Microsoft

Game Description: Amped 2 is the ultimate freestyle snowboarding experience, offering the largest, most varied trick library of any snowboarding game. Explore vast areas of wide-open, spectacularly rendered real mountains packed with terrain parks designed by world-famous snow park architect, Chris Gunnarson. Play head-to-head with friends in the various multiplayer modes. When you're ready to take it to the next level, connect to Xbox Live to check rankings and challenge the world's best virtual riders. Feel what it's like to live the life of a real professional snowboarder. Travel the globe, and pull sick tricks in front of sponsors, photographers, and fans. Build your fame, and get photos and demo reels in the latest snowboard magazine or video. Climb to the top ranks of the sport, and become a media superstar … all to the sounds of more than 300 killer indie tracks.

Although I've never actually snowboarded in my life, thanks to Amped 2 I can now get sick Canadian bacon air with the best of them—and I have the calluses to prove it.

Just as Devil May Cry and Halo re-wrote the rules of their genres, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding eschews many of the conventions of snowboarding games and presents a refreshing spin on its weathered concept.

Game Description: Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding ditches the conventional racing modes of other snowboarding games and instead focuses on freestyle action—in other words, executing tricks with style. The excellent trick system and accurate physics make for tight gameplay across the board. The game sports a robust career mode as well as quick start and multiplayer modes.

When I first heard of Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding I was intrigued by the concept. Although I really enjoy the over-the-top extreme sports action in games like SSX or the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, there is something to be said about a game that involves a sport like snowboarding and tries to model it after the real world experience of the sport. No crazy levels, no outlandish characters and no mid-air break dancing tricks. Just man and board trying to take over the snowboarding world. Cool.

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Mild Lyrics

NFL Fever 2002 is a good start for a franchise that will likely be a big investment for Microsoft and its first-party developers.