Social Boarding

XSN Sports and snowboarding, huh? Hmmm … interesting. While snowboarding might not seem like a sport screaming out to be tracked on an online league/tournament site, XSN Sports allows Amped 2 to cultivate the social element of the sport. And let’s face it: When you strap your board to the top of the hatchback and head off to slopes, chances are you aren’t going alone. I’d wager that you have more friends than seatbelts, a few thermoses of hot buttered go juice (though none for the driver), and enough punk and ska CDs to enrage all the local Mothers Against Young Peoples’ Activities advocacy groups. Snowboarding is by its very nature a social activity. It’s a sport built on shared experience, one-upmanship, friendly rivalries, and commiseration at the many hard knocks you’re sure to experience.

Amped 2 brings snowboarding to a beautiful, digital climax while XSN Sports and Xbox Live give it the tools the masses need to experience the joy together. They give players the ability to come together, board together, laugh, cry, and gloat together. The question at hand, then, is what does XSN Sports do with Amped 2 to help make the online sport as good as the offline one? Well, two things really:

Events: Come Prove Your Worth
By hosting or participating in an event, you can slap the toothy, punk grins off the faces of your over-confident friends and gaming acquaintances. When a friend calls you up and tells you that he’s just pulled off a 15-trick combo—complete with four butter transfers, a 1080, and a triple back flip nose grab—you can challenge his bragging ass to prove it. There’s no hiding behind your stats on XSN Sports. Whether they bring you glory or humiliation, it’s up to you. The results will be there for anyone to see.

The structure of an event is pretty simple. One player acts as the commissioner, and he or she sets up the league using a few parameters:

• The start and end date of the competition
• The number of players allowed
• The nature of the competition: private (invite only) or public
• The mountain where the competition will take place
  

You can also set how the event will be scored to focus the competition on specific styles. You can choose to score the event using any of the following parameters:

• High Score
• Media Score
• Style
• Combo
• All (this adds together all the scoring types)
  

Pretty neato jet stuff, eh?

Packs Divided
Rivalries: We all have them. There’s always somebody that we desperately want to embarrass. There’s always some guy whose ego needs to be shattered and whose pitiful “skills” need a good mocking. Rivalries breathe life into your aggressive and primal need to dominate. Sure, I’m a baseball fan and I’ll watch the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play the Detroit Tigers, but why would I subject myself to a really bad game when I can savor the tension and bitterness between the hated Yankees and cursed Red Sox? While the mutual hatred between George Steinbrenner’s goons and the BoSox might be well known, there are many more rivalries that function on an immediate and personal level. They’re the ones you see between cross-town high schools, colleges, and clubs. They are everywhere, and XSN Sports makes sure that anyone who plays Amped 2 knows it.

Snowboarding isn’t much of a team sport, but that’s not to say that groups can’t compete against one another. This is the general principle behind the idea of Packs. You gather a group of friends, coworkers, teammates, or classmates, and join together to conquer your rivals and whoever else may be foolish or naïve enough to challenge your Pack’s status as the undisputed Lords of Snowboarding.

Creating and competing with a Pack works along the same lines as setting up an event, though the Leader of the Pack holds a bit more sway. They have the following powers at their disposal:

• They must approve every member who wants to join the pack.
• They can remove any member for any reason (cheaters, griefers, and opposing Pack spies beware).
• They can extend the lifetime of the Pack (normally a pack will dissolve after six weeks).
• They can pass the leadership to another member.
  

Take a Break and Just Ride
After you’ve pounded a rival Pack into the snow banks, a much needed pleasure ride is in order. Kick on the Just Ride mode and cruise down the slopes at your own pace. Bring a friend along and match tricks–maybe even try some synchronized stunts. It’s all up to you and seven of your homies to make the rules. Trash-talk a wipeout, or praise a shred dog, just like you do in real life. No matter how you handle yourself in Just Ride, it’s all good.

Go forth now, I say! Grab your gear and your friends, go boarding, and be happy!

By Alex McLain