Pure

Review from Phil, Phil and Phil - Saturday, 04 October 2008 @ 8:46pm

Extreme sports games peaked somewhere during the Tony Hawk timeline. Racing games always hold up through the tests of time, but most hybrid combinations of racing and freestyle sports end up being pretty crap-tacular. Aside from the occasional SSX gem, you won't find many original, inspiring extreme games coming out these days. Pure tries its very best to break this mold, and although everything works fine on paper, the execution leaves a few key holes in what could have been a must-have title.

As an ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle or Awesome Totally Very) racer, Pure visibly lacks the open-ended gameplay of Gran Turismo proportions, and character customisation of Tony Hawk pedigree. After an opening tutorial level, You simply pick one of several stereotypical characters (the All-American extreme surfer dude, the spunky, wild chick and the Asian dude) and hit the World Tour. It's a series of ten stages, each with a number of events to compete in to unlock later stages. It's a simple, effective structure which feels pretty fun, and we want nothing less from a game like Pure.

There are actually no pre-set vehicles to race with; instead you must create an ATV from scratch in one of ten garage slots. You can choose to quick-select an ATV style, but the entire process doesn't take all that long and you'll want to get a feel for how to stat system works in order to tweak your ride for gaining an advantage in the later stages. No problems here.

I believe he can smash his face in

Off you go, then. Hit the dirt and try a race in one of many long, labyrinthine courses which will test your endurance and dexterity to the absolute max. Despite being brought to us by the innocent-sounding Disney Interactive Studios, Pure is tough as nails and will send frustration-prone gamers to the brink of insanity. However, I can't fault the gamers themselves for any broken controllers, because what should be a fairly well-rounded off-road racer is significantly unbalanced with its annoyingly necessary trick system.

Whether it be a race, sprint or freestyle event, you absolutely must be tricking at every opportunity to even have a chance of winning. When you land a trick it awards boost power, and the opponent ATVs can not be beaten without it. It is a physical impossibility. While boosting in SSX only complemented your fundamental snowboarding skill, in Pure you are nothing without it. There is no opportunity to simply outrace your opponents on the fun courses and enjoy a simple racing experience. You will not have a spare moment to have actual fun hurtling around the tracks and hitting jumps on your wacky ATV. Every waking second of the race must be spent thinking about how to approach each jump and which trick to perform.

To make matters worse, the "preload" system is put in place to cause further annoyance. This requires you to hold the left stick down and flick it up at the peak of the jump to get extra height. Again, you are nothing without preloading, and it is a necessary evil. Here's a common scenario to illustrate just how cumbersome Pure feels to play.

Heading off for a quiet "stroll" in the woods

You take a hairpin corner at blistering speed, turning with the left stick. A jump presents itself at the end of the curve, so while turning with the left stick youll need to hold down the left stick and flick up the left stick to grab some air. Hold down A, B or Y along with a direction on the left stick to perform a trick, then even out your ATV with the left stick to ensure a smooth landing.

It's a complete clusterfuck, and control relies solely on the left stick for turning, preloading, tricking, wheelies and balancing. Hey, developers! Look a centimetre or two to the right of the left stick to find - shock horror - a right stick! Wow, who needs dual analogue when we can just cram every control mechanism into one? To be fair, the right stick is utilised. For camera control. Because that's so totally necessary in a game like this.

The most disappointing part of this whole situation is that tricking and boosting is fun. Really fun. The tricks look cool, you'll encounter absolutely monster jumps in almost every track, and boosting really gives your ATV some rocket speed. Of course, when tricking and boosting is as necessary as it is in Pure, it becomes much less fun. You won't care about managing to pull off some crazy ass Blind Faith trick when you know you'll have to do it at least five times throughout the race in order to win. Ironically enough, the Freestyle events where success is based solely on points gained from tricking are the easiest to win, because you aren't simultaenously managing boost power and curvature of the track to gain the lead.

It's most likely going to be a brodeo

Now, this isn't to say that a proficient player can't win. With practice, I was able to comfortably defeat all the earlier stages because I followed a strict path and ensured I maximised my boost power with appropriate tricks at the right times. I won, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as pulling off a mind-bendingly extreme trick just because I could.

That pretty much wraps it up for Pure. It's fun, but it could have been a much more fulfilling and dynamic single player experience if the entire game wasn't so dependent on mastery of tricking and boosting. With that said, it's heaps of fun just sliding around the tracks and leaping from monster heights. Just don't expect to win and have fun at the same time.

Pros

A solid all-around game engine and well-designed courses makes for a screaming fast, silky smooth ATV racer. Great fun in this regard.

Cons

Awfully necessary tricking system and a few design flaws drags this game through the mud when it should have been squeaky clean.