Pure (PS3, Xbox 360) Preview
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 09.09.2008
Hands-on: We hit the dirt with our ATVs in tow for some multiplayer action.
With Pure garnering some praise at this year's E3, Disney Interactive has been slowly passing by with the hype train and it recently stopped in sunny and chilly San Francisco, CA. The publisher put together a small press event so that members of the media could get a closer look at the multiplayer aspect of Pure. Sure there's also a pretty good single player campaign but the focus was on playing with others.
For starters, the game features 16-player online races with modes such as Race, Sprint, Freestyle and Freeride. We first got a chance to check out a standard race with 15 other racers. As you'd expect, the purpose is to try and come in first place but the focus becomes – how will you do it? Well you could simply race around and try to turn the corners properly and what not but the game wants you, nay, begs you to jump off ramps and pull off some sickening tricks. What you'll need to do as you come up on a ramp is push down on the left joystick and then push it up right as you lift off. This will give you an extra boost and in turn give you more time in the air to pull off a trick. You then press and hold the ‘A' (360) or ‘X' (PS3) button and then point in one of four directions to do a crazy move in mid-air. You can pull off as many as you'd like if you have a good amount of hang time. You'll also have to make sure you land properly by being maneuvering your ATV correctly so you don't end up face first. That also includes making sure you give yourself enough time to finish off your current trick and getting yourself back in the seated position. If you manage to land, then you'll get a big boost of speed which of course helps you in your quest to finish first. As you pull off more and more stunts you'll fill up a meter that will then unlock a new set of tricks such that a new button will be useable when you're in the air. You'll eventually be able to pull off all sorts of tricks, each one more difficult than the other which also nets you more points.
Other modes allow you to race but with the ability to pick up power ups while another mode has no first or last place but simply allows you to rack up points during the specified time to earn the highest score possible. The game runs very smoothly and looks gorgeous to boot. I've seen certain games that look very detailed with a high resolution, but ultimately suffer a bit when you play on larger monitors. Not so with Pure as the game looks just as hot on large plasma displays. The background environments looked beautiful while the dirt looked lifelike including all of the particles flying around all over the place. A few times I found myself blindly racing while enjoying the view of some of the sexy landscapes.
The game felt pretty good with the solid hour that I was able to play, with the controls fitting the game just right. Controlling the ATVs weren't too difficult unlike other racing games that have horrible sensitivity. All in all, the game is shaping up to be a great addition to the PS3 and Xbox 360 game libraries and we'll have a full review of the game as it reaches its release date of September 16.
With Pure garnering some praise at this year's E3, Disney Interactive has been slowly passing by with the hype train and it recently stopped in sunny and chilly San Francisco, CA. The publisher put together a small press event so that members of the media could get a closer look at the multiplayer aspect of Pure. Sure there's also a pretty good single player campaign but the focus was on playing with others. 
Other modes allow you to race but with the ability to pick up power ups while another mode has no first or last place but simply allows you to rack up points during the specified time to earn the highest score possible. The game runs very smoothly and looks gorgeous to boot. I've seen certain games that look very detailed with a high resolution, but ultimately suffer a bit when you play on larger monitors. Not so with Pure as the game looks just as hot on large plasma displays. The background environments looked beautiful while the dirt looked lifelike including all of the particles flying around all over the place. A few times I found myself blindly racing while enjoying the view of some of the sexy landscapes. 
