While I'm an avid fan of the Tony Hawk franchise, it's no secret that the series has slowly gone downhill year after year. After hearing of the disappointing presentation of Tony Hawk's American Wasteland for the Xbox 360, I turned to Amped 3's snowboarding for my next-gen extreme sport fix. While it is pretty clear that Amped 3 draws its inspiration from a number of different titles in the genre, notably the Tony Hawk and SSX series, it also creates an atmosphere unique to itself and a manic style that almost nothing else can match. Although it is ultimately a fairly short ride, Amped 3 is a blast to play and keeps you guessing all the way through.

The story behind Amped 3 may seem simple and clichéd to begin with, but it doesn't take long for it to go off on the wildest tangent imaginable. Amped 3 clearly draws its story from Tony Hawk's Underground in the form of a nameless kid in a pink rabbit costume who you soon customize to fit your style. You and your friends, who consist of your typical tomboy girl, Zen master, wannabe rapper and social reject stereotypes, are snowboarding your way around the world, with your next stop being the Andes in Chile. However, the group's travel funds suddenly disappear and you are accused of stealing it, and ultimately are left behind as the others make their way to Chile through sponsorships. There isn't a whole lot more to say without spoiling the wild plot twists, but let's just say you probably won't know what to expect next.

While the story of the game is reminiscent of the recent Tony Hawk installments, the game play is, without a doubt, inspired directly from EA's SSX series. In fact, fans of Amped and Amped 2 might be a little put off from this installment. While the first two were fairly realistic interpretations of snowboarding, Amped 3 borders on the line of impossible. Not only is the story incredibly unimaginable, but so are the insane tricks you are able to pull off. This isn't a bad thing of course, and in fact, the controls of the game flow very well with the tricks. However, if you're more accustomed to reality over imaginary, then Amped 3 might not be the game for you.

Another problem with the game is that it doesn't take a long time to finish the story mode. Of course, if you're into completing the entire game and getting gold on every challenge, then you could have a lot of time on your hands. However, I had pretty much completed the bulk of the game in less than three days, so Amped 3 is very much a weekend marathon kind of game. Granted, most games in the extreme sport genre don't take a whole lot of time to finish, so it is a bit of a standard to finish these games quickly. The game does attempt to reward your for going beyond the main story and receiving gold medals in the challenges, but most of the unlockables are fairly uninteresting, although very plentiful.

For how short the game is, though, it is a fun ride while it lasts. There are a total of seven mountains to ride down, and many of them have multiple sections, which really means there are more like seventeen areas to be had. Being snowboarding, you will spend most of your time speeding down mountains, which look beautiful with the power of the 360. Even at the top of the mountain, you can still see the trees and buildings at the base of the mountains fairly clearly. There are plenty of challenges to take part in, ranging from slaloming, to flying through circles, to simple high score challenges. Snowmobiles and sleds also make their fair share of appearances in challenges, including one where you have you rack up the most damage by falling out of a sled, which, with the rag doll physics of the game, is really fun.

I've already mentioned how great the environment of the game looks. Amped 3 makes good use of the Xbox 360's power, but it isn't the best-looking game on the 360. There are still a few issues to be had with the graphics, one of the biggest being the other snowboarders on the mountain. Amped 3 conveys the snowboarding atmosphere pretty well by having countless people snowboarding alongside you. At first glace, it seems impressive, but you soon realize that you can easily pass through them without crashing. There are some other issues present, but most of them are so minor that the great presentation of the graphics overshadows them for the most part, although there are some noticeable random clipping errors.

What probably hurts Amped 3 the most, even more than it's quick playtime, is the absence of online play. In fact, this is probably the reason why Amped 3 serves better as a rental than as a purchase. It's strange that online play is missing, especially since Amped 2 contained it, and even more so that the developers seemed to attempt to make the game have some kind of Xbox Live functions in the form of leader boards for individual challenge scores. The leader boards seem pretty tacked on, though, and there isn't a whole lot of motivation in getting the highest score. It's also a poor excuse for online functionality, and quite honestly, I didn't even realize there was a scoreboard present until I was well into the game. Even then, I never checked them at all.

At the end of the day, Amped 3 is an enjoyable outing for the extreme sport aficionado in you. However, even the most die-hard fan may want to consider a rental because of the short playtime, although they may be used to it by now. Anyway you go, though, Amped 3 is a fun title and a respectable snowboarding game for those who may be waiting for the next SSX to hit the Xbox 360. And trust me on this one: the crazed story will confuse and baffle. It's a good thing, though, or at least I enjoyed it.

Jun 28, 2006 | 0 comments
Chris Massey