Pure PS3 Demo Impressions

I caught gameplay videos of Pure earlier this year and I was very impressed. Seemingly out of nowhere comes an off road racer brimming with style and flash. It looked great, it sounded great, but does it play as good? Definitely. After installing the 1.2 gigabyte demo and spending forty minutes with the one available level, I’m left incredibly impressed. However, I’m not going to pick this title up this Fall. Why? The answer and more follows.

The demo’s layout is worth commending for the immediate thrust into the thick of things. With the aid of an announcer, I was pulling off jumps, tricks and boosts in no time. If there was a brake button, I wasn’t told or shown where it was. I assumed it was the L2 trigger, however I was hard pressed to find a situation where braking was required. Performing jumps was a simple as pushing the left stick down and up. Pulling off tricks was just as easy since all you had to do was hold a button and push the analog stick in one of four directions.

Tricks are required to build boost and boost is needed to burst ahead. Simple. Right? The more boost you have, the fancier the tricks you can pull off which results in more boost. The boost meter is broken into four levels with the ‘X’, Circle, Triangle and L1+R1 buttons corresponding to each level. The fourth level of boost enables you to pull of the most ridiculous trick possible, but be sure you have enough air to do so. Obviously, you’re not going to be able to dismount from your ATV, spin around and then grab onto the back of it when you only have three meters of air. Failing to land a trick results in some boost loss. Don’t worry, though. If the demo’s track is any indication of the final product, there will be plenty of opportunities for high flying ATV acrobatics.

Yes, Pure looks good. The sense of speed and height after each major jump is quite an incredible sight and sound. Hearing the soundtrack become muted and distorted when you’re hundreds of meters in the air delivers a convincing rush. The track’s texture work isn’t as refined and sharp as I would like, but since it’s running so smoothly, the compromise is understandable. I would have also liked more mud , dirt, water or something being thrown about though. There are tires and a few minor obstacles, but they’re just that: minor obstacles. As a whole the track looks rather static and that’s surprising for an arcade game.

Pure is good, but it’s not Motorstorm. Perhaps that’s my expectation and why I cannot convince myself to purchase this game. As fun as it is, Pure only offers one type of vehicle: ATVs. The upcoming Motorstorm: Pacific Rift offers a plethora of off road vehicles including ATVs, buggies and a monster truck. The trick system works well, but with this demo I’m not seeing the necessity for different tricks. I’m also not seeing additional outside of timing my tricks so I don’t wipeout. Disney’s Pure is a rousing racer for those who’re totally into the ATV arcade off road racing experience and as a demo it was fantastically fun. It’s just unfortunate that I don’t see the game offering anything substantially more than its other off road racing competitor, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift. So, unless the upcoming Motorstorm: Pacific Rift demo manages to completely mess up, I don’t see myself having additional Pure experiences.

For more information on Pure, visit the official website.