don’t much like straight up racing sims; Mario Kart and Burnout are far more my style. For that reason, I was quick to jump on an opportunity to try out Pure, Disney’s first off-road quad racing title. The primary goal of the game is to maintain rocket speeds, reach vertigo-inducing heights, and pull off tricks never possible in real life.
Pure features three play modes, race, sprint and freestyle. Race is the standard racing format, giving the player one to two minutes gain and maintain a position in front of the pack by navigating winding paths and performing tricks off jumps to gain speed boosts. Sprint is like an espresso shot, it give players 30 seconds to take the lead, but the jumps are scaled back as compensation for the short play time. Last, freestyle is all about tricks. When you start a freestyle race, you only have enough gas to get you halfway around the track. You must replenish the ever diminishing gas supply by gaining air and pulling off epic tricks for fuel.
No matter what mode I was playing, the tricks were the most enjoyable part in my eyes. On the bottom of the screen is a Thrill Bar, which is slowly filled as you perform tricks. As it fills, you are able to do progressively more complicated tricks, or choose to use a chunk of the bar for a speed boost. You also loose points off your Thrill Bar when you take a spill, so in order to stay in the front of the pack, sitting solid on your quad is pretty important.
I was able to pick up on the gameplay immediately, but Pure had enough levels of complexity that I progressively integrated more and more of the features into my hands on time. The jumps are intense, fueled by a creative camera mode called Vertical Rush that pans back as you fall, making the ground look even farther away than it is. One thing I really enjoyed about Pure is that when you do take a spill, the game splashes the logo on the screen quickly and then puts you back on the racetrack going full speed. You don’t start at zero and have to work you way back up. The treatment makes the game a nonstop race, which many action fans will appreciate.
If you are a bit of a quad fanatic, Pure also allows you to build a quad bike from scratch. Really from scratch, not just changing the paint color and livery. You start from nothing and choose your frame, shocks, tires and everything in-between. The result is 60 to 70 thousand unique quad combos. To throw a few more numbers your way, Pure features 36 levels, 50 events and 16 person multiplayer. Pure is in development for the PS3, 360 and PC, and is expected to launch the end of September 2008.