Tom gets a taste of PURE joy

ATV games have never really had a lot of success in the UK, but PURE is going to try and change all that. Brought to us by the team behind MotoGP and ATV Offroad Fury, the newly-renamed Blackrock Studios (formerly Climax Racing) have already had their latest effort receive a warm reception at this year's E3, and gained a wealth of fans within the specialist press in the process. PURE, then, is off to a promising start.

No time to sight see

The obvious place to start is the visuals - because PURE practically jumps off the screen, with a rugged, yet beautiful aesthetic. Of course, being an offroad racing game you'd expect PURE to offer mud, dirt and big puddles of water, but PURE has something else; beautiful scenery.

Initially, your vision will be mainly glued to the dirt track and the jumps that are fast approaching. And yet, at strategically placed points - like big jumps or overhanging turns - the vista unfolds before you, and you can't help but take your eyes off the track.

PURE's bikes and bikers look solid; rider animation is fluid and they don't seem to be stuck to their bikes. In fact, PURE looks highly polished. The attention to detail is brilliant, with mud sploshing from tyres to bikers and your treads squelching their tracks through the dirt.

Flashy graphics mean nothing without good gameplay, though, and thankfully PURE has that by the bikeload. ATV games tread a fine line: make the vehicles too responsive and they may as well be on tarmac; too loose and it may as well be on an ice rink. PURE nails it with balanced controls that feel neither to loose nor too responsive, You skid your ATV around corners and it feels like the bike is fighting for grip, making lining up the onrushing jumps just the right side of trickily rewarding.

Trick and treat

Despite being simple to pick up, PURE's trick system is similarly rewarding. When it comes to jumping you have two options, the first relying on you own momentum to get you through the air; the other to pre-load for the impending jump. Once airbourne, you press A and a direction to do one of four tricks. Successfully landing tricks with the A button unlocks the B button; and if you land those you'll unlock the Y button tricks - and the option to use all three together for a special trick.

Your trick success is displayed on-screen in the form of a blue flame, which also doubles as the boost meter. As you use boost you lose the abilities to do the bigger, more insane tricks - yet you get more boost and trick abilities by landing tricks. It's a constant balancing act; you'll need to hit tricks consistently and time your boosts intelligently to screech across the finish line first.

And screach you will, because the sound in PURE is exceptional. Some ATVs give off a high and whiney noise, whilst others still provide low, almost gutteral growls. ATVs skid around corners and hit the dirt with a raucous, satsfying clatter of suspension and mangled mud. PURE's soundtrack meanwhile is kinetic and frenzied, with artists such as Noise Control, Pendulum and Blindside to name a few suiting the racing atmosphere perfectly.

Back to Basics

PURE, then, is shaping up very nicely. Along with MotorStorm, It has the potential to change the fortunes of ATV games over the Christmas season. Sadly I didn't get to try the Create-an-ATV, but the little I saw would suggest an extra layer of depth for petrolheads to get their teeth into.

Stripping ATV driving down to a basic and enjoyable race-fest, delivering a series of great-looking tracks and with the potential for online play too, PURE is slick, refined, and enjoyable enough to be one of the year's surprise next-gen hits.

Preview by: Tom 'Joyrider' Daly
Previex Published: 12.09.08