Game #1037: Cool Boarders 2001(Playstation 1)

  We finally made it to the bottom.

 And so, Cool Boarders on PS1 ends with Cool Boarders 2001. In some ways it seems phoned-in, but in others it feels like it got tweaked in all the right ways, you'd be alright to think that it's a bit of a mixed bag... and it might also be the best one yet.

 Rush it up or trim the fat, it seems either of those were the focus when it came to designing this game. It's much smaller than previous entries, now all the game has to offer is 4 Downhill tracks, Gate and Checkpoint variations, 2 Half-pipe tracks and 2 Big air pipes(Did we really need as many as the previous games had?), 3 Trickmaster stages(Do we really need 3 of these?), 3 board parks, 2 CBX and, finally 7 Pro challenges or events. These modes play exactly like they did previously, and the pro-challenges take the place of the previous game's extra events, although less wacky in tone, the craziest event being about collecting coins while going downhill. The character roster is made up almost entirely of real people, but in career mode you plays as your own custom boarder... and the character creator is as pathetic as it used to be.

 The good news is that while there are less tracks overall, they have much more variety in design, and they've been made wider than ever, so it feels like there are more ways to go down... provided it's not a mode that requires you to go through gates! And, while the game feels shorter... the difficulty has gone way up, the time constraints are much harsher than ever, and missing 4 gates means you're out.

 I might be crazy, but I think this version might have the most polished gameplay in the series. Sure, it's still a bit clunky, but the speed felt just right. The fact that these tracks are more fun to navigate might help in making it feel like it plays better.

 And that's Cool Boarders 2001. It carries some of the same problems it ever had, but in some ways I think it's the most fun to play out of all the five games, so I think it was a decent way to end the series... at least on PS1.

 6.0