Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding Reviewed 

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding takes off where some of the great snowboarder games left off. Developed and distributed by Microsoft, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is the only complete freestyle snowboarding game out there on the market.

On the initial main menu, you have the option to select which mode of play you want. Plenty to choose; Career, Single Player and Multiplayer modes are available. In career, you must create your own snowboarder from various styles of face, clothing, equipment, stats, stance and more. At the starting of your career, you have the choice to go on two different mountain resorts. In each mountain resort, you have different goals to complete; Score, Media, Pro, Sponsor and Explore. Where you earn points for each goal and ranked different in the world ranking. Score is the main score you have, while Media is the score you get once you hit a media spot on the mountain to gain coverage by cameras.

While competing for sponsors, you will have to complete moves that sponsors likes, and if you gets chosen, you will receive different clothing and equipment from that sponsor. While Explore puts a twist on things. For explore, you must search the mountain top to find these snowmen and hit them (there's 10 to find on each hill). While this may sound easy, this would have to be the most hard and annoying part of the game. During Single Player, you get to choose from a variety of actual snowboarders and hills. While you will only compete for score, this is an excellent way to learn the tricks which are very difficult to learn at the start. Also, you will get to know the hills and become familiar with how the characters in the game react to the different ramps, rails and hills. Multiplayer mode could be one of the biggest disappointments in this game. As most games usually have the split screen, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is a turn based multiplayer game. Each player takes turns going down the mountain competing with beating the others score and the users select how many rounds they must play. I was terribly disappointed with the lack of features that could be included in the multiplayer section such as games like HORSE that are included in other games (such as the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series).

Graphically this game has got it going on. First off on bootup, there’s quite a nice video featuring some of today's greatest snowboard competitors... Into the game, menus are well designed and easy to understand with plenty of colors and different style of text. The best part of this game would have to be the in game graphics. Once into the real part of the game, the detail is amazing. There is snow constantly blowing around, trees with such detail that you could almost see every single branch. Taking full capacity of the xbox system, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding does not have little stalls and lag during gameplay or any other part during the game. All textures are smooth with the slightest details. Microsoft paid extra attention on the graphics which is the biggest factor in this game.

In the sounds department, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding includes an impressive sound track which is indie tracks (independent bands). Also, the sounds in game are an excitement. In the game, while going downhill, the sounds of the snow under the board are realistic, while the scraping of the board on the icy parts are to die for. In the sounds, you also have the camera men giving you praise or criticism for the moves you complete or fail. The most annoying sounds are the Snowmen that laugh at you (this is how you know that one is in the area).

All in all, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding is an excellent game with a great back end from the Microsoft Corporation. This is one of the games that makes you want to buy an Xbox as it's an all Xbox Exclusive. This could easily be nominated for sports game of the year. Those use to the gameplay of arcade style games like cool boarders or 1080 should rent first as this game is sim to da brim and I’m lovin it!