Amped 2

The original Amped, released over two years ago along with the Xbox, was one of the better thought of snowboarding games at the time. I, however, disliked it quite a bit after playing it for almost no time at all and instead focused my gaming efforts on Halo. Amped 2, however, could not be in a situation further away from that which it's predecessor was in.

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Earlier this year I played through Transworld Snowboarding, which I almost instantly liked despite the extremely unrealistic landing physics (landing in any orientation other than upright was quite the chore) thanks to it's simplified but intuitive trick system - the right joystick would perform grabs depending on the direction you move it in and clicking the joystick in as well as moving it would go an "advanced grab". Amped 2 takes a similar approach, minus the "advanced grabs", but adds many other elements - for instance, in addition to railsliding with the B button and pulling spins and flips using the left joystick and either trigger, at the peak of a certain jumps (half pipes for instance) you can perform a variety of stalls (including hand plants) and while moving along the ground you can perform a "butter" to link tricks (butter basically being a manual on a snowboard for the BMX inclined). In the event that this isn't enough for you, the game's even included a snow skating mode - basically a skateboard for the snow (minus the wheels or course). "But isn't a snowboard already a skateboard for the snow?" you ask? Well, yeah, but your feet are bound to the board. With snow skates they aren't, meaning you can do kick flips and essentially play the game as if you were skateboarding down a really big white hill rather than snowboarding. This not only feels different as a game mode, it's hella fun and adds a nice amount of replay to a game that already has plenty.

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So other than snow skating, what else sets this game apart and awards it that big fat 8.8 that you see off to the right of this review? Well other than the amazing graphics, varied game modes - your basic downhill mode, with each level including a variety of goals to complete, media and regular points to acquire, gaps to jump and snowmen to destroy, all pretty standard features; a photo shoot mode, where you need to get a certain amount of points while boarding through a certain number of rings; a sponsor mode where you need to do a specific type of trick all the way down the mountain to keep your sponsor "amped"; a pro mode, a challenge mode and then of course the aforementioned snow skating mode - some of the best soundtrack options (I say that because the game lets you select which soundtracks it should choose songs from while you're boarding, including your own which is a surprisingly rare feature) I've seen in ANY game thus far (accompanied by a decent stock set of songs), some really cool videos (which is a must for an extreme sports game), and some awesome track selection, the game is the first snowboarding game (that I know of anyways) that lets you play online! Part of the XSN league, Xbox live support takes snowboarding games to the next level, one that should have been reached some time ago, and does it rather well. Think you're the best big-air trickster or butter-balancing junkie around? This is the way to find out. Finally.

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