Pure's limited scope isn't enough to stop the action packed races and beautiful environments in this great racer.
(-) difficulty can be hectic if you forget to add tune ups or change your ATV / tour mode only lasts a few hours / not much of an online community at this point / the detailed graphics can occasionally make you lose the track
We've all known Disney to be the ones behind those rich, irresistible family orientated classic movies that everyone has loved so much. Innocent cartoons like Lilo & Stitch and Emperor's New Grove that were clearly juvenile and innocent, but people of all ages couldn't resist because they were drawn to them from their soul. This same well-known company is behind this offroad racer, an interesting change in direction. While it obviously doesn't have the same sort of charm that Disney's animated movies have been known for, it has a charm all its own: blazing fast speeds through lush, beautiful environments, leading all the way to exhilarating jumps that could make you flinch in amazement, putting your all to making as much fast tricks as possible to score the most points.
Pure is a racing game on ATV's that throws realism out the window in favor for exaggerated but exciting speed and heroic moves to stun those who watch. The racing is wily and stimulating, these ATV's blaze through the tracks at mind twisting speeds, but the moment when the game shines the brightest is when you're jumping off a ramp and taken into mid air at a shocking altitude. Once you're there, you must perform tricks to increase a boost meter, which will allow you to accelerate faster, akin to SSX. To start with, you only have the basic X trick, which are faster to pull off but award the least points. Once you get enough tricks, you'll advance to the triangle tricks, which are for more experienced players, and take longer to pull off, but predictably award you with more juice. Up next are the triangle tricks, which are for the experts, they take a much longer time to pull off, and you'll only find that time available at a select few jumps. If you can accumulate all those points without once crashing, then the special trick is the very last. This works a bit differently. This time you can use up all your boost if you so wish, but during a jump you are now awarded with the opportunity to do a quirky, over the top trick that consumes an extremely large amount of time, as much as five seconds, and you'll need to be confident if you want to pull this off successfully. If you succeed, your boost meter will completely refill. This trick system is completely well-mapped out and full of depth, and it enhances the game thoroughly to give it a whole new degree of challenge. It takes experience to figure out when to do which trick, because each jump on the track was optimized for a certain level of trick, and it'll be your job to determine that as you play, giving experienced players more incentive to sink their teeth deep in.
The game's main front is in the form of the Tour mode, which will have you compete in a cup of races which you strive to earn so many points to unlock the next cup. You don't necessarily need to place first in each event, you just need to satisfy the limit of the point requirement with the sum of the points you've earned. There's three different race types on offer, which is far less than the typical game of this pedigree. The races are self explanatory, moving through a complex track with jumps and obstacles along the way. The tracks are lengthy and full of alternate routes, which for better or worse, gives the races unpredictability. It can be fun drifting through a righteous jump, then seeing where the track leads you next. Many of the tracks have enough extra routes that if you separate them then they could easily pass as two distinct tracks. But then again, it does seem at times that there's an optimal route you ought to take to win, and many of the opponents know where it is from the get-go, which can make races frustrating at the beginning, unless you love a good challenge.
Sprints are the exact same as races except on a much smaller track, stressing more acceleration than trick performing, which makes them slightly less fun than the normal racing. Freestyle events are the best event the game has to offer, because it defangs the sometimes hectic racing competition in favor for a more strategic tricking contest. There's no finish line, you're depleting gas meter determines your amount of time left in the event. To win you perform as many tricks as possible, adding up to a point multiplier every time you score combos, but crash once and you'll lose everything you were about to earn. There's also obtainable pickups littered on most of the jumps, with different purposes like giving you a free special trick or a small addition of gas, and you'll find yourself snatching as many as possible, though the other opponents will probably gobble them up for the first few minutes. This is a very good example of how a game of freestyle should be played out, instead of what many other offroad racing games tend to do, which is putting a single racer in a closed room with countless ramps and fighting the clock and a predetermined chart of the other player's scores.
Winning the races you'll score points to unlock other cups, as well as some upgrade parts to work around with. They give these things to you for a reason, because if your ride isn't up to snuff with the other competitors, then you're going to be thoroughly struggling against obviously superior opponents. The game will bump you with a warning screen if your ATV is incompatible, but it's easy to ignore and you could even go passed it and start the race anyway. Not only are they trying to stop players from entering a more powerful vehicle to effortlessly squash the other racers, they're also trying to prevent you from biting more than you can chew and getting creamed within the first few seconds of beginning a race. It's good to have more than one ATV anyway, built for specific events. Have a vehicle equipped with high speed and acceleration and at least modest handling for the tough races, and keep another handy that's quick at booking tricks. It's not hard to get the hang of everything, but by the time you grow accustomed to all the rules presented in tour mode, you'll be down to the last few cups. Unfortunately, tour mode only lasts for a few hours, but at least you'll unlock up to 32 tracks to play in single race mode. There's no splitscreen, and the online community is scarce at this point, so the biggest motivation for playing this game again is retrying race events to perfect your scores, which thankfully isn't an easy task. And the races are already so intense and action packed that you'll want to breeze through the mountains time after time again anyways.
The graphics are simply superb. The riders and their ATV's are fluid and detailed, but they pale in comparison to the beautiful, lifelike environments you'll be racing through. Whether it be a jungle, a beaten path on some icy caps in Antarctica, or a humid and dirty desert, each track you race through is gorgeous to look at, well fitting with the fast speeds and heated leaps of faith. At the highest point during a jump, it's hard to resist checking out your surroundings in your incredible but extremely brief view. This can occasionally work against you though, because the detail on the tracks can exceed the limit that you can comprehend for a second, resulting in you losing the track. The sound isn't nearly as victorious though, the short quips from the riders don't take very long to get a bit aggravating, and while the music in the soundtrack fits in well enough, there's not nearly enough songs in the mix to play for long without hearing repeats.
Pure is liable to impress any fan of this genre with its well-crafted racing events full of challenge and its off-the-charts presentation. Too bad the experience itself doesn't last for every long, but even with lasting appeal being the weak leg on this package, its by no means a slouch, because repeating races to earn better scores is insanely hard and you'll eventually want to do it all again anyway. People conscious for trophies will need to install an update first, because this game wasn't enabled for trophies at its original release and it was an add-on later, otherwise they'll need to repeat long stretches of the game to earn those rewards. But not matter your excuse for playing it, Pure's limited scope isn't enough to stop the action packed races and beautiful environments in this great racer.