So since this is my first game of the Amped franchise I can't really compare it to its predecessors but instead I will try to compare it to games like SSX 3 and SSX On Tour which I both have for the PS2.
Amped 3 seems to aim more at an audience that doesn't like the über fancy style of the SSX games where you can jump half a kilometer and do tricks that come quite close to changing your cloths in mid-air. The whole trick system is very easy and more or less only involves rotations but doesn't forget those ground and grinding tricks where only one half of your board is on the ground :-)
But the part of the game that really amazed me the most is simply how freely you can board around and how large the area on each mountain is where you can do that. While in SSX3 the mountain feels like a broader track in Amped 3 on some mountains it absolutely feels like you're free to go everywhere and can even go around the mountain. Most of the mountains here consist of 3 or more parts/sides and on these free-roaming ones when you leave one side of the mountain you end up on the next one.
And everywhere are people ... OK, while SSX On Tour had some NPCs on the piste, Amped 3 has the amount you would expect to find in a popular ski area (at least they didn't simulate the queues at the ski lifts ;-) ). And they are even part of some of the missions and not only obstacles. In these missions you have to first perform some tricks to bring the crowds into the mood and then perform more tricks for them to build a fan-base.
As this already indicates the whole game has a flair like one of those stupid [insert name of music tv station here] shows with pseudo-hip people that sometimes act as if they were on drugs. For the story of this game you become a member of a small cliq and you have at least one such a weirdo as a friend. The whole story is (in best [insert name of music tv station here] style) about friendship, treason ... but at least (and probably contrary to what those people over there at a certain music tv think they're doing) the story is more satire than anything else. It's simple hilarious and I guess it wasn't even lost in translation :D
But after all this praise, also some bet parts of the game: First of all, the game has ... not really next-gen graphics. They are solid, ok, but nothing you should normally put 60-70EUR on the table for. This said, the view is still astonishing when you're at the peak of a mountain and can see the whole mountain from up there.
But besides the physics in the game, the graphics appear like a gift by the gods ... The collision detection most of the time doesn't work, you regularly get stuck between cliffs, and you can board upwards much farther than you'd normally be able to with the given speed. And with "much" I mean way too far.
Checklist:
- Great atmosphere
- Crazy story (crazy enough to make it entertaining again)
- Tons of goodies
- One of the biggest snowboard games I've seen so far
- Freeriding that is fun
- Tons of events
- Very good localization (German)
- Worst physics I've seen so far in a snowboard game
Verdict:
Amped 3 is a game that certainly doesn't have to hide itself behind titles like SSX 3 or SSX On Tour. The game is huge, has a very unique style and a great story, but suffers from quite a few quirks with the physics and only mediocre graphics