A Pure Adrenaline Rush

When Disney released Pure, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I heard of the title but didn’t really have a true interest in it. Also when I found out it was an off road racer, I had my doubts, after the tedium that was Motorstorm. That changed when I put the game into my Xbox 360 and was surprised to see a very good arcade style ATV racer with a strange sense of familiarity.

Developed by Blackrock Studios (which was formerly known as Climax before being acquired by Disney,) Pure is an arcade style ATV racer where sixteen opponents tackle some of the most extreme open road dirt tracks ever seen. Controls are simple, expected for a racer like this.

The main weapon used in the game is a boost button, activated by performing tricks via a combination of stick movement and a button press (A for light, B for moderate, and Y for heavy.) Repeating tricks constantly result in less boost than before. In addition, once the boost meter is completely filled, a special trick can be executed by means of both bumper buttons.

Sound familiar? It should for fans of EA’s once great SSX series on the PS2, specifically SSX Tricky. In fact playing Pure made me want to play Tricky again.

Three types of races are available, Race (long tracks with a lot of jumps,) Sprint (very short tracks designed for speed) and my personal favorite, Freestyle (the closest to SSX Tricky,) a points based competition where completing tricks is required to keep your fuel level up.

While the game mechanics are simple, the experience is quite addictive. And it should be in order to overcome the ten stages of World Tour mode. Along the way upgrades can be obtained.

All the ATVs are highly customizable with tons of options to select from. The only problem is the upgrade interface can be quite cumbersome and takes a little patience to get everything perfect. Thankfully parts can be automatically chosen for you and you can still be competitive. Not everyone wants to monkey around under the hood.

Blackrock had a long history in racing games when they were known as Climax, and Pure continues that tradtion. The game flows smoothly even though the ATVs feel a little floaty when in midair, and tricks flow into combinations without a hitch. This is arcade racing at its best.

Visually the game is a knockout. We’ve seen some graphically impressive racers lately in the form of Dirt and Grid, and Pure ranks up there. High detail, tons of blur, and all this with no slowdown at all. It’s an amazing feat.

I can’t truly the same about the sound though. While it is more than adequate, it’s not as memorable as the graphics are. In fact I ended up changing the music to some of the tracks on my iTunes that felt more appropriate to the series. The main narrator is quite good and gives tons of useful information at the right time, but the quotes of some of the racers can get irritating at times.

I never saw Pure coming. More so I never saw how good the game is. Fans of SSX Tricky finally have their true sequel (I never thought of SSX 3 as a true sequel, more of a "jump the shark" moment.) The only difference comes in trading in a snowboard for an ATV, but the addictiveness is left intact.

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