Organized Play

I’ve played snowboarding games before, but never considered myself a fan of the genre until I played Amped 2 and got my first taste of fame. Now I’m a future shred star, building my virtual career as I scream down Amped 2’s beautifully rendered mountainsides at dizzying speeds, pulling sick tricks for the media, and inching my way ever closer to becoming the world’s top-ranked dog. That is, I’ll be the best boarder in my little corner of the world—when I’m ready, I’ll take on the rest of the planet, courtesy of Xbox Live. The thing to marvel at here isn’t the multiplayer modes available for Amped 2: It’s the sheer variety of options! Each mode—Just Ride, Casual, Event, and Pack—offers you and your friends a distinct and engaging snowboarding experience.

Winter never is long enough …

Just Ride
Up to eight players share a snowpark slope in this casual, low-pressure mode. Just Ride lets you work on any aspect of your career or skills, from ollies to lip tricks. Players can coach one another, participate in friendly competitions, or just do their own thing, riding the slopes for the sheer enjoyment of it. Results are posted to Xbox Live leaderboards, giving you real-time information about your current scores and standings. Everybody rides their sticks, and Xbox Live takes care of all the tedious math, tracking four personal scores for every player—High Score, Media Score, Best Trick, and Best Combo—across all the available snowparks.

Xbox Live also tracks your Overall Score, calculated from your four base scores. This is the score that determines the top-ranked boarders. If you work your way into the upper reaches of this category, your friends should be lining up to ask you for shredding tips! You can sort the scores in each category by your friends’ names, comparing one another’s ratings and rankings. Results are posted weekly and quarterly on the Xbox Liveleaderboards, allowing you to check and track your progress over time.

An exercise in finesse.

Sessions
If serious competition is more your thing, fear not: Amped 2 delivers! Sessions mode allows head-to-head competition for up to eight players, using any one of a number of directed contests. One player—the host—sets all the criteria for the competition, choosing the snowpark, the drop point, the duration of the contest, the victory conditions, and also who will set the criteria for the next competition. For example, the host might choose the second drop point on Mt. Hood as the location, the Best Combo Score after 10 minutes of boarding as the victory condition, and declare that the loser of the game sets all the criteria for the next round. Naturally, your scores are tracked and contribute to your overall ratings and rankings.

Events
Expanding on the possibilities of the other multiplayer formats, you can use the Xbox Live capabilities of Amped 2 to create Events—major real-time competitions for a large number of players. Anyone can host an Event and choose all the specific criteria for the competition, including who can participate, the location of the contest, and which scores matter over a specified period of time. For instance, you can invite only players who have an overall rating below a certain number and decide that victory goes to the competitor who gets the Best Trick score across Mt. Buller, Mt. Hood, and New Zealand.

The longest possible slide …

Packs
As if all this Xbox Live multiplayer goodness isn’t enough to make other snowboarding games red-faced with shame, there’s still more—Packs! No, I’m not talking about roving groups of wolves (though I suppose that’s a possibility … ). I’m referring to one of the coolest Amped 2 features available through the marvel that is Xbox Live. This feature allows you to form a fellowship of like-minded boarders and roam the slopes together. Anyone can form a new Pack and invite their buddies to join. Communicating through chat software, your Pack can decide exactly how to spend its time. Packs can be as competitive or casual as their members like. Focus on helping each other improve scores, or compete against other Packs for glory, points, and bragging rights. Xbox Live records and tracks the top four overall scores for each Pack member, so you can follow your group’s exploits on the Xbox Live leaderboards.

See you on the slopes, stick jockeys!

By Jason Carl