At E3 this year there were a few offroad racing games, but nothing was more impressive than Pure from Disney's gaming division. With lush graphics, a smooth frame rate, and a great boost/trick system that rewards you during the race rather than after it, this could easily be a source of some great fun. And with the pedigree of having worked on the ATV Offroad Fury and MotoGP series for so long under the name Climax Racing, the guys at the newly-retitled Black Rock Studio certainly can be expected to deliver something that's easy to pick up and highly entertaining to play.
It starts with building your ATV in the garage. You can customize one of the pre-made vehicles or you can put it together from scratch using real-world name brand parts, and tweak its stats (speed, handling, acceleration, boost, and tricks) to match the different types of events that Pure throws at you. Then you take it onto the course and it's total mayhem as you're pitted against 15 other racers. Unlike most ATV games, this one makes it tough to force other people to crash, but bumping them off course is certainly a valid tactic.
The racing is paced to keep you moving at high speed, with huge jumps making up many of the tracks. Complete a nice jump by holding down on the left stick then flicking it up as you leave the ground, and you'll be able to do a longer string of tricks or even use an off-the-beaten-path side route that may challenge your skills for it to pay off. And your tricks will allow you to use your boost to get a racing advantage, and you'll gain that boost as soon as you land a trick-filled jump. This way, your placement is all you're looking for, but you'll be using tricks to win a race rather than just risking your neck for little reward.
And tricks are a little deeper than you might expect, too. Put together a few solid ones, and you'll "upgrade" to the next level of tricks, which are riskier to do and take more time to complete. Get some of those going and you'll move onto a final, third level of tricks that are ridiculous but very fun. You have to balance this against using your boost, as boost drains your trick meter and brings you down to a lower trick level. Also, every trick can also be tweaked in amusing ways, which is a good way to fill up your meter early on and keep it full. You'll have to judge not only how to keep juice in your boost meter for when you need it, but also how long each of your tricks take to finish as you aren't going to hang in the air forever.
The tracks are set all around the world and are based on real-world locations, but then have been adjusted to be more exciting and seem more dangerous. The track I spent the most time on was a set of cliffs in Italy, with a beautiful landscape and little village off in the distance beyond a valley. Other tracks include a dense jungle in Thailand, the arid climate of New Mexico, California hills, and the forests of Wyoming - as well as others. While MotorStorm will likely continue to be the king of mud-racing, Pure still doesn't disappoint as your ATV will make tracks in the mud and it'll fly up and dirty your rider's suit as well.
The action will go online as well, with up to 16 people playing together in a good selection of the game's events. And while the only gametype I saw was a race to be first place, the different track types made that more interesting. Sprint-type tracks were smaller and had fewer jumps, forcing you to refine your ATV's handling over repeated laps. It's a big contrast to the huge tracks of other ATV-inclusive games, which often try harder and harder to have more massive tracks. The regular tracks in Pure are still plenty big, too, but the Sprint ones provided a wholly unique experience where I learned a lot in just a few minutes on how to handle my four-wheeled machine.
Pure is in the final stages of polish and is set for a release on Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 in September.
