I'VE never been a great fan of the Cool Boarders games, until now that is.

For the release of the third in the series from Sony represents a massive leap forward in every department.

It looks better, plays better, sounds better...in fact, it's decidedly cool all round.

All the usual elements are there, the super smooth snowboarders from which to choose, the jazzy snowboards and so on.

The latest 3D game engine makes this latest Cool Boarders very realistic - you can almost feel the wind chill as you zoom down any of the 34 new courses, dodging trees, jumping canyons and battling to make tight turns.

It's great fun, especially as you can now take a swipe at your opponent as you race side by side, a definite plus if you are not too great a snowboarder, like me. It's extremely pleasing to knock some confident know-it-all type into the barrier with a suitably satisfying crunch. A big attraction of Cool Boarders are the tricks. We all know that tricks make points and there are plenty of tricks for players to master to bang up the bonus level as well as racing against the clock.

I'm still landing on my backside from a straightforward somersault but there are some impressive moves for snowboarding big heads.

They include classics like reverse 360s, front side 540s, board slides, tailgrabs and loads more, all guaranteed to impress your mates. There are three levels of play - rookie, veteran and pro - and six world class events including the Downhill, Boardercross and Slalom.

The graphics are good, with great shadowing effects and the sound of the board cutting through the ice is terrific.

CoolBoarders 3 is definitely worth a look. JE

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.