How is Amped?
 

So I snagged an X-box, and when not feeding my addiction to Halo I was thinking about picking up Amped? Anyone played it? Impressions? I know it's not SSX Tricky, but that's fine becuase I already have tricky and was looking for something different to complement it.. From the screen shots and movies, Amped seems to look really, really impressive graphics wise.

(and ripping my own CD's to listen to while playing sounds very cool)

It's awesome.

It's like Tony Hawk goes snowboarding. It's a trick based game, unlimited time, and you have to go through various qualifications and tests to increase your stats and get better and finally become the top snowboarder in the world. The levels are vast, and you can see the entire level, things don't pop up out of nowhere. You get to choose from real clothing brands to wear, ride brand name snow boards. The various tests are cool too. There's one where you have to "beat a pro", the pro goes down the mountain and does tricks, and you have to beat their points for each jump they do. Another where you have to get sponsored and the sponsor only likes certain tricks so you have to do those tricks to get past the level. There's there's just joy riding. Ripping tracks is great too. The game is deep as hell, and features a somewhat steep learning curve. But once you master the game, it's so satisfying.

I strongly recommend this game. I know it'll keep me happy until Tony Hawk 3 comes out for XBox.

Cool, thanks for the feedback.. How long are the runs down the mountain? Are they really short, and if so is the load time fast?
It does sound like a really deep game once you get past the learning curve.

I'd rent it, but the trick is finding a place that rents all the X-box (or any) games.

I am also intrigued by this game. I've never snowboarded, and haven't even played any other snowboarding games, but this games looks fun, and very pretty. I've heard that it can even be relaxing.

Now I just need to decide whether to buy or rent it.

I've got Amped on rent right now. It took a bit to get used to the control scheme, so much so that I almost dismissed it, but I went back and got he hang of them. It's pretty darn cool game.

Loading times between levels are about 10-15 seconds. Load time between runs and such is almost non-existant.

I love the option to play a custom soundtrack. I played mine with some Pearl Jam/Soundgarden among others.

Draw distance is amazing, so is seeing the other boards making their runs they come whizzing by you and turn into tiny powder spewing specks on the horizon.

I may have to turn this one into a buy!

Smack Daddy; it gets even better further down the line. Once you pimp out your stats you can really tear it up. The more I play it the more I enjoy it. It's hard, but in a good way.

The runs down the mountain get longer the further you get into the game. At first they are really short, then you can unlock longer and longer runs.

Load times are very short.

The snow is so beatiful too. It's bumpmapped like crazy and really realistic. When you fly into the air, the snow around your snowboard disperses away in a wispy manner.

I never played a snowboard game before this one and I really enjoy it.

If you want to only relax while playing this game, then I'd so go with some sort of cheating (this game has a cheating screen where you can type in codes). Because it's pretty difficult to unlock some of the mountains.

Also, there are three different camera views (close medium and far away). IMHO the close has the best graphics but the far away is a tad bit more playable. Close is fun when you aren't trying to beat a level.

This game doesn't seem to be getting much attention, but I've been playing it as much if not more than Halo. I really can't recommend it enough.

I've been playing it quite a bit lately and keep having mixed emotions about it.

First I didn't like it. I couldn't control my guy very well and it didn't seem to have much depth. Jump off a jump and spin a few times while holding buttons.

After a bit I warmed up to it and started really liking it. Tricks were easier to do and I started doing certain things on purpose instead of just hitting buttons in the air. Starts off easy and gets progressively more difficult.

After a longer while I'm starting to dislike it again because of frustration. I'm ranked about 68th, which is a good way into the game (you start at 120 I think) and its just frustratingly difficult now. You need really high scores to advance and pro runs are also extremely tough to beat. The runs are pretty long - probably takes about 5 minutes per run. Its not a race, so you are best off going slow for rails and speeding up for jumps. The problem now is if you didn't do well during the first minute of the run you probably aren't going to hit the high score, so you end up restarting a lot. If I don't nail a big score after about the first 3 trick spots I just start over since there is no reason to continue the run. It leads to great frustration.

