Cool Boarders
PlayStation * Sony

Review by Michael Vafeas
7.4

While games like Cool Boarders are by no means revolutionary in concept, when presented with graphics and speed as in Namco's Alpine Racer, snow racing games offer unparalleled thrills and satisfying realism. Anyone who has experienced skiing or snowboarding will testify that the sport offers a sensation like no other. The crisp, cold wind, the evergreens blazing past you, and the ability to look around from the peak of a snow-covered mountain and see the earth spread out beneath you all add to the unique experience of the skiing. Unfortunately, the experience has yet to be captured in its totality in any game, although Alpine Racer is by far the best effort. Cool Boarders, while not being overly representative of actual showboarding besides on a purely superficial level, does offer some mild racing thrills.

In this apparent spin-off of Sony's own 2Xtreme, you control a snowboarder over several mountains and race against others as well as your ghost in an effort to demonstrate that you can...ummm... shread? Well, perhaps my terminology is inaccurate, but the game nonetheless has some serious control problems that get in the way of play. First of all, the control is a bit on the stiff side, which could be a problem when you engage in a racing event in which brakes are non-existent. Blazing around the winding trails, it is almost impossible to avoid occasionally hitting the edge of the narrow track, after which you will not fall off to the side, but bounce back (sometimes with a violent roll) and usually hit the other side of the track. Realistic? No. A problem? Yes. This interferes greatly with the fluidity of the game and makes hitting the boundaries of the track a fatal mistake. Moreover, it's just plain annoying and should have been corrected early in development. In some areas, you can virtually play a game of human pinball as you bounce off of a couple of rocks which protrude from the ground. Furthermore, the tricks are insanely tedious, and offer little incentive to even perform them. On the positive side, the game gives a excellent feeling of speed, and does a fair job of simulating the feeling of snow rushing beneath your feet. The ghost mode is also a nice addition, and allows you to view yourself and learn from your mistakes.

The graphics are decent, though nothing too fancy. The snowboarders and mountains are all nicely detailed polygons, though more variation in the visuals could have made for a more entertaining trip down the mountainside. The whoosh of the showboard is convincing, but the game could have done considerably better minus the generic, clueless "surfer dude" vocals, which continually plague your ears with sardonic remarks and rude comments. The music is average, though the composition and presentation of the various tunes seem decidedly rushed and uninspired. Again, a game with a soundtrack that gets the job done, and nothing more.

While the game seems like it could be fun, the lack of variety in the different tracks and control nuances keep the game from being one of those "keep comin' back for more" games. For those crazy about winter sports, this one might be worth the buy, but for the rest of us, it's worth a trip to Blockbuster.


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