Excellent racer - PURE and simple
Each race begins with you being able to perform a few simple tricks, but then you gradually build up a ‘thrill meter’, which allows to perform bigger and better stunts. Alternatively, instead of building up your metre to perform better tricks, you can use the boost function which drains the bar. so that you'll forfeit some of the bigger stunts. Therefore you need to make important decisions in each race, choosing whether to bank your points so you can pull off bigger tricks or using it to boost and catch up or speed away from your rivals.The tricks start off being simple enough to perform, really requiring nothing more than timing, but as you build up the metre and attempt to rack tricks together they require plenty of skill to execute if you hope not to land head-first into gravel, so when you do get them right they feel instantly satisfying as well as looking visually impressive.
Freestyle mode, in which you have the chance to show off the whole array of tricks, is a lot of fun. Instead of racing point-to-point, you ride around the track keeping an eye out for jumps to launch off and you link combos together in a bid to score more points than your rivals. With a quick glance to the top right corner of the screen, you can see how your rivals are getting on, which often encourages you to try more daring stunts in order to catch up.
In single player mode PURE is as entertaining a racer as I’ve played. What prevents it from being a title worthy of a higher review score than I’m ultimately going to give it, is its half-baked online component. The races themselves are impressively lag-free, boasting smooth frame-rates, and all of the tracks that you enjoy in the single player game are here, but the lack of options to tailor the online experience is disappointing. You can’t create lobbies to get your friends in the same race; you can’t choose which tracks you want to play - it’s totally random; and you can’t set certain parameters to make games more even. I made the decision early on to complete the single player modes so that I can compete with those players online who only ever choose ‘A’ class vehicles, even when other players in the lobby are driving with ‘D’ or ‘C’ class ATVs.
Still, there’s no denying that PURE is one the finest pick-and-play titles that I own on Xbox 360, even with it’s less-than impressive online mode.
PURE is actually available at sub £29.99 now! Well worth a punt!
Click for larger imagePros
Great tricks
Pimping your ATV is great fun
Great track design
Looks the business
Hard to put down once you start playing
Cons
Online multiplayer lacks options
An instantly satisfying racer that plays as good as it looks. Great fun!
HEXUS Awards
PURE– Xbox 360 (8/10)
