Judging from the wide range of genres featured at its Gamestock event Microsoft's hopes to have all the major bases covered for the Xbox launch. In the extreme sports category, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X fits nicely into the skateboarding genre, while Microsoft's own Amped will challenge EA's SSX for the snowboarding throne. However, unlike SSX, which has arcade-style gameplay, Amped is geared more toward the "hard-core freestyle snowboarding" fan, according to the developers at Microsoft's Salt Lake City studio.

　　The development team is attempting to painstakingly recreate seven different mountains based on real-life slopes. The final product will feature a staggering three square kilometers of feature-packed terrain, with over 12 thousand 3D trees to impede the snowboarders' progress. In fact, they are throwing over 150,000 polygons at the terrain alone. Although the game is approximately 50 percent complete, that attention to detail is already visible in the game's free-form environments. Instead of using giant blankets of blueish white texture, the developers used advanced bump-mapping techniques to give the snow a grainy and realistic look. Plowing through the snow the boarders leave lengthy trails on the granular powder and particle effects highlight the kicked-up snow. The idea behind the open environments in the game is to recreate the feeling of standing on the top of a mountain looking down at multiple trails--the player decides where to go and how to do it. The environments aren't entirely free form as the player is limited to the physical parameters of that particular run, but its openness and the ability to get air off the hits help evoke a new gameplay experience each time the player takes on a run.

　　The character models are equally as detailed. Flying down a run the boarders' clothes flap in the wind and change direction as the player makes sharp turns. More details are planned for the final version. For example, when you hit a tree the snow is going to dump down on top of you and when you hit a bystander any gear they're holding will go flying. In the animations department, the developers plan to add 400-plus motion-captured moves in the finished version. In this latest build the animation looked somewhat rigid, as the transitions between different animation routines didn't flow quite as smoothly as it should. But that should be fixed before the game is released this fall.

　　The control scheme is relatively simple: use the shoulder button to crouch for a jump and manipulate the two analog controls to perform the moves. The left analog performs grabs, while the right analog is used to spin and rotate in mid-air. Unlike SSX, players retain directional control over the boarder in the crouched position, so that you can get air off practically any mogul and string together a quick set of aerial moves.

　　While they were showing us the game the developers made sure to point out that Amped isn't about racing or direct competition. In the game, players must string together tricks and earn points to become a celebrity in the snowboarding world. As players start out they might get a quick mention in the back pages of the local papers, but as they win more competitions they'll be profiled in such publications as Snowboarding magazine. So, the objective in any particular run is to perform the best tricks in front of the cameramen and media standing and watching the race.

　　Microsoft hopes to appease fans of the snowboarding sub-genre with Amped for the Xbox. To differentiate itself from games like SSX, the developers are pushing a more realistic freestyle snowboarding experience, particularly with the course designs. Although there is some room for improvement, at this stage, running at 50 percent of the Xbox power, the game looks very nice, while the control scheme has a rather flat learning curve. If Amped is as well received as EA's PlayStation 2 snowboarding game, Microsoft will have a hit on its hands.