"Become one with the mountain, my brother. Zen. Let it flow through you like a bottle of Evian water. Zen. Zeeeeeen." I can just see some kind of weird spiritual snowboarder now, who one minute talks about peace in the universe and another minute tears down the mountain like a lunatic. This is the kind of perception that's given to one of your friends in Amped 3, and it kind of reflects the game's tone in general. With some points, it's a complete monster of a snowboarding game, with so much to do that it almost becomes a bit overwhelming. But then on the flip side of the mountain, we have the mellow side that really fails to motivate or innovate, and instead just sits there, pondering what might have been.

The game follows right up on the heels of Amped 2, placing you in the shoes of a rebellious snowboarder who's part of an eclectic group. In this group are four friends who work alongside you and help you to gain new skills in your quest to become the snowboarding elite. You've got the cool guy, the smarmy girl, the zen-like master who's got his heart in the right place, and Weiner Boy, a completely nutty kid who knows his challenges but, strangely enough, doesn't endure them himself. As the game proceeds, you'll find yourself whipping through a number of challenges, boosting your reputation, snagging sponsors, and becoming one of the mountain's most legendary snowboarders in the process. The game clearly follows the formula from previous Amped games, but it still works.

This is because of all the tasks that you face on each mountain that you gain access to. Not only do you have story missions that you must complete in order to gain access to new areas, but you also have tasks such as getting your picture taken during tricks for exposure, trying to impress sponsors to pony up extra cash and gear, and other various challenges and tournaments to help you get some extra points and goodies. There's a lot to do on each new terrain that you open up, so the game hardly grows stale in terms of replayability.

Amped 3 also benefits from having a little bit of unpredictable lunacy on its side. You start out on the game inexplicably in a bunny suit, completing tricks and ticking off the local snow patrol as you try to prove your worth to your friends, and throughout you'll find silly advertisements, promotional details on whacked-out snowboarders, and movies that range from old fake video game clips ("YOU ARE WIN!") to stop-motion-filled flicks that look like they would fit right in with the Robot Chicken universe. Further on, you'll find 8-bit ninjas jumping about, talking socks, and more. Most of it is quite funny, but I would have liked to have seen more of it seep into character development itself. It seems as if your friends have so much to tell you to do, but fail to really express too much with their own actions. The rest of the cast seems torn from your typical teen snowboarding flick from the 80's, but without the sex. Take it for what it's worth.

The gameplay manages to follow the same formula from the first two games, with timed flips, spins, grabs, rails and aplenty thrown in to accumulate points. Of course, the more you do in one trick run (with the help of connecting manual-like moves), the more points you score, and points come in handy for impressing the likes of sponsors and photographers. They also help when you're trying to meet specific goals on runs. The game wisely adds a few new tricks to the trade, such as carving, which is more precise turn-taking that helps in the game's slalom-like gated events, and doing a vertical flip move that looks downright sick if it's pulled off just right. However, the precision still can't come close to what the SSX series has to offer, and sits clearly in second place as a result.

The graphics don't exactly take full advantage of the 360's capabilities. Sure, most of the presentation is pretty whacked out, and the design does have its moments here and there, especially when you can add a modification to a current course in order to boost up its appeal, but it looks pretty cut and dry. Animation is about average, and the characters look like your typical video game stereotypes, without any detail to make them seem more realistic. The mountains themselves look great, and are well detailed in the game's menu interface, but the frame rate never really goes above 30, and some lighting effects are forgotten about in favor of speed. In short, it looks like something that could've been done on the Xbox with a little less attention to detail.

Sound is a different story. Although the game's voicework seems to be running about average (aside from the occasional goofy comment that's worth hearing), the game does benefit from a terrific soundtrack, loaded with all sorts of songs you can skip through to your delight. The game also supports your own soundtracks, so if by chance you don't find something that suits you, you can drop in your own. But any game that starts with "Blinded By the Light" (by the way, Amy, the lyric is "revved up like a deuce, not douche) and flies off into all sorts of music types deserves attention. The sound effects aren't much but manage where they need to.

Where the game really lacks is in its multiplayer department. Oh, wait, it doesn't have a multiplayer department, it has what could be considered a winter intern. Amped 2 fully supported Xbox Live with online play and versus opportunities galore, but that's not the case with Amped 3. Here, you have score tracking, and...more score tracking. No online multiplayer of any kind to compete in events and such. Worse yet, offline offers just as little, with only some co-op sledding events where the highest score wins. That's it. No versus snowboarding action at all. This is a sorely missing component that would've given this game a better status quo than it currently has. Grumble grumble...

Amped 3 is a hard game to like, but also one that you don't want to be hating on. It does get points for its ludicrous sense of humor and its cool moments scattered throughout, even though it lacks sorely in multiplayer and visual goods. I'll give it a recommendation to those who can't do without a dose of next-gen boarding, but just don't go expecting the next big thing, as you probably won't get it. Just relax and go down the mountain. Zeeeeeeen.