Amped 2
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| Amped 2 | |
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| Developer(s) | Indie Built |
| Publisher(s) | Microsoft Game Studios |
| Release date(s) | October 28, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Extreme sports |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E) |
| Platform(s) | Xbox |
Amped 2 is the successful follow up to Microsoft's snowboarding racing game Amped which was an Xbox launch title. The game was introduced as part of the Xbox Sports Network (XSN) lineup, which included such games as NFL Fever, Top Spin and Rallisport Challenge. The game also has a career mode, in which players create a snowboarder, and complete various challenges to ultimately become a freestyle legend.
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[edit] Career Mode
The career mode in Amped 2 is much like other extreme sport games such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater in which each level has goals for your snowboarder to complete. Each level or mountain has a high score and media score to break, which entails getting the most points in one run of the mountain and getting tricks in front of photographers or the media who are scattered throughout the mountain. You also have to find eight snowmen in each course as well as complete five trick and gap locations that earn you Skill Points. Skill Points are what you use to upgrade your stats which are Spin/Flip, Big Air, Ollie, Balance and Switch. In addition to these challenges as you progress through your career you will be invited to events in which you race to compete for a top 3 finish which yields both fame and Skill Points. As your fame rises you gain different titles which are (from lowest to highest) : Local Rider, Shop Rider, Pro, Superstar, and #1. Once you reach #1 in the world you are able to become a legend when you complete each legend challenge on every mountain. As well as snowboarding during the career mode you also gain access to the Snowskate. Snow Skating is much like the name says skating on snow with a singular Ski under a deck in which the rider glides on the snow without a strap. The snowskate adds different gameplay elements to the game as you are able to do much different tricks, which more resemble skateboarding than snowboarding. Snowskating in Amped 2 has a variety of tricks, for example, pressing the x button on the joypad allows you to do a kick flip trick, but this trick is only if you are airborn.
[edit] Tricks and game points
This game features many performable tricks. There are also point multipliers which increase your points if you perform difficult or stylish moves. The basic moves are flips and spins. The flips you can master are front, back, double, triple and more. You can also do 'combos', for example a multiple flip + a 360 spin. This game also features 'grabs', which is a trick performed while airborn by moving the right thumbstick. You can also grind by jumping on a rail and sliding on it, or do lip tricks on rails by pressing the 'Y' button. There is also something called 'style moves', for example if you perform a stylish spin, flip, rail or combo, you can earn a lot of points and point multipliers which increase your score.
[edit] Multiplayer
Amped 2 supports up to 8 players on System Link or Xbox Live and allows split-screen on both. Over Xbox Live there are five different gametypes for the choosing, Just Ride, Trick Race, High Score, Best Trick and King of the Mountain. There are seven different courses for the choosing Breckenridge, Bear Mountain, Mount Hood, Laax, Mount Buller, Millicent and New Zealand each course has three different drop points. Amped 2's multiplayer over Live brought a number of new features not seen on any online game at the time. For starters it was the first game on Live to integrate your career mode character to that of your Live character. During career mode as you complete tasks you gain skill points which make you improve your characters stats, this translates to your Live character and thereby giving people who have completed the career mode an extra edge. You are also able to customize your characters physical features including skin color, weight, height as well as your characters clothing, everything from goggles to boots and everything in between.
Most Xbox Live titles have a single host who controls the game options and if that person were to quit the game session would expire. However with Amped 2 the creator of the server can put it so either the winner, loser or a random person gets to choose the options of the following game a democracy rather than a dictatorship if you will. Also if the creator were to quit out the game would than find the next best connection and give that person the hosting abilities rather than end the game session. This feature is much like Halo 2s however when the host quits there is no pause in gameplay to find the next suitable connection like there is in Halo 2. It was also one of the first Launch games for Microsoft's XSN sport program which in 2005 has been discontinued. It however was stopped with the thought of re-launching a better program in the future.
[edit] Soundtrack
Amped 2 has a massive soundtrack at 315 songs.
A sequel, Amped 3 was released for the Xbox 360 in November 2005.
