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  4 of 5, "Third in the Amped series on the 360. A different team of programmers working on this one produces quite a different result from the 1st & 2nd games" 28/09/2007 @ 07:37 |
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| 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| $40Aus |
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| Bought From |
| EB |
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| Times Played |
| 15 Times + |
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| Review Detail |
I put many many hours into Amped 2 and described it as "as close to real snowboarding as I've seen on a video game". The free-ride was mostly realistic aside from the obligatory 2km lift cable rails, and the rotations were never into the totally impossible zones like the SSX series.
This time around, Amped really played with the formula I thought won them cred previously. A whole bunch of Anime, old school animation starts you off and you may be mistakened for thinking you've just dropped some acid. The first hour is pretty damn awful I have to say. There's a whole bunch of following a rabbit with flurocolour bullshit happenning all over the place. The slopes are littered with rainbows and stars - I was getting a headache fast. My housemates were laughing at my game choice.
However, with a hangover, I bravely fought on, and discovered that past the first Act of Story mode, things calm down a bit - and you start to work out what all those rainbows and stars mean. They mark out zones you must reach in order to start on-slope challenges. Get thru enough of these challenges and impress people on slope (randomly positioned people that as long as you're spinning, you impress them) and you unlock new mountains and new parts of the story - which roughly translates to you meeting some dudes, one of em getting kidnapped, you resucing him, someone goes to Chile, you follow and then you go and 'defeat' a boss. (Sorry for ruining it).
The challenges get really tricky, but the graphics are nice - though not exactly on par with most other 360 titles. I got a lot of play time from this in the end and reckon it's worth a go. Especially as it's dirt cheap these days.
It's definitely not as good as Amped 2 - and I'm still scratching my head as to how they could go so far from a good formula. |
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| Strengths |
It's one of only a few snowboarding games on 360
High Def yada yada...
Some good indie music in with some err, not so good...
Price Point
Real life resorts mapped out pretty well - Laax, Northstar, DC Mtn Lab etc |
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| Weaknesses |
The Anime pshycadellic stuff is just plain irritating - especially the kitty litter challenges
Realism factor from previous games has gone, you can bust out huge moves pretty quick
Control method also suffered some devolution |
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| Similar Games Played |
| Amped 1, 2, SSX incarnations |
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