Cool Boarders 2 (Playstation 1)

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Herschie
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:44 pm

Cool Boarders 2 (Playstation 1)

Postby Herschie » July 15th, 2018, 8:19 pm

This is a neat-o little game! I'm sure we've all heard of Cool Boarders around here, and I remember awhile ago I posted about games you can play for ten minutes. Cool Boarders 2 is definitely one of them. Took me some time to get the hang of doing all the tricks and controls, but I got it before too long.

I remember back in high school, I had a demo version of this that only had the first course. Often I'd sit by the phone waiting for a girl to call me back, and I would play that one course over and over. And over and over. And over and over. Next thing I knew it was late, and she never called. So I remember that first track quite well.

Hey I can look on the bright side, my wife never makes me wait all that long for the honey-do list!

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Rev
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:31 pm

Re: Cool Boarders 2 (Playstation 1)

Postby Rev » July 16th, 2018, 12:05 am

Someone else actually played this game, lol!

This is probably one of my favorite games of all time (probably ALL nostalgia). I first played this on the PS1 Demo Disc that game with my console. I'm not sure if it was different on different discs but mine had the the course Sunset Downhill (the second stage).

What I really like about this game is the unique Competition Mode. I have yet to ever play a mode quite like it on another game. What you do on this mode is get a score of 9 to 0 based on your placing on the course. On normal mode there are 9 courses and you get a score on each race. Now... what I really like is that your race placing doesn't actually determine what order you begin the next race. in between each course you must complete 2 jumps off trick courses and the higher the score you get the sooner you get to begin the next race. However, you cannot change boards between the 2 trick jumps and the main course, meaning you have to make a choice of having a board that handles the jumps well and risk being slower on the main course (trick boards are slower), use an All around Board and try to have the best of both worlds, or go for the Alpine Boards which are very difficult for jumps (worst balance) and be fast on the main race. Since your start order on each course can give other racers a huge head start (last place gives about a 30 seconds head start to the player that has the best tricks), this is an important choice to make.

While on normal mode is pretty easy and you can pretty much do well regardless of the strategy you choose,once you beat the normal mode and mirror mode, Hard mode becomes available. This is probably the most rewarding hard mode I've played on a game. The racers are much faster on this mode and score much higher on their tricks and if you want to even pass the Competition mode you really need to have a fast racer and solid tricks, meaning you must master both aspects of the Competition Mode (the tricks and courses). I've been playing the hard mode off and on for around 20 years now and have only scored a perfect game twice in that time.

The other modes are okay but for me, the Competition Mode is my favorite part about the game. None of the other Cool Boarders games have a mode quite like this one. The other games may have better graphics but to me this is my favorite snowboarding game (and sports game) ever made (and I've played quite a few). Probably nostalgia talking but i love this game. Glad someone else has given it a try.

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Retro STrife
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Joined: August 3rd, 2015, 7:40 pm

Re: Cool Boarders 2 (Playstation 1)

Postby Retro STrife » July 18th, 2018, 9:40 am

Whoa, count me in too. I also played Cool Boarders 2 on a PS1 demo disc, and it made me really want the game. I eventually did get it and played it quite a bit. In retrospect, the trick system isn't all that fun and the animations and controls are pretty clumsy. Once the Tony Hawk series came along a couple years later, it set a new standard for extreme sports games and I realized all of CB2's flaws. And once SSX came along, it was light years better for snowboarding games. But the Cool Boarders series was fun to have around while it lasted and I have a lot of good memories of it. CB2 was definitely my favorite in the series.

(Side note: While CB2 was great in the wintertime, I feel like Jet Moto 2 was the summertime equivalent. Everything that I said about CB2 above, I could say the same about JM2. From playing it on the demo disc, to needing to own it, to all the flaws that it has in retrospect.)


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