Amped 3

Posted Jan 6, 2006 by TBO.com

Updated Sep 21, 2007 at 03:55 PM

System: Microsoft Xbox 360

Publisher: 2K Sports

Reviewer’s rating: B

ESRB rating: Teen

Game type: Snowboarding

Kind of like: “Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland” in the winter

Best feature: Killer presentation

Worst feature: No online gameplay

The bottom line: “Amped 3” isn’t available for any other console but, like all the Xbox 360 launch titles, it could be. (Which begs the question, “Why does the 360 exist?” But that’s a whole different story.)

The game doesn’t even use the system’s most prominent feature, the online community of Xbox Live. Why not? We have no idea.

That said, the trick-happy snowboarding sequel holds up pretty well when it’s judged on what it does rather than what it doesn’t.

It makes you laugh, mainly, which is rare in the gritty, testosterone-fueled world of video games. “Amped” has a wicked sense of humor, and puts it across with a kinetic, cut-and-paste style of animation that makes you feel like you missed at least as many goofy gags, pointed punch lines and obscure pop-culture references as you caught.

Fans of single-player action will find plenty of mountains littered with a variety of challenges, from trying to impress potential sponsors with your snowboarding skills to leaping off a cliff with a hang-glider to launching your snowmobile through a ski-lift door. It’s all set to a soundtrack of edgy indie music.

It would take an impossible amount of hipper-than-thou attitude to obfuscate the fact that your core gameplay is same-old, same-old. “Amped 3” very nearly pulls it off.