It is a more Tony Hawk take on the sport -- it's not so much "realistic" (lol) as it is DEEP. It has tight controls, great course design/objectives, beautiful graphics -- probably the best powder physics in any snowboarding game -- and really polished mechanics. I love SSX Tricky/3 as well, but it's nice to have a game that isn't so loose and wacky and doesn't have the silly "racing" angle. It's the difference between 2Xtreme and Tony Hawk, really. It's easy to blow two or three hours in Amped 2 just perfecting a run.
If I had one complaint, it would be that doing "butters" to link tricks isn't super-intuitive, but once you master it: OMG SCORE
