Why? Because when Rare first unveiled the preview screenshots of Bad Fur Day (then known as Twelve Tales: Conker 64) it was a sweetly sick platformer filled with fluffy animals. But during the gestation period the game went through a dramatic transformation, resulting in one of the most surprising, funny and leftfield games around.

Amped 3 gives the distinct whiff that it went through a similar process. Somewhere buried in this game is a serious freestyle snowboarding simulation. But after two previous ‘serious’ snowboarding titles, developers Indie Built freaked out and moved in a different direction. Like Bad Fur Day, the end result is one of the strangest and most refreshing games you can experience (including the bizarre stuff you can import from Japan).

There was always an element of oddness lurking in the earlier Amped titles, but this was secondary to the demanding gameplay. This time the humour is at the core and permeates throughout the game's whole. Most strikingly there are the outlandish cutscenes, which include eye-popping nonsense such as a talking robotic pig's head, crayon-drawn demons, appalling French rapping, Russian finger puppets, paper-based RPGs, perfume for corpses and socks who hunt yeti. The clear highlights are the razor-sharp homages to games of yore and a lawyer-baiting swipe at EA and the SSX series.

The game wants you to view these cutscenes, so the high challenge level from the previous games has eased off. The trick system is still reasonably realistic, but the leeway granted to the player has dramatically increased. Landing with the snowboard facing sideways no longer results in a faceful of snow. Grinding is automatic and the window for releasing the jump button has increased.

The result is a less challenging experience, but a more leisurely and ultimately more satisfying one. That feeling of accomplishment from completing the hardest trick challenges is still there, but now it is intermittent. The challenge may have lessened, but then so has the frustration. Snowboarding isn’t a sport, it’s a lifestyle that exudes effortless cool and this fundamental change captures that experience.

The huge mountains of Amped 3 may not be very ‘next-gen’, but they are satisfying and relaxing places to be. Well-crafted design touches appear throughout, with what looks simply to be an outcrop of rock actually being a skate-park unto itself. It’s possible to spend hours playing with scenery, creating games within the game. The slopes are alive with other boarders, crowds of people watching and indulging in snowball fights. Amped 3 is a snowboard utopia, full of powdery goodness.

It also pokes lots of fun. The culture of snowboarding is ripe for plundering and the game does not let this opportunity go. There are stereotypes and jibes at both the sport, game conventions and itself (the much-criticised difficulty of Amped 2 is a running joke), but deep at its heart is a love of what it teases. Rarely does a game have the maturity to do comedy in this way.

The structure complements the new direction. Gone are the requirements to own each mountain by obtaining a certain number of trick points on a run. In acknowledgement of the trend towards more freeform play, there are now many different challenges around the mountain which the player can board to in any order and at any pace. The challenges offer more variety, with new vehicles are including sledges, hang-gliders and snowmobiles, although the snowboard still remains the focus.

The fetishisation of the absurd continues with the challenges, which range from collecting Day-Glo kitty litter to deliberately smashing into the mountain to incur the highest hospital bill. At points there are specific challenges that must be passed to move the bizarre ‘story’ forward, but most of the game is up to the player.

A dedicated run through the story will see the side-splitting finale in six hours. The game sadly lacks the online modes of Amped 2, although it does have online leaderboards for all 296 challenges. Once complete, the mountains remain open for players to try any remaining challenges and improve their scores.

For all its oddness, one of the strangest things about Amped 3 is that it was made at all. The previous two titles were never stellar sellers, partly due to poor timing (all three Amped releases have coincided with a Gotham racer and a major FPS on the Xbox release schedule). Take 2’s decision to continue with this niche series was a surprising if entirely welcome decision. Sadly it is likely to be the last as developer Indie Built have now been disbanded and the game has effectively bombed.

So does that make Amped 3 the Ico or Rez for this generation? It’s too early to tell. Not that it really matters. Either way Amped 3 is a chilled-out, whacked-out gem of a game and one that demonstrates that games can do ‘funny’ and ‘more accessible’ and pull it off with style.