There are a crapload of snowboarding games that come out each year, and there are few that standout, Amped is one of them. It's a refreshingly new type of game where for once you don't waste your time racing down clear cut trails the whole time. Amped is what snowboarding is all about, tricks.
Gameplay:
You start out as a regular, everyday kid who enjoys snowboarding, but the point of the game is to prove yourself and rise to the top in the snowboarding world. Resorts around the world are featured in the game, and at each resort you must attain 3 highscores, pull big tricks in front of the media 3 times, impress 3 different sponsors, beat 3 different pros, and they throw in a little comic twist, knock down 8 snowmen.
At first, after you learn the basic controls, the first couple resorts are easy to beat. Then, you'll start running into sponsors who only like off-axis tricks, basically rodeos, mistys, and mctwists. The highscores also happen to start skyrocketing up to over 400,000 points, along with the media points. My point is, the game's hard, very very hard. In fact, the only way to beat it is to be very very good. Unfortunately there's only one difficulty setting, and as I just mentioned it's a bitch. But when you do manage to get to the Superstar Rank, you really feel like you've accomplished something, and believe me, the feeling is worth the effort.
The really cool thing about Amped is how all the sponsors are real life companies, and for beating sponsor challenges you recieve new gear. Gear ranges from new clothes, to goggles, even to boards and boots. Once you earn new accessories, you can go dress yourself in cooler looking clothes more to your liking, and periodically upgrade your board to better models and brands.
Graphics:
Amped isn't the most amazing looking game out there, but you have to remember that it came out back in December of 2001, only one month after the Xbox was released. At that time, the graphics shined. They weren't on par with Halo or DOA3, but they were up there.
What amped really excels at is animation, from grabs, to spins, to rails, to flips, it all looks like a real-life video. From the start of a jump to the landing, the movement of the boarders body is exactly like it's supposed to be, even the compression of the boarders legs to steady himself when he lands. Grinds also look great, your character is never standing up straight, magically balancing in the middle of the rail, but crouching with his arms out and rapidly spiraling them when he's beginning to lose his balance.
On the other hand, what amped could really improve is the interactivity between the snow and the boarder. When you go over a patch of snow, you leave a small trail, but there's little or no spray, and never any powder. I think it would be a lot better if the mountains really were covered in fresh powder, spraying up all over as you flew through it, half the time not even being able to make out your board through the deep snow.
The backgrounds are also a little lacking, I hope that the graphics team gives objects like trees and buildings a little more polish and detail in the coming sequel.
Sound:
Sound is another place Amped really shines in, with over 150 songs in six categories ranging from Reggae to Rock to Rap, you're guaranteed to find something you'll like. The actual in game sounds aren't very enthralling, but they're not supposed to be, since all you hear is the sound of snow sliding under your snowboard, smashes when you crash, laughs from other snowboarders and sometimes appraisal.
The only dialouge you hear is from other snowboarders and camera-men, and also from Pros, which is where my complaint is. One of the Pros has one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard, whenever she talked I wanted to rip her head off and shove it up a retarded antelopes ass, forever silencing her high pitched sqeaking of a voice.
Control:
The controls in Amped are set up so that the right analog stick is for grab tricks, which will take a bit of getting used to for you Tony Hawk fans out there. The left analog stick controls all body movement, turning, stopping, and flipping and spinning in the air. The A button jumps, and the L and R triggers tweak your grabs. It's fairly easy to learn, and once you master it you'll realize that the controls are genius for such an open ended game like this.
The only major problem with the controls and movement of your boarder is coliding with rails and trees. When this happens the game tends to get kind of glitchy until you free yourself from the object. However, I've played it hours upon hours, and never had to restart the game once, so it really isn't a major problem that hurts the game.
Multiplayer:
The Multiplayer aspect of the game has four parts to it: Highscore, Media Points, King of the Hill, and Best Trick. Highscore is self-explanatory, Media points is whoever gets more points in front of the media (Basically highscore with specfic places you can get points). The third, Kind of the Hill, one player makes a path down the mountain and everyone else must follow. They're only able to do tricks where the first person did them, and whoever has more points at the end wins. Best Trick is another self-explanatory mode, whichever player performs the highest scoring trick wins. There are a few options you can throw into the run to mix things up a bit, such as: you must do a trick every 10 seconds or you lose, and once you crash you stop.
Although you can have up to 3 of your friends playing with you, the multiplayer is a throw-away. Only one person can play at a time, then each of your friends take a turn, one after another. Although some people don't like having smaller screens in split-screen play, I think it would have been a lot cooler if all of you could have been on the mountain at the same time. There should've been an option added in for that.
Overall:
What I really enjoy about Amped is how everything is based on reality, the people, the places, even the sponsors. In my game I've impressed DC, Burton, Ride, and a bunch of others. The only real problem with the game is that the collisions with objects can get very glitchy, especially rails. Other than that I find no big problems with this game, well the control scheme may take a bit of practice to master, but that's fixable. Practice makes perfect right? To sum it all up in one sentence, Amped is fun, innovative, and a must buy for all snowboarding lovers.
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