Riders have many new physical characteristics. My team consisted of a girl with pigtails, a guy with a red Mohawk and blue suit of armor, and a dreadlocked Rasta wearing flannel and jeans. 989 did scale back on the amount of initially available snowboards. The custom paint jobs are gone and you have to unlock most of the decks in the career mode. Sounds in the game are pretty decent.
Presentation is slick, too.
Loading times are very fast, and saved games are automatically booted up from the card when you turn the game on. It works as background noise while you're cruising down the mountain. And you will cruise. The gamplay in CoolBoarders 2001 is smooth, fast, and relatively easy to get the hang of. At least the basic tricks are easy.