If you grew up in the 90s and had the original Playstation, I would put money on the fact
that if you didn’t own it, you at least played the Cool Boarders series.
When extreme sports were the boss, Cool Boarders sat right at the top with Tony Hawk Pro Skater
as the kings of the extreme sports video games.
Cool Boarders 3 wasn’t just a game that appealed to not just people who loved snowboarding
but also people who had never had the feet strapped into bindings.
The game was just a cool snowboarding game, hence the name.
There are 5 different mountains, and an extra mode that has you out running an avalanche,
which is great fun and also the most frustrating mode of all.
The mountains take you all over the world, from Mt.
Koji to the Alps and even descending Everest.
You would think those mountain climbers who climb up Everest would bring some snowboards.
Egh, guess they are too afraid of falling off a 1000 foot high cliff.
But not these boarders.
Each mountains events have a specific goal or point total to reach, and if you do that
you can unlock new boards and characters.
While the Tony Hawk game offered real skateboarders to play as, these characters are all original.
Each one has their own skills and feel different.
My favorite was always Eddie, but there was also Nick, Mars, and hello Sasha.
But while the characters may be made-up, the snowboards were not.
They were real boards from companies like Ride and Burton.
But all this would be worthless if the game wasn’t fun, and that is definitely not the
case.
The game puts just as much focus on the racing as it does the tricks.
There are multiple games modes, each one offering a very different experience.
Some of these include Down Hill, which has you racing against three other racers and
trying to finish 1st and also collecting a specific amount of points.
There is also Slope Style, which is a long run through a trick park.
There is also Half pipe and Big Air, where you try to get the highest score possible.
All of these are great, and pretty tough.
You will restart many times before you final get what you need.
I like Down Hill, mostly because you can punch the other racers and make them fall, and then
laugh at them.
The tricks were also an essential part of the game.
The tricks skate the fine line between realism and insanity.
There are flips and spins and grabs, all what you would expect from an extreme sports game.
It’s when you start mixing the tricks together do you see your score really go up.
And anyone who has ever played this game will say, nothing is more exhilarating than when
you hear that beeping saying you have a long grab going.
The longer it goes the more exciting it becomes and the more nervous you get from fear of
crashing.
The controls feel a little stiff simply because of the age of the game, with a power meter
to jump but these felt great when this was first release and I’m not going to pass
judgement 10 years after the fact.
After you get use to them, you will have no problem with them.
I can boil this review down to a simple compound sentence.
If you’ve played this game you don’t need me to tell you how good it is, and if you
haven’t take these words to heart and play it so you can understand what you have missed.