Amped 3 (Xbox 360)

The graphics are crisp in high-definition, if not groundbreaking and pushing the Xbox 360's capabilities. Characters are nicely drawn in a "Saturday morning cartoon" kinda way - not anatomically accurate, but functional, the slopes are nicely rendered and the cut scenes are crude yet fun.

The voices are like something lifted from Waynes world and Bill & Ted's Excellent adventure, which personally I like. It adds to the laid-back feel of this game. The music isn't too bad either.

Gameplay wise, it has a free-roaming style to it. You can do whatever you want, just explore the range of slopes you've unlocked at your own pace. Choose whether to snowboard, sled or use the snow mobile and head right back up to the top of the hill. As you travel down the hill, you'll stumble upon challenges. Simply press the X button to find out what they are and start them to begin building up your stock of medals and cash. There is a story built into these challenges and the next part of the story is unlocked once you've achieved the required number of points. All completely laid back, fair and ultimately fun! The control system is intuitive and all of the tricks are available to you from the outset.

Ok, it doesn't show console off in terms of graphics, but it has a playability that is sadly lacking in most of the launch titles I've played. Well worth a go.

In no way shape or form does SSX even come close to being on the same par, i mean common, in real life no one takes there snowboard off of there feet spins it round their neck and places it back on again before doing another bazarely stupid stunt 5seconds later.
This is what Amped 3 does so well in comparison to other games of this type. Similar to Amped 2 it will award you more points for doing tricks closer to the real thing, ie slowly only completing one flip in a stylish way as upposed to grinding whilst in a handstand position. This combination of reality with styalised whacky characters creates a welcoming change to the fast paced intenisty of any of the good games currently avaliable. Its something you can kick back with, for an hour or so with a beer in one hand and the controler in the other.

Whats nice is that you can do as much or as little as you want opting to mabye just lay down a practice run from the top, and at the same time attempting to beet your previous top combination score. Amped playes upon this mentality giving you all the time in the world to practice and then get better, before you come back and get a gold medal in some of the tougher black challenges.

Authentisity of the equiment-(even having my NITRO teamMFM board), clothing, tricks, and terain is where this game really comes into its own. All of the mountians you play on are as real as you are gonna get with this gen of game, and all of the tricks you can perform are authentic making this, underneath the frankly crude humour and the fantastic stuntman challenges, which is so good and refreshing in a game of this nature, a really realistic true to life fun loving romp in the snow.

I would have given this five, but there are a couple of things that let it down slightly. Say you pull off the best stunt/trick/combo you have achieved and your well happy with yourself, you smash the gold medal score to smitherines and you just stop to take stock of what youve done...well once you continue you leave that all behind and forget about it, it would have been nice to have a way of recording your jump as a play back, such in PGR or any footie game out there, as a bit of nostalgic brilliance.
The other thing is the kitty glitter challenges that you can undertake. I dont see why collecting icons of pink turds (ull know what i mean if you have this) is really necessary, but you do feel a sence of achivement when youve been bashing away at it for a good 1/2 hour.

All in all this is a great game that will bring you back time and time and time again, mabye for a quick ten miniutes or a pounding two hours. The most frantic yet chilled out game all rolled into one. Sheer brilliance. [4.5/5]