In fact, it proved so popular that
two further games appeared; one
for the Xbox in 2003 and a third for
the Xbox 360 in 2005. It almost
wasn’t to be, though. “The whole
development process from conception
to completion was a scary, huge
learning experience for me,” admits
Larsen. “I mean I literally had to put
my career on the line to help get
Amped approved for development.
My actual role on Amped was studio
art director, but the official Amped
credits lists me as ‘original concept’.
I don’t think it was an accurate
description, because there were lots
of people who contributed to the
original concept, but I guess I earned
that honorary title because I was the
dumb-ass who directly disobeyed my
studio manager who told me in these
exact words: ‘Nate, I forbid you to
show this concept today.’ Needless to
say, I gambled my career on Amped,
and during the lunch break of our
big Xbox meeting, while my manager
was out of the room I slid an Amped
proposal across the table to the VP
of Xbox Games, Ed Fries, and pitched
the concept of Amped to him while
the other managers were at lunch,
and he loved it! That is how Amped
officially became an Xbox launch title.
It’s hard to imagine, but if the ultra
conservative studio managers had
their way, Amped would have never
seen the light of day.”
Amped did happen, though, and
Larsen soon found himself working
with a passionate team over a
development period of roughly 18
months. Larsen recalls that around
FUN DMC
SSX TRICKY
Despite featuring remixed
tracks from SSX, EA’s
sequel proved popular
thanks to the inclusion of
outrageous tricks.MORE LIKE CHOKED
STOKED
This average effort was
released in 2009 to a tepid
reception. An updated
version, Big Air, added
more content.Plenty of snowboarding
games hit the slopes after
Amped’s 2001 release.
Here are just some of the
titles that followed in its
radical wake.LET’S
SHRED
MEEK SLOPE RIDERS
STEEP
Ubisoft’s ambitious open
world snowboarder has
some decent ideas, but it
didn’t really achieve the
momentum it needed.50 people worked on the game, with
the number rising to closer to 100 a
couple of months ahead of the Xbox’s
launch date. During that hectic period
lots of research was done to ensure
Amped looked and felt as accurate
as possible. “One of the important
lessons we learned was how critical
it is to obtain on-site reference video
and photos to reproduce real-world
locations. Amped was no different
than Links in that regard,” Larsen tells
us. “We formed an acquisition team
of four to six people who had the
‘terrible’ job of riding on every single
mountain, filming and photographingevery single run before it made its
way into the game. We wanted the
resorts and mountains in the game to
be authentic, and capture the feeling
of being there in real life. This was
one of the best things about working
on Amped. The ‘research’ trips were
so much fun. I am sure that almost
everyone on the team knew that we
were having the time of our lives,
getting paid to live like snowboarding
rock stars. It was awesome! Microsoft,
and ‘Uncle Bill’ (Gates) spared no
expense launching the Xbox. They
sent us off with credit cards without
spending limits, and access to the
best snowboarding locations in
the world. The ‘research’ trips were
definitely some of the most fun,
biggest adventures of a lifetime.”Power trip
Those trips might have been fun, but
Larsen and his team still had to turn
those excursions into a game, and
that was far from easy, even with the
processing power of the Xbox. “One
of the biggest challenges we faced
during the development of Amped was
trying to develop a game for hardware
that didn’t exist, with promises of
capabilities that seemed impossible
up to that time,” admits Larsen. “The
art team and programmers, in some
cases, couldn’t even process the
geometry of the mountains and trees
using the most hardcore, custom-built
PCs, let alone imagine that a console
was going to be able to deliver that
kind of performance. But in the end,“The ‘research’ trips were so much fun. I am
sure that almost everyone on the team knew
that we were having the time of our lives”
ABOVE Real-life
professional
snowboarders can
be found on each
mountain. Beat
them to learn
new tricks.extra
102 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE