• Normal Mode -- Played just like the original Samba de Amigo.
• Hustle Mode -- This is where the maraca sweeping and criss-crossing comes in. Not only must you shake the maracas in time with the beats, now you gotta dance, too. Get up offa that thing, sucka! Olé!
• Couples Mode -- (aka "Love Love Mode") Just like the DC version, this mode is played by cooperating with your sweetheart. Both players share one guage and must react accurately in "three-legged race" fashion to get a good score. Might be nice if the average Samba player HAD a girlfriend... But Sonic Team makes sure to let us know that: "We designed this mode for boys and girls to play together, but no one's stopping you from playing with any combination of people!" Oh, my...

   Here's something that's only on the Japanese side of the PSO page. I think it was up since day one, but I missed it before. How does this strike you: Web card-collecting. Each day over the ten-day period, 8 PSO "collector cards" will be posted, making a total of 80 by the end of the festival. Each day's cards will ONLY be posted on that particular day, meaning that if you miss any, you'd better start begging to your pals (alas, I think I missed the first two sets, the first one for sure). They're also selected at random, so you may have to sit and click awhile if you want all eight. So what do you get if you collet all 80? Go back over your collection: there should be 8 "rainbow" cards with psychadelic rainbow backgrounds. Look at the number of each card, then put the numbers together and use that as the password to download a special "album" for your cards. Be sure to download the "album" into the same folder as your cards...and don't change the card filenames! The "album" is a zip (or lzh) file containing some HTML pages and images that you can just load up locally through your browser. It comes in two sizes (800x600 and 2080x1024), including a wallpaper-sized image of the four anonymous heroes seen in most of the concept art. The cards themselves are screenshots and concept art of the main characters, enemies, weapons, and locations of PSO. Check this out to begin your PSO card collection.

   You're not supposed to be able to access the album until after you've collected all the cards and located the password in the eight rainbow cards, but there's a cheaty way of getting around the javascript. Just right-click the link and select "open in new window". The javascript promp requesting the password will still pop up, but just click "cancel" and you will be granted access regardless. In the next edition of Gibbon!'s Web Underground: 101 easy ways to bypass an Adult Check! Don't miss it!

   And finally, the Samba 2K developer column continues with comments from Satoshi Okano, game designer. See him speak.

   -- Green Gibbon!

Compiled and arranged by Jared "Green Gibbon!" Matte. Hosting provided by Emulation Zone and Emulation World.