There are a number of places you can combine tricks, like do a jump off a ramp and land on a rail for a grind for a good score, but unlike Tony Hawk, its hard to really aim a landing off a jump, you normally are off to the right or left too much. There is no concept of manuals, so its ramp to rail or rail to rail jumps that make up combos.

I'm still sticking with it, but its very unforgiving to mistakes later on.

Jeraden, have you unlocked the Pro 2 competitions yet? I was kinda stuck where you are, I think, and then I unlocked those and I get stats like crazy.

Do you at least get access to all (3 I think?) mountains pretty quickly, or are you stuck with the starter mountains for a long time? And does it give you the ability to choose the weather and time of day?

I can't remember exactly (I'll start a new character and see what they give him access to) but I remember seeing all three in a hurry.

I just unlocked Pro 2, but am having trouble completing many of them. I think I got 2 of them done, but can't seem to get any of the others. You have to get like 25k on jumps when you can't get much speed going.

Which stats are the highest for you? Have you tweaked your gear at all to get better stats? I have my stats high on "jumping" and "twisting". Those seem to be the bread and butter of the game and it's worked well so far. I think I'm ranked like 39th.

The trick to getting 25k on jumps is doing 1080s while you grab your board and get as much air as possible. Are you mixing up your tricks? Doing front flips on some jumps and back flips on others? If you do the same stuff over and over again the game doesn't give you as many points, just like Tony Hawk.

Some of the pros on 2 are hard, but I can beat the ones where I only have to go like 7-10 jumps with them easier. The 15 jump ones are very tough. If you beat them though, you get 2 skill points and it helps out a lot.

If you blow your first jump, don't quit right away and try and practice the next few jumps you will need to hit after you nail the first one.

What level you at now?

I also rented Amped. It thought I'd rent it before buying as there are other Snowboarding games out also.

To start out the graphics are amazing with all the snow effects and these are much better than SSX Tricky which is really a port from the PS2.

The runs are pretty long, just don't race to the bottom, take your time to impress the judges and ride the rails.

Controls for the game take a while to learn. The combo's are really hard to get the hang of but after a hour of so I did fine.

Multiplayer is not that good, you can't have split screen, you just do your run and then the other player does his/hers.

Currently I got to 41st place.

This one I would buy. Other game I have rented are Halo(say no more!) and PGR.

Blockbuster and Hollywood are getting more Xbox games each day and for 5.99 for 5 days it is better to rent and decide to buy than to spend $50 if you don't like it.

J_J

41st place?? How long was that rental for? You must have played it non-stop!

Yes,

Got the 5 day rental and played most evenings for a couple of hours easy.

It is a great game once you get the hang of the controls. I am having a hard time beating the pro's now.

J_J

Wow, I've played it a ton and I'm only like 47th place. You're close to unlocking the second to last mountain, I think.

Are you on the pro 3's now?

I just rented this today and I'm around 114 right now. Some of the sponsor runs are pretty tough. I'm good with spins and flips, but the sponsor run on snow summit is really short and doesn't give me enough time or speed.

Then Ginny's Gulch - I beat that in the first run, but I'm no good at halfpipe actions for the sponsor. What exactly constitutes a half-pipe move? I was under the impression that most of my moves were the right kind, but they don't seem to be scoring at all.

any advice for those is appreciated.

thanks,
Tuan Jim

Half pipe means just get big air inside the half pipe and twist.

Yeah, I was reading some other forums and they said the same thing pretty much. It's really all about the timing here. I haven't beaten the sponsor yet, but I'm scoring a little better. It's just tough to hit it at just the right angle.

How about "Big Air"? Do I have to pull off any fancy moves in the air, or is it just about hangtime? And how exactly can I increase it, outside of increasing my speed, which I obviously can't do right now?

thanks,

Tuan Jim

Are you grabbing and tweaking/tricking while you are in the air? Those two things will help you a lot. The things about the sponsor runs is that you can't just do tricks they like, you also have to get big points while doing those big tricks.

Big air is all about hang time and grabbing and tweaking/tricking like crazy.

Are there any codes to unlock new levels. I'm only renting this game, and Ginny's Gulch sponsor has got me really po'd. No matter what, I can't beat the sponsor level on half pipe. Any codes or cheats for getting to the next level would really be appreciated.

Tuan Jim