Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding

The Good
Well, simply put, the realism and graphics are great. Heck, if I can't see thousands of trees for miles ahead, then I must be turning blind or something -- the view is almost infinite. The frame rate being very high, you really feel like you're there, and nothing is left to your imagination. That's the best I've seen until now. Okay, I must say that I'm not such a gamer, even less with skiing games (the last one I played was in 2D), but nevertheless I was impressed a lot.

The GREAT soundtrack also needs to be mentioned. Chances are you'll play for a while without hearing the same track twice -- and most of them are pretty good. 5 years ago, the music with such a title would have been lyric-less techno music. Now you're greeted with hard rock, ska, punk and other titles that can please almost anybody. Some styles irritate you? No problem; just exclude them from the track list and you won't be bothered.

Another thing... the title now went platinum, so you can get it for a bargain price now! It's a really good deal.

Those three reasons make it a great game to add to your Xbox collection.

The Bad
Sound effects are limited. Especially the cameramen's voices -- it looks as if they only taped up one guy saying 50 or so lines, so it gets very repetitive over time and annoying. And unlike the music, you can't turn their voices off when you've had enough.

The learning curve is really high. My guess is that most snowboarding titles have a similar difficulty, but what really frustrated me is that everything was going well in my "career" and the challenges quickly became REALLY HARD to beat. I don't have hours to spend to learn a game anymore. So thank god there are cheats to unlock all the mountains. :)

Not helping the learning curve issue is the absence of a real tutorial. Further more, there is no slope designed especially for practice. So you're pretty much on your own, and when you don't know much about snowboarding terms (like me) you've got to do a lot of guesswork and experimentation. The manual isn't really clear on what buttons do what, and you really have to try it by yourself to see the results -- assuming you can achieve all the moves.

One last thing, the two player mode sucks. It would have been really cool to have a split-screen setup, but you have to play one after another. That pretty much limits the interest of multiplayer gaming.

The Bottom Line
This release title really showed, and still shows, what the Xbox is able to do. Hats go off to the programmers and level designers who have been able to make such detailed levels. Is this the result of clever tricks or am I just too used to older 3D games? I don't know, but this game sure blew me out of my socks. I couldn't stop watching it.

I can only suggest to those game companies who make all these bloated PC games to look at Amped really well. Yeah, I'm talking to you who make games that only work well on a double Athlon system with a 256Mb video card. Microsoft pulled something really impressive by making such a game in 2001 on a 64Mb, celeron-based system! It's clear that they optimized a lot their code and their levels. This makes for a great gaming experience at a bargain price.

The Good
Let me start off by saying that Amped is the most fun, exciting, and realistic snowboarding game I have ever played. When compared to SSX and SSX Tricky, it's more fun. When compared to ESPN Snowboarding, it's more realistic. It's a masterpiece.

Graphics: They are top notch. Trees look like trees, snow machines shoot out realistic looking snow. The player models are intricately detailed. Jackets have ripples and zippers on them and they sway in conjunction with your movement. The snow trails from the boards look good. The snow actually looks like snow, and the falling snow is very well done.

Controls: Very easy to learn, very easy to master. Three buttons perform six moves (press a button once for a move, press it twice for a second move), and the B button acts as the "jib" button, or the "grind" button for skateboarders. Tweaking and grabbing, as well as flipping and spinning are accurate and happen as soon as you touch the control.

Music/Sound: There are just over 150 tracks in Amped, so you are bound to find something you like. If you don't, then you can use your custom soundtrack. Yes, Amped is one of the few games to support this feature. If you're so inclined, you can board down the mountains listening to Barry Manilow, but I don't recommend it.

Gameplay: The career mode is excellent. You start off as a local rider and you must make your way up the ladder. Beat various high scores, get media coverage, beat the pros and then a sponsor will show up. If you can complete his challenge, he'll sponsor you. I'm currently at rank 88 (from 122) and I'm a shop rider.

Options: You have a huge amount of options to choose from, including jackets, goggles, pants, hats, boots, and even bindings. The game is licensed, so you can expect to see real life snowboard and equipment manufacturers here. Each board and accessory gives you an added boost to one or more of your five skills, including Speed, Jump, and Balance.

Replayability: There are various "dropoff" points for each mountain, so there are lots of ways to complete a mountain. The back of the box claims there are one hundred ways down a mountain, so hopefully that's true.

Additional: The white button on the controller acts as a skip button. You can change to the next song in the lineup, in real-time, while your boarding, without having to go through a host of menus. It's no big deal, but cool nonetheless.

The Bad
If I had to pick something, I'd have to say the difficulty. The high score and media challenges are fairly easy once you know how to properly link tricks.

That's about it. Really. No, really, it's a near perfect game.

The Bottom Line
As a regular snowboarder, this game makes all other snowboarding games pale in comparison. It's got an engrossing career mode, and a fun Instant Run mode. It's a great game all-around.

The Good
The graphics in this game are awesome. The snow is very realistic. When you turn you throw snow everywhere! You can see a lot of details in most everything and the mountains are very different from one another. Some consisting of natural rocks and rails such as fallen trees and mounds of snow. Others consist of man made objects such as ramps, half-pipes, and metal rails. The multiple drop points give the mountains some replay value. As does the ability to earn new clothes, boards, binding, etc. And there is a massive song library and the ability to add your own!

The Bad
The multi-player is pathetic. Your stuck with taking turns on one player game modes just so the developer can say this game has multi-player. Also there are many bugs. I can't count the amount of times that I got my head stuck in a log or hit a rail and flipped around a couple times very very quickly only to land and get points for it! Lots of points. The many tricks the game promises are just combos which get you way to many points. In fact switching the type of grab your doing about five times gets you more points than an actual grab.Jibs also known as grinds also get you way too many points. And I find them very hard to do due to a lack of any balance meter.

The Bottom Line
This game is realistic but many bugs and poor multi-player make it a good rent but I only own it because it came with my Xbox. Otherwise I would have never bought it. However hard core snowboarders will love this game.