By Brad Russell
Pure
for the PC blends SSX style trickery with ATVs, and the result is pure fun. Fans
of Burnout will feel at home with a game that falls on the more unrealistic end
of racing, but it's not Mario Kart. There are boosts, crazy tricks, and monster
jumps, but the ATV's feel and sound authentic, the tracks are very well
polished, and the racing is solid.
The game starts with you playing a tutorial to get familiar with the
mechanics. From there you can start a career, select a driver, and then make
your ride. There are only a few characters, with many helmet colors and two sets
of clothes, and you unlock more characters and outfits in the career if you rack
up the wins. They come with the typical kind of stories that you would see from
fighting game characters – nothing to inspire you, but a nice touch at the
least.
Something that could be a negative is that you need to spend around 20-30
minutes building a rig, but the result is a ride built for your style and looks
good to your eye. There are about 24 parts, most with a color to choose, and
some come with stats. You could auto-create an ATV if you want, but there is
little fun in that. Early in the creation you will mainly choose your parts that
affect stats: max speed, acceleration, handling, boost, and trick. If you don't
know how to do the tricks from the start, perhaps you would rather have
handling. Those are the kinds of give and take relationships with the parts, and
of course, you get more parts as you play the game and do well. The late stages
of the creation are colors and decals and purely for aesthetic appeal.
Then you can enter your career in the World Tour. There are only a few races
and sprints open to start, and as you progress and do well, more open up. There
are three types of events: races, sprints, and freestyles. These are spread out
over ten stages, and a stage is comprised of four to seven different events to
tackle. Most of the tracks are reused and the type is changed. You don't need to
get first in all the challenges to meet the point requirement to move onto the
next set, but by getting first you are rewarded more extras. The rewards are
upgrades, characters, more tracks, parts, decals, and a bit more. Eventually,
usually before moving to the stage that requires it, you will move up an engine
class, which you must install in order to compete at the next level.
The different types of challenges usually mean you need to use a different
ATV. The races are the longest and could be completed with any type of ATV you
feel comfortable with. The sprints are tiny laps repeated a few more times than
a race and offer fewer trick opportunities, so a good handling ATV that skips on
the trick stat is best. Freestyle is where tricking out is the only way to win.
Freestyles require you to race like normal, but the point isn't to win per se,
you are really just trying to be the last man standing. You're constantly
running out of gas in this mode, and only by picking up power-ups and performing
tricks do you keep your gas gauge from going empty – you basically do insane
tricks to stay alive until everyone else is gone and then trick at your own
leisure. It is fun, but you'll really need to master the trick system to
maximize the fun from this mode, and the whole game.
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