Pure Looking Better than MotorStorm 2

Pure
Pure looking better than MotorStorm 2

Publisher : Disney Interactive Studios ; Disney Interactive Studios Developer : Blackrock Studios;Blackrock Studios RRP : TBA ;TBA
Genre : Racing Reviewed on : Xbox360
Release Date : Q4 2008 Available on : PS3|Xbox360|PC



This generation needs a good extreme sports game. The last generation was balls deep in ‘em: from Dave Mirra to Kelly Slater it seemed like every bloke with a sideways cap, a Celtic tat, and a penchant for putting his head into a lion’s mouth for a living was busting large on TV screens planet wide. Yet here we are going on – can you believe it?! – three years after the Xbox 360’s debut and what have we got? A lacklustre Tony Hawk game straight off the conveyor belt, a rubbish MX vs. ATV title that could have been made in 2002 and a third iteration of Amped that seemingly got snowed-in at launch.

Yeah, there’s the brilliant SKATE, but that is a technical title, more Sim than arcade. Where are cyber delinquents going to go for their next-gen dare-devilry? Enter Pure…

Due in early October on PC, PS3 and X360, Pure is being developed by racing veterans Black Rock Studios, best known for the MotoGP and ATV Offroad Fury series (they also worked on The Italian Job and Rally Fusion). It’s a genuine next-gen extreme sports title. And while its focus may be on having fun – all death-defying airs and crazy moves to a pumping soundtrack – it’s delivered with realism. It has crisp naturalistic environments, finely tuned physics and the type of deep customization options that will tickle hardcore ATV fans in naughty spots.

But we’ve jumped to the green light; let’s head back to the warm-up lap.

Funtastic, Pure’s local distributor, dropped by the office to give us a sneak peak at some code which was about 60% towards completion… and to drink beer. Pure is an ATV offroad racer pure and simple: no bikes, no buggies, no monster trucks. The heart of the game experience lies in the Pure World Tour, a whopping 50 event (broken into Sprint, Race and Freestyle types) marathon across 10 stages, in seven real-world locations.

At the beginning of the game you can choose from 7 riders, each with their own signature tricks. You can then head into the Garage Mode and build your ATV from the ground-up. And we mean literally: the customization system is wonderfully visualized, allowing you to start at the base frame and add components until you have something that’ll compete.



Mechanical alterations will affect physics, so there is plenty of drive to earn cash and spend it on bigger and better things, or a broader garage of parts to give you greater flexibility when trying to build the best machine for a certain circuit. It’s all legitimate licensed parts too and equates to around 100,000 combinations, so if you’re the full ATV-head you’ll be lovin’ life.

Aesthetically you can alter colours, decals and the like to ensure your signature style is apparent as you blaze through the multiplayer arena against 15 other adrenalin junkies. No word yet on whether you can create your own vinyls and have ‘fuck you’ blazoned across the back of your ride, but we sure hope so. Although the fact that mud and dirt accumulates on your clothing and vehicle as you progress ensures that by the end of a race your just another dusty dude straddling something vibrating… and making loud noises… regardless of the ‘tude inscribed along the back.

But screw colour schemes, it is the gameplay which will be getting you hot under the bonnet and Pure delivers just the type of experience we have been gunning for. Success is dependent on three factors: nail the jumps, nail the tricks and turn when a corner comes along. Yeah, the latter is a little too complicated to get across in humble text, but we’ll give the first two a shot. How’d that be?

Jumping is all about pre-loading. As you approach a jump you flick the left stick down and up as you would when doing an ollie in SKATE. Time it right and you will receive maximum pre-loading, and epic height. However, getting the biggest and furthest result isn’t always the desired option. You want to make sure you land in the best possible position to deal with the next obstacle: land just before the crest of a second jump and you will lose a lot of time clamouring over the top. And God forbid you go too far and fly, like Eddie, off into an abyss.

Secondly you need to nail the tricks. We really like the way this is handled. Your boost meter is visualised as the A, B and Y buttons (for the X360 version anyway) and the more you bust and successfully land tricks, the higher this level rises. So it starts at A, goes through B and to Y. Wherever the level is sitting, you can press that button and combine it with a stick direction to access three different tiers of tricks, with the top levels (as in B and Y) offering better points. Reach the top and you will gain access to your signature move, all up giving each rider 80+ tricks to enjoy. The kicker is, that this meter doubles as your boost, which is activated by pressing X.




So there is a fine balancing act between getting boosts of speed and getting access to the coolest tricks, which in turns gives you more points, and more boost… get it? And to add spice to the whole scenario you can gain multipliers by linking tricks together with monos and endos. Very cool. So once you’ve mastered all that, all you have to do is turn that corner…

Actually don’t let us give you the wrong impression. Easily one of the strongest features of Pure is its physics engine. Whereas MX vs. ATV was plagued by a shocking sense of weight and gravity – you could do half a forward-flip and then think better of it and throw into a back summersault in the one jump (not likely!) - Pure is already right on the money. Tricks look and feel realistic, and cornering around bends delivers a satisfying drift action complete with Euphoria-like character animations as the riders lean into the Gs.

We only got a chance to check out only one track. The game will follow a system similar to the later SSX games where you had a mountain with multiple tracks, many of which criss-crossed and borrowed sections from each other. As previously mentioned there are 10 Stages: the one we saw was set in a ruined city sitting halfway up an Italian mountain above a pristine piece of European coastline. Those images you see above are genuine gameplay shots from this level.

The track design is awesome. It’s almost free-roaming. There is a general track, but also a non-stop barrage of shortcuts and alternate routes all designed to balance risk vs. time advantage in a manner that can allow a late surge from a gutsy rider willing to go for the epic shortcut right before the finishing line in the hunt for glory. Different surface types affect your vehicle in different ways too, so hitting a sudden patch of mud will test the mettle of would-be drivers. In all this the A.I runs amuck, chaotically careening between the various routes as best suits its intentions at the time. This gives every race a real sense of realism and energy. We were unable to see multiplayer this far out, but damn, it can only by hot doing this stuff with 15 other people. We can’t wait!



It looks next-gen, too. There is something very naturalistic about the environments and tracks: it’s not hyper realised like SSX, but more akin to something like Test Drive: Unlimited… as in, what it would look like if you just pulled out of the garage on an ATV and pounded out into the forest. Animations are looking nicely realised too, with fist pumping, violent stacks and a great sense of momentum in the way the riders shift in their seats. There is a real sense of speed, impressive draw distance and we didn’t notice and frame-rate concerns: we just hope there is plenty of setting variation across the entire title.

Special mention must also go to the music: the soundtrack is pimpin’. We won’t comment on the artists just yet (in case some are dropped) but expect top quality performers across multiple genres (we heard dance, rock and hip hop). SFX were harder to test in the demo conditions, but they do have a great ‘massive air’ audio feature where the sound grinds to a halt as you trick your way through space, heightening the experience nicely.

We were a little ‘meh’ on this title prior to our recent session due to the rather lacklustre support the extreme sport genre has received thus far this generation, but we are now very excited. This is looking the goods. We do have some small grievances we would like assessed: you should be able to push and shove a little on the track, not just ram. It would also be nice if you could slow-mo your crashes to get greater satisfaction out of violent rag-dolling. But more urgent is the need for split-screen: we really hope Black Rock change their view on this as online only multiplayer is a joke at any time, in particular with an extreme sport racer.

Putting such whinging to one side for the moment though, petrol heads and dust lovers alike should keep their eyes on this potential gem; we think it is going to be a winner.

source : http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_docu...reviews&Page=1