Customer Reviews

AMPED FREESTYLE SNOWBOARDING (XBOX)

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just purchased the game and I absolutely love the game. The graphics like all x-box games look like your watching a live match it looks realistic and plays realistic. The game is fun, fast, but very hard too control if you are new to the snowboarding genre. In my opinion the game has a steep learning curve. this is definitely 5 stars

This is not a game so much as an excercise in addiction control and you will fail! The need to play this tugs at you every few minutes when your XBox is turned off. This is by far the best XBox launch title other than the magnificent Halo. But the difference between the two is that Amped has a tremendous amount of replay. Graphically this title go's far beyond anything else ever made. It's also one of the first XBox titles to take advantage of the built in Hard Drive by storing all the environmental data such as Trees and backgrounds. So there will be literally no popup or distance fogging commonly used to improve frame rates. You can literally see forever particularly on the huge mountains such as the Altibahn. There are so many different levels of bump mapping and textures on the snow alone it makes your head spin. There is plowed snow, Poweder, lined, Ice, packed, you name it.
Gameplay is where it's at though. This is the way Snowboarding should be. Total freestyle. Not some SSX clone running down unreal tracks and knocking others down along the way. This is all about choosing your own line, and pulling incredible moves.
Do yourself a favor, if you own the XBox, buy this now. This truly shows why the Xbox is the most powerfull console created.

I've owned Amped for four weeks (over 60 hours of play), and I rented SSX Tricky for five days (over 20 hours of play). I'm a skier, not a boarder, and I love Amped. SSX Tricky has its good points too, but with that game the characters break dance on their boards and can't wander off the given path. In Amped the boarder is firmly attached to his bindings, and behaves more realistically. If you want a racing game with cartoon-like characters, go for SSX Tricky. If you want a fun single-player game get Amped. One funny addition in Amped is the taunts from the other boarders when you bite a trick: 'You dropped your pocket!'

Pros:
- Fun! High replay value. Either go for high scoring tricks, or wander the mountain looking for snowmen to run over. Or ride the entire length of a ski lift cable.
- More realistic physics than SSX Tricky (OK, so no one can jump 50 feet high), but you can stop anywhere on the mountain, and pick your own path down the mountain.
- Beautiful graphics: whisps of snow, shadows, sparkling snow, hard ice
- Customize the background music to CD's you rip to the XBox hard drive

Cons:
- No simultaneous multi-player: you take turns.
- No time challenges, no gate racing
- Tough learning curve if you have Tony Hawk trick habits

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is a Valium-fueled take on snowboarding. You're free to do what you want, when you feel like it, and while you're under stress in the middle of a mission. The overall experience is oddly relaxing, especially early in the game when there's no real pressure to beat every goal in order to unlock new levels. Just as in games like Tony Hawk, the only frustration comes in the repeating levels to get a specific medal - but even then, you can always restart in a flash.

Match that with the open air feel of the levels, the breathtaking coolness of sliding through powder, and the breezy sound effects and in-game chatter, and you've got yourself the gaming equivalent of sitting in the hot tub after a long day on the slopes. Amped is a new way to look at snowboarding, and it's fun and large enough to keep you interested for hours and hours. Sure, there are some problems with the way the game controls, but the overall package is well designed, and most of all, totally charming. Amped manages to be simultaneously epic and down-home at the same time, thanks to the mixture of cool presentation, easy to navigate goal structure, and time-free boarding on giant mountains. You won't sweat while playing a game of Amped - but then again, we're talking about snow, aren't we?

I purchased this game after getting Halo, DoA3, and Proj. Gotham. Got a gift-certificate for the b-day and Amped seemed like the only cool loking title other than the football and nascar, which I dont get into those two types of games. When I get it home Im expecting to be able to fly right through this like another Tony Hawk title, but no...oh no, crash after crash after crash! I could hardly get down the first section of the mountain. I was so used to playing T.Hawk and SSX that it was strange switching to the new game, felt like the switch from Mat Hoffmans BMX to Dave Miras BMX 2. All the while that Im tumbling down the mountain trying to figure out the controls, all of the camera men and even the snowmen are making fun of me! It was making me a little crazy. So with ease, in the sometimes odd menu system, I turn off the camera man voiceovers and turned on some of my own music from the hard-drive. After much tinkering with this beautiful looking game, I was getting the hang of it. I soon felt like I was really snowboarding and I was getting the idea behind Amped, it is a snowboard simulator made with fun and style in mind. Now I am pulling off runs worthy of saving the replay to show friends later. The structure of the game is great, you want to be a pro so you have to work your way up. Get sponsors for new clothes, boards, and gear. Unlock then new mountains as you go along and new sections of each mountain. The levels are great and the sense of speed is really there. This game is definately fun and I highly recommend it to fans of the sport. If you just want something easy to get the hang of stick with SSX: Tricky.

This title was one of the games I kept going back to Microsoft's booth at E3 to play over and over again. (I gave it four stars instead of five because I was playing an unfinished product at the time.) The controls were easy yet refined, the graphics showed great promise, and the gameplay was excellent. Basically when I played it, it was plain fun!

Hi
I don't ski, don't snowboard, and I've never played games of this genre before. I recently got interested in SSX3 from seeing a review about it online; so I tried out a friend's demo disk to see if it was something I'd like. It was actually quite fun.

