"Pure" is a racer of fun and beauty, though it lacks key components that could make it stand out.
"Pure", developed by Disney Interactive Studios, is an ATV racer that can be entertaining, but also disappointing. The first thing the game will ask you to do is run a simple "test course" to familiarize you with the game's control and trick system. "Pure" controls smoothly, and the racing has a light solid feel. "Pure" has a sweet trick system that revolves around the use of the A, B, and Y buttons. The amount of boost you have in your boost meter determines what level of tricks you can use. An empty to 1/4 filled meter means you can only use the A button (and analog stick) to pull off simplistic tricks. Pulling off tricks makes your boost meter go up. When it's about 1/2 full, you can use the B button to pull off intermediate tricks. A 3/4 filled meter can help you pull off advanced tricks. Finally, if your meter is nearly completely full, you can pull off your character's special trick. The special tricks require use of the RB and LB buttons as well as the left analog, and take some time to land. That means obtaining serious air-time is important. The way you achieve good air-time in "Pure" is quite simple, but clever. Before approaching a jump, just simply hold the left analog down, and right before you go airborne, flick the left analog up to do a jump. The higher your jump, the more air-time you get, meaning more tricks.
After you learn the tutorial, you head off to the garage to assemble your own ATV. You customize everything from brakes and tires to handlebars. You could get the CPU to assemble an ATV for you if you don't want to spend time weighing out the positives and negatives and how they go with each part on your ATV. Once your ride is ready, you have to select a character. "Pure" has a dismiss-able character roster, like most extreme sports games. Characters have over-the-top personalities and attitudes, and seem to have absolutely no interaction with one another on the race track. Nonetheless, your chosen racer will enter the world tour in hopes of climbing the ranks to be the best. The World Tour consists of nearly a dozen different race series. Each series has 5 events. The events could either be a race, sprint, or freestyle. The race is usually done on a long course with 3 total laps. The races have plenty of opportunity for pulling off some sweet tricks. The sprints are races with 5 laps on an extremely small and short course, usually consisting of sharp turns, and one to two opportunities for small jumps. The freestyles are trick competitions. In freestyles, you have to pull off as many tricks and points as possible before your gas runs out. If you are in the lead of total points when it does, you win. (Note: Gas only runs out on freestyle.) All of the types of competitions are fun. The beautiful graphics and scenery of deserts, beaches, mountains, and typical ATV tracks make it even more eye-appealing. The more races you complete in good ranking, the more parts and upgrades you can unlock to soup up your ride.
"Pure" is a challenging game. Don't let the Disney Interactive logo fool you. It's not ferociously difficult, but as the game goes on, it makes you earn your rank. It would be nice for the non-Xbox liver to try their skills against a local player, but that isn't possible since "Pure" does not have a multi-player split screen option. Unforgivable. I didn't have this complaint when I reviewed and gave "Burnout: Paradise" a 9.0. The difference is that a racer like "Burnout: Paradise" focused on the single player. "Pure" is a split screen multi-player game at heart, but it's not there. The game does have Xbox Live, but I won't be able to experience that, just as many of you won't be able to either. If I did have it, it still does not take away from the unforgivable lack of split screen. The other flaws of the game are the courses themselves. The courses are wonderfully designed, but even it's easy to lose track of the main road and go off track. If you go just a little off track, the game will have to put you back on. When you go off track or wipe out, it causes your boost meter to suffer. One stage in the game has this huge mountain of rocks, that must have been put there so the developers could laugh at how impossibly stupid it is. In this freestyle stage, about half-way through the lap, you run into this giant barrage of rock (as do the CPU players) and have no way out. All you can do is watch the game try and try to get you out of the rock (or whatever it is), but fail. You're stuck. Foolish things like this should never be left in a game. It ruins the stage.
"Pure" is fun, but shallow. If the developers want to make a "Pure 2" they need to make sure that all foolishly impossible obstacles are choked out, and focus on some local multi-player too. In the mean time, "Pure" will make for a satisfying single player racer. Give it a rent at least.
Bottomline: I recommend this game, but as a rental.