Mini-Review: Pure Arcade Racing Fun

Like a lot of genres nowadays, racing games have become very complicated. Games like Gran Turismo and Forza feature all manner of tuning and customization options, as well as realistic driving physics. And while these features are all well and good–especially for the gearhead crowd–they do take away somewhat from the pick-up-and-play nature that many racing fans crave.

Those fans need look no further then Pure, an off-road ATV racer from none other then Disney Interactive. The game has a lot of appeal for the non-gearhead crowd, with its simple controls and heavy emphasis on tricks and boosting. But what makes the game so great is that while it is easy to pick up and get started, there is enough depth to give it some lasting appeal.

As said before, a big portion of the game is the trick system, and fortunately, it doesn’t require any convoluted or complicated combinations of button presses. Instead, it relies heavily on timing. The more tricks you complete, the higher level tricks you can perform. This means that at the outset you can’t do any crazy moves, instead you have to build up to that. As your trick meter increases you are able to pull of more complicated moves, which take more time to complete. Tricks have to be timed properly, as the higher level moves can only be completed when going off of massive jumps, otherwise you will crash.

And these jumps are another part of the appeal. These massive ramps provide an astounding sense of scale, helped in large part due to the sound. Once you leave the ground the music stops and all you can hear is the wind whistling around you. This not only creates a white knuckle feeling, it also helps to subtly point out which jumps are appropriate for high level tricks.

The incentive to doing tricks is that it fills up your turbo meter. The more moves you are able to pull off, the higher the meter goes, giving you longer bouts of enhanced speed. These boosts are crucial to winning races, giving you the leg-up on the competition. There are essentially two different kinds of races in Pure. There are 5 lap races, which feature much shorter circuits with fewer jumps, which makes landing tricks and using the boost especially important. And then there are the 3 lap races, which are much longer and feature more of the high-flying action described earlier. In addition to this there are “freestyle” courses that focus entirely on tricks.

Visually the game is wonderful, with lush forests and really gritty dirt and mud effects. As an off-road racer Pure sticks with a fairly consistent color palette, with lots of green and even more brown. But as good as it looks, the drab colors beg for more variety. Sure there are courses set in Italy, Thailand, and New Zealand, but eventually they all start to blend together, with only the architecture separating them.

There are, of course, a few other hiccups along the way. The lack of custom soundtracks is disappointing, as is the fairly complex vehicle customization options. Sure they add depth, but they seem very out of sync with the arcade style of racing found in the game. But these are just minor annoyances in what is otherwise a fantastic experience. Pure is a fun and simple arcade racer that provides some truly great moments of white knuckle tension and excitement.