So then I decided to look around to see what other snowboarding games are out there besides SSX.

I went thru all the reviews on the web comparing SSX, Amped, Dark Summit, Transworld, etc... and eventually.... settled on Amped.

It has been reported that Amped is too difficult. Since I have only played SSX3 for about 15 minutes, I can tell you that the folks who say Amped is too difficult are very likely those who have played the SSX series extensively and are used to the simplicity with which one can do outrageous stunts. Since I've never really played those games I don't have that bias.

So is it too difficult? No. It is no more difficult than any racing game where you will spend some time learning all the controls.

In comparing my brief exposure to SSX3 and Amped here's my summary:

- SSX3 has too short a draw distance. I found myself trying to look up and off the screen to see where I was going. Amped has very very long draw distance making it very easy to see where you are going.

- SSX3's physics is significantly exaggerated over Amped. You can land sideways on your board and keep going- I'm no snowboarder but I know from common sense that if you tried that in real life you will wipe out!

- SSX3's snow effects are inferior to Amped. SSX3 carves out simple trenches where you snowboard travels. Amped creates beautiful texture mapped trenches with dust trails.

- The overall degree of realism in Amped is far greater than SSX3's. The outdoor scenary in Amped is wonderful. I found SSX's scenary extremely artificial.

- There are no time limits in Amped like SSX. I hate racing games with time limits. There is never ever enough time.

- Amped's track is quite large and the game allows you to explore unintended paths at any time. SSX3 now provides the same thing but at specific branch points only.

- I found the radio in SSX3 incredibly juvenile. There was some chatter about somebody in high school- I found myself wanting to switch the radio off. That pretty much told me who the game's targeted age group is.

This is a very good Xbox game. Before I bought Amped I wasn't sure if I should get it or SSX Tricky instead so I spent some time asking around and reading reviews to make my determination. I knew SSX Tricky would be a safe bet from the sheer amount of acclaim it has received since it's first incarnation when the PS2 first came out, but I was more interesting in Amped's realistic approach to snowboarding. My only concern was whether Amped was really a good game, because in the end, that is all that really matters.

Well, Amped is a really good game and I'm glad that I decided on it over SSX (not that I think SSX is a bad game). Amped is actually better than I had hoped it would be and that in itself makes it worth the purchase. The graphics are as good as you expect, and the playability is even better.

There is a bit of a learning curve. When you first start out it's much like real snowboarding in that you have to learn how to do it. This can be a big downside to people with no patience to learn a game and may explain why people recommend getting Tony Hawk (a game that will have you doing big tricks in the first two minutes) over this. I'm not a hardcore gamer and it probably took me up to an hour of playing before I felt like I was really able to play the game. But I'll admit, at first I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to play this game (expect to do a lot of falling at first).

The game does reward you for your patience. The first mountain has very low score requirements so even those that fall halfway down the run can still pass and earn skill points. Before you know it you'll be on the third or fourth mountain and you'll be coming back to the first to compete against new unlocked scenarios wracking up scores four or five times higher than when you initially started out. This really gives you the feeling of what it's like to work your way from an ametuer to a pro. And that is what this game does best.

Unfortunately the game rewards your developing skills with progression towards seemingly impossible runs. You'll be working your way along fine, impressed with yourself at how good you've actually become at the game, wracking up scores you never thought possible only to come to a challenge that you cannot pass. Then you'll play harder, because you'll remember that you've thought this way before and look where you are now. And maybe you'll pass the challenge, but you will come to one that you can't pass. Well, maybe if you're a hardcore gamer you might but few people will be able to beat this game. I'm halfway through and I'm stuck. And I'm frustrated.

I sure had a lot of fun getting to where I am and you will too. I still have fun playing this game even if I can't finish career mode and so will you if you at least have the patience of a gnat. But to me level progression is always the worst thing about games of this type because inevitably most gamers run into the level they cannot pass. Fortunately this doesn't really happen on Amped until late in the game. Still if Amped had a smoother and less ridiculously difficult level progression this game would have been a five star game.

This game felt to me like learning to snowboard for real at first. It can be very frustrating and will take several hours just to get the hang of the controls. As you progress, the challenges are set up so that you can almost pull them off 99% of the time, but take persistance to beat them. Some challenges took me over an hour and I'm only half way through the game. The system of progressing is very taunting (so are the spectators in the game) which makes you want to beat the next challenge. I have had times where I felt like smashing the controller in frustration on some levels but that made it feel that much better when I beat it. There are also a few weird occurences with the physics (getting stuck, and being told "go downhill" sometimes when you already are) but not enough to spoil the game. I gave this 4 stars because although I love playing it, I think the frustrating toughness of this game may not be enjoyable for some people. I recommend it for gamers who like snowboarding (whether you do it in real life or not) and gamers that want a challenging game. Another great feature is that this game lets you play your own music mixes, a plus because the included music gets old after a while. Also, the graphics are great. Very close to real looking!

ok, first of all dont listen to peolpe that reviewed a game without owning it. I do. This game has many great reasons for owning it. It is different, dont listen to tony hawk guy... there are many different levels, tricks, etc. The replay value is good, but it is good if you have friends to play it with. THe soundtrack option is great. If you dont already have your own soundtrack on the x-box, i dont know why you got it, but anyways it holds tons of cd's and with amped you can cycle through while playing it. Well i will not spend any more time on this review because I want to get amped!