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GAME REVIEWED: Cool Boarders 2
RELEASED BY: SCEE
PRICE: £34.99
REVIEWED BY: A.K.
REVIEW: -
If you've played seen or bought Cool Boarders you're probably thinking "oh no! Not another snow boarding disaster!" well think again as SCEE's snow boarding simulation get a much needed overhaul. Those unlucky enough to have played their lack lasting recall might have trouble believing it, but Cool Boarders 2 is an immeasurable improvement on that dire game that graced our Playstations a long time ago.
The main aim these days of converting a sport into a video game is to be able to achieve the realistic realism. But how are we non-snow boarding types, meant to know whether that digital seek to front side melancholy is actually what snowed or does get up to at the weekends. The chances of us normal, sane people of being able to tell whether or not these moves are authentic are pretty slim. So out of the window does the idea of a snow boarding sim and in comes cool boarders 2, the new full-on arcade snow boarding game.
For a start, cool borders never included any two player option and it had limited gameplay and it suffered from dodgy graphics. Well, UEP has obviously put listened to what the critics had to say about the game and have finally done something about. Unsurprisingly cool boarders 2 is still about strapping a smoothly edged piece of wood to your feet while attempting to avoid icy oblivion, UEP's wholesale changes have given a cool boarders 2 the depth of the original lacked and, as a result, opens up fresh levels of game play.
There are now five different options on offer: competition, freestyle, big air, half pipe and board park - all offering varying blends of downhill racing and what is now the main onus of cool boarders two, aerial tracks. While these were available in the original simply to rack up the bonus points, now you can pull off skateboardish indie grabs and sale fishes in especially-designed have tight or during Big Air, over a selection of the stadium styled jumps. Each ram offers a different amount of air time and depending on your joy pad gymnastics, you can thought any trick you want in a certain time. Your joypad gymnastics will have to be good if you want to score a big points in this game, it has the same kind of button combinations as Tekken 3.
The awesome TV style replays are a sight to behold. Each run is seen again from a multitude of camera angles, but the graphics seem to hold up the game from being a masterpiece. They are not totally appalling, each of the four available Boarder's dress code can be changed and you can choose from a wide range of designs of snowboards which you can alter to your specification in the boarder editor mode. The ten tracks available in the game are lengthy and very well detailed with wonderful skyline and hundreds of trees which always seem to find their way onto your path down the mountain.
This game should keep its consumers occupied for quite a while with hundreds of tricks to master and the better game variants offer the game more options than in the first game. Although cool boarders two suffers from pretty dodgy graphics but still manages to play magnificently.
SCORE:
84%
LINKS: www.scee.com