With the realisation that this game probably won't be a complete wreck after all, I thought I'd start a thread about it.

Images that clearly show that this is indeed quite a dramatic jump up from Amped 2 visuals with an insane draw distance, crisp textures, shadows on everything and detailed objects in the backgrounds:
http://www.jeux-france.com/news12744_amped-3-gliss...

The gameplay videos here:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/amped3/medi...
..and the X05 footage here:
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/748/748406/vids...
..shows that the game is looking really smooth aswell.

I suggest reading up on the impressions here:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/amped3/news...

..to understand what's being done to change this game into something with broader appeal than the previous games. I found this an intimidating prospect at first, being a huge fan of the series (in fact, clocking more hours with Amped 2 than any other Xbox game) but after reading those impressions I sort of understand where they're going and I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin. All the crazy extra modes sound like great fun.

There is no online play though. That's my only real gripe at this point. I played tons online with Amped 2, and that really made a lot of the game for me. At the same time, I played Amped 1 an absolute bunch aswell, and that didn't even have uploadable scores and ghosts like this one will have. SSX3 was great, and that had no online play on Xbox either.

So anyway, I'm fairly interested in this game again, and it just might enter my launch purchase lineup after all. :)

Just so we're clear though, I am decidedly miffed about the lack of online play, and I'll poop on top of their heads if they don't include that in an "Amped 4".

Nice little interview:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/articles/news/sports/intervie...

lol yeah, that cracked me up aswell. :D

Good to see that they wanted to put Live play in there but "held it off". Means Amped 4 will pretty much certainly have it. Yay to that! :)

Great find, very good and informative interview. Cheers Plumb!

I love the footage there, it's looks really fun. But this is the most embarrasing thing I've ever seen on X360:

Yes, it's certainly very unfortunate that there's no online play, but by the sounds of it it's not something they're giving up on and that's a good sign. Amped 4 will most likely have full online play implemented.

Now, nobody seems to be able to answer this for sure, but if you can in fact talk to friends while playing ANY game and the game uploads your scores and stuff to Live you can sort of get an online experience going by just keeping in touch with your mates while you play. I'm not saying it replaces Live play, but the fact is that you never interacted with other players in Amped 2, so it was essentially just a score challenge where you could talk to eachother.

You'll miss stuff like King of the Mountain though, which was a lot of fun, and I stress how I do miss online play on a whole, but at least this means it's not a totally solo experience. Just trying to view the glass as half full! :)

http://www.ampedsnowboarding.com hasn't had a whole lot of worthwhile content until now. It's not terribly exciting, but it has some exclusive images and bits of the soundtrack. Check it out.

It's a couple of days old, but extremely funny. Go here and download the video called "Insanity":

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/748/748406/vids...

Aaaaaaampeeeed Threeeeeeeeee!

It's not gonna improve graphically, it's basically finished. I think it looks sharp, smooth and the scale is pretty overwhelming at times though. I'm well satisfied.

A fine preview read on Gamespot:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/amped3/news...

Oh and watch the dev interview too.