Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding (Xbox)

Amped is a Snowboarding game, now in its third incarnation. Now this is a good thing to know as poor games rarely get a sequel - this has had two later versions. But having been made curious, I was unwilling to pay the £40 for the newest version without checking that I liked the general gist of the game. So I found the original Amped in a second hand section of Game and thought I would give it a whirl. At only £5, what could I lose? THE STORYLINE: You are a snowboarder and you have to perform various tricks as you go down a snowy mountain. Your aim is to become the most famous snowboarder ever, leaving you with massive sponsorship ...

The Game -------------- Amped is a freestyle snowboarding game, where you can create your own character (or use a pre-set one) to try to execute flash moves to gain points and sponsorship (if you are in career mode), and to unlock new mountains and outfits. The scope of the game must be admired - the variety of styles and colours of the jackets featured alone are pretty extensive! Once you've chosen your look, it's down to the serious stuff of chucking yourself down hills. The controls for the xbox are quite easy to remember, but timing is the key to this game (and my down-fall!). There are jumps, rails and shaped snow banks, on which, ...

I'm not normally the type of person that enjoys sporting games but I got this with a bundle when I bought an xbox because I fancied something different to the sort of game I normally play. Initially, without reading the instructions, the most I could do was roll down a hill slowly, take off every now and again and crash into things and fall over. Not that much fun really. Having read the instructions and after a bit of practice, I was flying down the hills doing some stunts that were verging on ludicrous! The game is very pretty, fast and fluid animation and all of the music is up beat dance / college rock type stuff that fits the game ...