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| Source // Steam |
Stick a boost on them, point them at a gnarly hill, and you can get extreme, and all the kids love extreme racing, right? Mud is all the rage, as shown by MotorStorm, isn't it?
Well, let's find out.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
ATV games of yesteryear are often nothing to write home about. They're played and enjoyed by those who get a kick out of what they have to offer, but they don't have the large appeal that racing games involving cars do, even off-road cars.
This kind of game is a tough sell, so Pure does something different. It's not just an off-road racer, even though it is. It's an off-road racer with style.
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| Source // MobyGames |
You don't really get to see that style immediately, however, as you're welcomed into the world of this extreme sport by building the machine that will get you across the finish line in style.
When I say it is in-depth, I am doing it a disservice. All of those tiny black marks on the left of this screenshot are something customisable on our quad. Handlebars. Wheels. Seats. Brakes. Suspension. Paint job. Sponsorship. Mudguards. Footrests...
The level of detail is alarming to some I'm sure, but this entire process allows you to create the quad of your dreams, tuned largely for either outright speed or the ability to show off in the sky.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Events in Pure are separated up like many other racing games, your progress determining how quickly you unlock the next event to enter into.
At first, they'll be simple races where you just need to get around the course the fastest, or fast enough, but eventually, they'll include events where your style is more important than your speed.
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| Source // Steam |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Pure is all about hitting a ramp very fast to give yourself some surely unrealistic amount of hang time to pull off all kinds of tricks. Landing those tricks fills your boost bar, allowing you to speed around the course more quickly, but also unlocking bigger and better tricks for you to pull off, culminating in an over-the-top super trick which is probably specific to your character, I already forget.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
To launch off a ramp nicely you need to flick the left analogue stick down and up to sort of bounce yourself into the sky, and your choice of shocks and tyres and frames and Lord knows what else will affect how nice these bounce of yours is.
Once in the sky, you can pull off a trick in a simple Tony Hawk-esque manner, by holding X and a direction. Hold it too long and you won't be able to climb back on your quad quick enough to land without crashing and pull a trick too often and you won't get as much of a reward.
The bigger tricks require not only longer and higher jumps to successfully pull enough, but you've got to have put in enough of the smaller tricks to fill up your boost bar to unlock the better tricks, and then you can't have spent that boost playing catch up on the track because if you spend too much you lock off that level of trick again.
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| Source // PlayStation |
It's an interesting little system, made all the more complicated when you can tweak each and every trick with a press of either L1 or R1. Four basic tricks per level, each can be tweaked in two ways... oh, and there's a flipping mechanic that I can't pull off for the life of me... Yeah, Pure is deep.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
Deep, and a little dull. Pure doesn't look too bad, set in exaggerated locales that make for some nice races, but for all the enormous jumps that should clearly kill anyone who attempts them, it isn't wowing me.
In MotorStorm, the quads are annoying because of the MotorStorm physics. In Pure, they're annoying because of just how much they can do, and how much you've got to stay on top of so that they get it all done without you eating dirt.
It doesn't take much learning to get to grips with bouncing before a jump to get more air. It doesn't take much to understand how to mix up your tricks to keep things fresh. It doesn't take much to know that the more you boost, the less you can do in the air.
But put those all together, and I'm a little all over the place. To see what a trick tweak does often requires finding out the hard way. While resetting to the track is nice and quick, your opponents are quick too. A mistake on a single trick might be all it takes to lose a race and have to try again.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Well, that's racing, no? Sometimes you need to try again. Sometimes you can't do everything, and you should use your vehicle to its strengths, not its weaknesses.
You can build multiple vehicles, and unlock new parts and upgrades for them all the time, so you can have a go-to speed machine and a bouncy show-off machine, and switch between the two as and when, but races aren't so clearly defined.
A straight race tasks you to finish fast, but to get a lot of boost to go fast, you need to pull off tricks. If your quad is set up in such a way that pulling tricks is difficult (though never impossible), getting lots of boost will also be difficult.
I'm sure I'm looking too much into this and moaning for no reason, but over the course of only a few events, I was starting to tire of what Pure had to offer.
Final Word
I'm probably missing out on some ridiculous tracks with huge jumps that allow you to pull off multiple tricks before landing, but there's no incentive for me to unlock those tracks.
The level of customization of your quad bike is insane, and with even more stuff to unlock scattered as rewards for good results, you could spend quite a bit of time building and rebuilding your quad in any way you like. But as interesting as it was to be dumped into this detailed part of the game, I don't want to dive into it again.
Is it because I don't like quad bikes? Is it because I crashed a lot? Is it because I had played too many off-road racers in too short a span of time? Something wasn't sitting right with me. Pure probably was a great game, but I wasn't feeling it.
The 1001 write up says that Pure is a little like the SSX series, in that it's a little unrealistic for the sake of showing off, and I can see that. I might even say that seeing that more will make it easier to return to for another attempt. Think of it not as an off-road racer, but an exaggerated take on one. Like MotorStorm, but where you're more likely to be the cause of frustration rather than the physics engine.
I'll probably give it a fairer go than what I gave it, but I'm not desperate to enter race after race after race like I have been for the Grid series (now going through Grid 2 just as much).
If you want an off-road racer that is a little different, Pure is a little different. It won't help much if you don't like quad bikes or the people who ride them, but it does offer something different and seems to go all-in to make sure those things are as deep as the drops you'll be soaring over across the world.
It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it's not bad.
Fun Facts
The soundtrack is full of multiple musical genres, but the menus only play rock. Thanks, Wikipedia.
Pure, developed by Black Rock Studio, first released in 2008.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2008.