PURE

Posted 4 years ago By - Brian Edey

PURE is one of those racing titles that do everything right and nothing wrong. Black Rock Studios, the games developer take little chances with innovation, but keeps the actual gameplay simple, sweet and very effective. Instead of worrying about innovating something that has been done many times before, they make the actual gameplay nearly perfect, the graphics really amazing and some great audio to top off the experience.


Pull trigger, go fast, crash, do big jumps with cool tricks and look wicked doing it. Basically that is everything about PURE’s basic gameplay experience that you will love to play over and over again. Using a combination of flicking the left thumbstick up, called Pre-loading, then down to jump your ATV as you reach the top of hills, and then as you gain some cool air you hit either the B, Y or A button and a general direction, again with the left thumb stick to pull off some basic to some very cool looking tricks which adds to your turbo boost level.

Just do not pull off the same trick two times in a row, because you will not get that much boost, which is needed to catch the other racers who are very good drivers most of the time, though sometimes they do crash pretty bad in some spectacular ways which look very painful. As you pull off tricks they are rated on a scale, using words like ‘FRESH’ and ‘TAME’ and as you pull off cooler tricks you get a bigger boost on your Thrill Bar, allowing for Turbo Boost, and even cooler tricks. If you completely maximize the Thrill Bar, you can pull off these super tricks which last a very long time, and you have to pull them off perfectly with turbo jumps and flying high, hitting the Xbox keys at the correct time. But do not fear this is not a button mini game, more of a skill based control scheme.

There are three main events in game, Freestyle where you gain points by pulling off tricks and combo moves, races and sprints. Races are just races and Sprints are these fast, short tracks that only take a few minutes total to beat and some real skill later in the game. The number of tracks in the game is enormous and you unlock more as you win or place in the top three positions or even just finish the actual competition you are on.


The Xbox Live racing side of things is fun, with up to 16 players and overall it seemed to be very stable with no visual lag with the few games I was able to play online before my router imploded, but as I said it was fun and I can see plenty of hours being wasted, lapping my friends and alienating them with my evil laughter.

If you like tweaking your vehicles, this is the game for you with plenty of frames, brakes, engines, seats, shocks, handle bars, and much more, and you can customize colors, paint jobs, stickers and more. Almost every item has some sort of effect on the actual handling, acceleration, top speed, etc of the ATV and what is even more impressive, the change in the ATV is noticeable even if you adjust a single item, so learning what vehicle suits you is important.


PURE has some of the best graphics we have seen on any console, with amazing scenery, great character models and some kick ass effects especially when you are tearing up the environment by going through the mud through many of the great tracks. The ATV’s are very well done with some amazing detail all over the bike from the sticker, paint job and the equipment. It is great to see you own creation, fully customized the way you want it driving around the tracks like a bat out of hell.

In the end though, nothing is more impressive then the actual tracks, ranging from forests to deserts with twisty tracks, small jumps to some of the biggest jumps which can take several seconds to reach the bottom when you hit them at full speed. Some of the tracks take several minutes to drive around and even with their size, attention to detail and the games racing physics going nuts for sixteen ATV’s the frame rate never drops down once.


PURE has some of the most impressive music in any racing game in a long time, a very long time. Bands included in the game range from Wolfmother, DJ Hyper, The Answer, and Blideside, while the music is great it does not impose it self over the gameplay it just fully supports the entire game. Also what is just as impressive, are the environmental sound effects, vehicle effects and the little bit of voice over work. They all complement the audio side of the game and like the music; they do not become annoying or pull you away from the experience called PURE.

The value here is high because there are a huge number of single player World Tour races, single player single races and multiplayer racing which will appeal to everyone. Building your own ATV is also very sweet since you can customize the hell out of it.

Buy it; the game is just amazing and one of the top racers of all time, very fun and very addictive.

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