The concept of taking an extreme sport or idea and pushing it to the next level is nothing new in the video game world. Pure has taken ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle or quad bike) racing to a whole new level filled with massive jumps, insane tracks and of course a boost button. After spending the last few months hanging out for this game, I had high expectations from the word go. The trailers made it appear pretty well, but then these days anything can look good.

From the initial views, Pure looked a lot like Sled Storm (which happens to be one of my favourite games from childhood) and played out just as great as I expected. From the get go you can sign up for the ‘Pure World Tour’ and earn places and unlocks or you can just a grab a ride and show the competition what you can do in quick play option.


Signing up to the Pure World Tour opens players up to the customisation of your ride. You can spend the time putting together the ATV you want, tweaking it to your racing style or making it just look as cool as you want. But if you’re not into that, you can hold down a button and load up a ride that’s better suited to tricks or handling. This is nice and impressive, since you can still edit these rides, but I would have liked to a few more options to this like a max speed or acceleration build. The different bikes are useful to save as they work with the different types of levels.

There are three different types of levels that break up the gameplay into different sections. Race puts you and your skills up against 15 other ATV racers on a lapped track. There are a few different paths you can take to get around the other riders or find the better jumps. On each stage there are a couple of massive jumps for you to pull out some of the bigger tricks. Sprint is a shorter track with a few more laps that is all about the handling and beating the other racers. The third is Freestyle and it’s all about the tricks. Jumps have been built over the courses to give you more room to get some combos and tricks down, however your fuel gauge has appeared. Get as many points as you can before you run out of fuel to take the top spots. This brings a nice dimension to the game play and presents a few new choices - should I boost and risk the fuel for some more air time? The track also has a few “power-up” bits and pieces that will freeze your fuel tank, give you double points or unlock your special trick.


The trick system has been set up nicely so players have to gradually work their way up to their best tricks and eventually getting the special one. Each different rider has their own special as well as a few more to keep these ‘fresh’. Starting off with the easy and fast tricks by pressing one button and a direction, these can be preformed on smaller jumps and when landed successfully add to your thrill bar. This bar is your boost and your tricks. When you have enough thrill stocked up, you will unlock another tier of tricks on a different button. Boosting will decrease the thrill bar and stacking will drop off the last trick button and some of the thrill, knocking you back to only able to do smaller tricks. The glory however is finding the biggest jump in the level and having the special trick unlocked. Hit the shoulder triggers as you are in the air and watch your player pull off something amazing and unbelievable.

To get air off the jumps players usually have to “pre-load” before a jump. This is done by moving the left stick down before a jump and then up just at the top of the jump. At the start this feels a little weird, but soon enough you will be flicking the stick off every little bump and jump the track throws at you. This works really well in freestyle mode to make sure you can carry a nice combo or get that little bit of extra boost into your ride. If you do stack the jump you are reset fast and put straight back into the action. This also works if you try and go up a hill you can’t or go the wrong way. It’s a nice system, but it limits you in trying to cross onto a different path from a jump.


The most unfortunate thing I can say about Pure is that it doesn’t have split-screen multiplayer. While it is nice to have the whole screen just to yourself to play, the real feeling of racing games or any competitive game is beating the person next to you. Why have they taken this out? It’s a trend that is happening all too frequently, and needs to be changed. There is however up to 16 player online multiplayer. So if your friends own the game you can challenge them online and beat them. The pass the controller to your friends is okay for this game as it gives you a chance to kick back, watch the massive tricks and enjoy the music.

The soundtrack is excellent and brings a few standard songs as well as a bit of a mixed bag. While it seems mostly rock or drum and bass involved there are a few other tracks that are bound to surprise you. Wolfmother’s Woman is there and while this is old and has been thrown about on games recently, Granite from Pendulum’s new album throws some spice into the playlist as well. Inside the main options as well you can set what songs will or won’t play, so you can easily knock off tracks that annoy you or just make one with all the right tracks to pump you up. Why this option wasn’t in the pause menu (or at least a track selection) is weird, but having this option is a nice feature.


Playing through the World Tour will keep you entertained for awhile. It might feel a little too quick during the early stages (and I don’t now why I still need to hear the same tutorial help 4/5 rounds in) but they really amp the competition up in the final stages of the game. I hope the online multiplayer is enough to keep the replay value up, but simply going back to stages you missed or retrying some of the older ones to get that first place and extra unlock will keep you playing for awhile.

Disney Interactive’s Blackrock Studio has put together their finest ATV racing game and probably the best one I’ve ever played. They have taken the time and knowledge from their previous games like the ATV Offroad 3 and 4 and ATV Quad Power 2 to put together what I would say is the best game they have made. There is really only one word to describe Pure and that is FUN. From start to finish this game is fun, exciting, challenging and one that this reviewer will be playing for a while.