Amped 3 is a joy to play, particularly for those who are stuck in towns deprived of snow. Addicting with replay value.
Essentialy, the game has been made in a fashion that is true to it's sport. It's a little whacky, very humorous, a little overly trendy, and acrobatically, incredibly pleasing to the eye. If you've seen the video review on gamespot, than you've probably been briefed on the entertainment you get from watching the crazy cut and paste cutscenes. Yes, that part of the game is very different and unique to this franchise, but that isn't at all what's sold this game for me. I didn't even watch most of them.
The fact that there are hundreds of runs to choose from, over 8 different mountains, some with multiple faces, multiple dozens of tricks, lots of board and character customization features, and much much more, is what has made this game a staple for my xbox 360 playing time.
Let's take a look at some of the gameplay.
One of the things i didn't like about the gamespot video review for this game, was that the reviewer said the 'game gets a little repetitive' when going through the story objectives. To me, that's like saying any madden football title is by default repetitive because all you do is 'play football for everything' That comment doesn't make any sense, it's not repetitive, it's what you are supposed to be doing. Just like playing any tennis game means you spend most of your time playing tennis, or skateboarding to skate games, the bulk of amped 3 will be spent on the slopes. Whethere that is exiting or dull, is completely up to how you ride. Essentially as you progress thruogh the game, you will unlock more runs, more mountains, more objectives, more gear, and more editing tools. You start off with the begining of a casual trip of friends on the north star mountain in tahoe, and bomb hills that take you to utah, chile, and the dc mountain lab at the end of the game.
The type of objectives you complete vary often and sometimes involve you following behind a pro trying to out trick them, navigating way points on a snowmobile or board, or even just trying to try and crash your sled as hard as you can seeing how bad your guy can eat it down the mountain. There's more than enough stuff for you to choose from while you accomplish the story line, and arguably the best part of the game will come when you are through with it for the first time. The big selling point for me on this game comes from the replay value, which in its turn the bulk of which comes from the park editing tools. Basically, this game allows you to unlock park goodies such as rails, fun boxes, staris, hills, etc, and place them anywhere you can snowboard in the game. So if your cruising down a hill and see an awesome spot for a rail or kicker, go ahead and plant one there and see how much air you can get.
Another great thing the game does is score every objective you do, and compare them to the leaderboards on xbox live automatically. So If you want to show you are the best there is on a particular jump or rail, you coul plan out your best trick and try night and day to throw it down, and maybe in doing so land yourself a spot in the top 10 for that objective. It's a pretty good feeling when you land an awesome trick after an hour or two of trying and find out that you were top5 in terms of scoring for that objective.
So all in all, that is pretty much what constitutes Amped 3. Theres plenty to go around in terms of runs, gear, tricks, objectives, crazy cutscenes, park editing, and imagination to boot in reguards to how you decide to play.
I highly recommend the game, unless you are the video review nerd from gamespot who thinks snowboarding in a snowboarding game is 'repetitive.'
'man all you do is snowboard around.. that's like so.. lame!'
'NAy sir! to you i say that thou are lame.'
Snowboarding rules.
game pros;
total freedom on the mountain, easy to access different runs,
lots of different tricks that look great and fun to do, plenty of gear, incredibly random cutscenes make for the occasional l-o-l. good replay value, a wide arrange of music to pick from and easy to customize or mix up.
game cons;
kind of cheezy graphics in the game engine cutscenes (may be better on an hdtv) no real 2 player mode, or live versus mode. the mountains at the end of the game don't have as many runs as the starter ones.