“Pure” – Demo Impressions
I downloaded the demo on a whim, actually. Saw it on the PSN Store and thought, why not? It’s not like I’m actually gonna buy this game! I mean, it’s made my Disney Interactive!
Needless to say, 5 minutes into the demo and I had to take those words back!
“Pure” combines arcade racing actions with, well, Tony Hawk Pro Skater to be honest! Which isn’t a bad thing. You get to race around quad-bikes in different earthy locations. The controls for driving are pretty simple. There’s accelerate, brake, and steer. Jumps can be made by holding the left analogue stick down and then moving it forward as you approach a jump to catch some air. And once you catch some air, it’s time to pull off some tricks!
This is the hook for the game. The fact that apart from racing, you have to pull tricks and look cool. The thing is, you only earn the boost function (think of it as nitrous) for your vehicle by doing tricks. And the harder tricks you land, the more boost you have, which means the faster you’ll go. You’ll find yourself balancing your driving and tricks, and believe me, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. The handling is done pretty nicely, so it’s not like you have to fight with the gamepad for the quad to go somewhere you want it to. And the tricks are all on your fingertips. So you don’t have to struggle too hard with keeping those two things in balance.
Gameplay-wise, this game kinda reminded me of “Excite Truck” for the Wii. No, you can’t steer with motion-sensing. But the tracks and stuff give the same over-the-edge kinda feel to the game. There are plenty of long wide jumps that will make you fly around for a long time before you hit the ground. And it’s fast-paced and action-packed.
Although I only had one proper race and one tutorial to go through, I really enjoyed the whole thing. Surprisingly enough, I think this could be a sleeper-hit when it finally comes out September 16th. It will be against “Motorstorm 2” and the little-known “Baja” for the off-road racing title. But from what I’ve seen, this looks like a real contender.
Now here’s to hoping it has split-screen 2 player mode!
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