Articles
By Mr Shoosh
Published: Mar. 4, 2007 11:15 AM
Amped 3 is the first incarnation of this snowboarding title to grace the 360
developed by Indie Built and published by 2K Sports. It follows the story of a group of young guys and gals trying to live it up on the slopes. You play a key character accused of losing their summer funds and consequently find yourself doing snowboarding odd jobs trying to get the cash back. The flexibility of the game design allows you to follow a string of objectives which relate directly to the storyline as well as stray as often as you like for some extra curricular fun.
The game menu sets the scene with a retro flavour and groovy lounge tracks before launching you into one of the most bizarre, yet clever, game intro’s going around. The game starts with a “what the??” 80’s gaming sequence that strangely molds into the current gaming engine. Characters are then introduced with the tune “Blinded by the light” playing heavily in the background and you soon find yourself in a giant pink bunny suit riding on a ski lift. The cutscene then becomes interactive allowing you to snowboard down the slopes (introducing you to the basic controls of the game) and nicely moving back into a cutscene to continue introducing the main story.
When you’re done with the intro it’s time to create your character and jump out of that bunny suit. Character design is simple enough to cruise through yet rich enough to allow you plenty of options. Clothing, snowboards, face, tone, tatts, costumes – it’s all there. Best of all, you can edit your character any time during the game and select items you have unlocked along the way.
Once you’re ready to hit the slopes you’re exposed to the main game map which is essentially a 3D overhead view of the current mountain you’re on. Map navigation is simple yet powerful and comes with a great tutorial which strongly emphasizes the developer’s intention to keep this game simple and flexible. The map clearly indicates story objectives, other challenges scattered throughout the mountain and ski lifts which are used as starting points. You can easily return to the map at any stage and start a new run wherever you like.
You start off on a rather large mountain and can cruise around before engaging in a story related challenge. The game’s balance of freedom and structure is perfectly orchestrated. The first few challenges are all about getting used to the controls and gradually escalate the complexity of the “tricks” needed to complete said challenges. The story obviously evolves around these subtle in game tutorials equipping you with all you need to have icey white fun. Every story related challenge is nicely tied together with an absolutely bizarre cutscene that really makes you wonder how many ‘snow cones’ the developers had when designing the game. Such cutsences range from real toy-figurine versions of the game’s characters demonstrating the tricks you need to do, a Russian TV show where all characters are actual human hands, animated pen drawings on scrap books that resemble an LSD trip and other characters made from a pig head on a spring that wheels around. If that makes little sense to you, it makes even less sense when actually viewing it! Having said that the cutscenes are entertaining, humorous and actually work really well with the game.
Page 1 of 3 | Next Page » - 
