Cool Boarders 2

"2 Kewl!"

Cool Boarders is now a Sony Playstation household name, just like Tomb Raider, Ridge Racer, Final Fantasy, Tekken, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. I blame this because the first game was brilliant, then the sequels came out and either made the series better (Tekken) or worse (Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot). Cool Boarders 2 is a good game though, reasonable graphics, music and gameplay.

You can customise your characters. You hav Erin an all round female, Jin, the cool one of the bunch and Yaggi, the male all round character. Once you select your characters (you can have more) and change their clothes from shirts and trouses to suit their needs, think carefully, you'll be looking at them for the next one hundred and seventy five seconds.

Once you have selected a character, the fun begins, or so you think as you have more options to go through. You have to customise your snow board and then select what course you want to 'race' on. Although usually you are the sole rider, you board to the bottom of the track without getting board or running out of time.

Now the fun begins, you get a short loading screen of around ten seconds then you are on your way. You have to board in between oil tanks and drums and over well fitted ramps. It is a hard game to master, you see the biggest ramp you have seen in the game and you think 'I am going to jump this beauty!' so you press X to jump, only to jump to early and now very far, either falling flat on your fance, falling down or smashing in to the face of a cliff wall.

The game is designed great, although in the snow you see one or twoblack polygons and walls missing, those are the only glitches though. The amount of detail on the levels great. The thing about the sound and music is that it is brilliant, just fantastic music and voice acting. Cool Boarders 2 is just one of the games which should be checked out, I am not good at these games, but I loved it.

Good

- Just a great game really

Bad

- Tricky to learn, hard to master

Summary

Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 9/10
Music - 8/10
Gameplay - 7/10
Lifespan - 6/10
Challenge - 6/10
Enjoyment -8/10
Overall - 7/10

Alternatives - I recommend trying the first Coolboarders game, or the third one. If you are an owner of the Playstation 2, then SSX and SSX Snowboarding might just be for you!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/02, Updated 09/15/02