For the next couple hours, we're gonna be casting a critical eye on 2K Sports' Amped 3. While Vlad is going to be trying his hardest to rub salt in any wounds he finds, I'll be highlighting what the title does right and why. I have to confess my absolute and unequivocal lack of interest in sports sims, and my subsequent soft-spot for arcade style sports games (I'm looking at you Mario Kart!).
Alright, let's get started! Vlad's gonna be taking the first round.
Update 1: He's already having a hard time finding anything to dislike about a game with a giany pink bunny snowboarding! That and the totally great Manfred Mann's Earth Band cover of The Boss' "Blinded by the Light."
Update 2: Against my better judgment, Vlad got to choose the character model. He got a little trigger happy, and bypassed right by the gender selection screen! So now we're stuck with a dude, instead of the eye candy we were hoping for.
Update 3: I'm so hot! Alright, I got to go back and play through the opening bunny scene again, then choose a player model we don't mind looking at for awhile. As an homage to one of gaming's greatest heroines, we modeled her after Lara Croft. That's the only reason! The bunny mission is really clever; by making the character shapeless/sexless when you begin, it drops you right into the game. You can get a taste of what's in store, then settle down and for the rote of character creation.
Update 4: By design. One of the first things you notice about the game is the art design; it permeates everything, from the story and the cutscenes, to the menu system and the interface. It's comprised of equal parts stoner/slacker snowboarder mixed with a hipster Napolean Dynamite/scrapbook/8-bit aesthetic. Some of the loading menus/cutscenes are equal parts Davey and Goliath and Robot Chicken. What's impressive is how well executed and pervasive it is. While some may find it excessive or annoying, I think the execution is superb.
Update 5: Easy boy! While Vlad just wrote "It's nearly impossible to screw up in this game" while I was playing, I just witnessed him fail a "magic circles" challenge 4 times in a row. I could argue that I made it look easy, but I think the difficulty has subtly increased. In another couple hours, we'll have a more definite idea about the overall difficulty of the game. I'm pleased to report that the learning curve is pretty low, now to work on learning more tricks.
Update 6: The Live effect. After each challenge, you're presented with an XBL leaderboard. As easy or good as you think you did, it becomes clear that some kid in North Dakota eats, breaths, and dreams Amped 3! Vlad's time in the Samurai Slalom challenge was 5 seconds, versus the leader's 11.1 seconds (longer is better). That places him somewhere below where the leaderboard's even track.
Update 7: Analog world. Despite the superficially simple play mechanics, the game slowly introduces you to more complicated and subtle controls. During a jump, balance your analog stick in the middle to the left or right to perform off-axis maneuvers. Rock it up and down to perform "butter" maneuvers, rock it left to right while grinding a rail to maintain your balance. There's enough subtlety to the otherwise simple arcade controls to convince me there's plenty of replay value here for those with the inclination to master the game.
Update 8: Variety: After playing through all sorts of challenges, missions, and minigames for the past hour or so, the developers clearly wanted to break up the monotony of a typical sports sim. Whether it's riding a mattress down through some checkpoints, trailing some bad guys on a snow-mobile, hang-gliding to promote perfume and earn some loot, tailing with some celebrity boarders, or collecting "kitty glitter", the various objectives are both extensive and eccentric. We've opened three different sections of this mountain, and just unlocked the second of seven total mountains!
Update 9: Sounds good. Like the rest of the production of the game, the sound is top notch. Whether its the wacky sound effects or the sometimes perfect music, it adds to the highly polished finish of the game. The soundtrack veers towards emo-heavy, but with support for custom soundtracks and the ability to cycle through available tracks with the D-pad, it means you're never stuck listening to one song too long.
The voice work is above average for a video game as well, with unique chacters, good acting, and clever dialogue. Consider Sebastian, who sounds suspiciously like Napolean Dynamite and Mitch Hedberg's lovechild when he's talking about the various demons (like the dueling serpents of Fangar) he's drawn in his sketch book, or delivering any number of humorous mispronunciations. Aware-ity? Mystistical?Mediorocressness? Or Dandelion, the scrapbooking, new-age weirdo who narrates the story, and calls you her "special friend."
Conclusion: Amped 3 has been designed from the ground up for one thing: fun. The entire game is infused with it, and it's hard not to be impressed and rolled up in its enthusiasm. Despite the huge variety of different missions and mountains, the core mechanic is still just snowboarding. While there is a lot of game here, and room for replayability, I'm skeptical the formula will hold up much past the length of the game. Nevertheless, the interested gamer will find a highly polished product with an infectious sense of humor and plenty of solid, if simple, gameplay.
My rating (after a night of rapturous praise): 9.0 / 10
Vlad's rating (after a night of talking
trash): 6.0 / 10
Final score: 7.5 / 10
