little more time before giving up on it completely, though.

This column is based on a retail copy of the game rented from GameFly.

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