There are a lot of things that are pure. Cream, beer, a movie, and now something less fattening and hopefully not as boring - a game! From Black Rock Studio, a new development studio with a fine heritage in motor cycle racing games (they're the guys formerly known as Climax Studios), PURE is an off road quad bike racer filled with extreme tricks and massive outdoor tracks containing multiple paths to the finish line.

If you've played the demo, seen enough screenshots or watched trailers then you'll be aware that PURE is an arcade racer through and through and the goal of it can almost be described as succinctly as "build boost by doing insane tricks to finish first”. Sure, that's not a game mechanic that PURE has a monopoly on – there's been plenty of games that this can describe – but PURE does it in a way that's almost without fault, is a great challenge and even includes multiplayer action for up to 16 people.

Set in locations around the globe such as Thailand, Mexico, the USA, New Zealand and even Italy, the tracks in PURE look absolutely drop dead awesome. The sunlight filters in through the trees, the draw distance stretches off into the horizon and everything is razor sharp. There's not the slightest hint of a frame rate drop, texture pop-in, fade-in or anything else that detracts from the overall experience. With so much massive air to grab in the insanely huge jumps there's even ample time to enjoy the lavish attention to detail and it's a shame that (especially in the Italy level) you can't drive off into the distance and go sightseeing.

It's not just the tracks that look the goods either. As the races progress your rider (which admittedly do all come across as a tad too "High School Musical”) will get splattered with mud, his (or her) clothing will ripple in the wind, exhaust pipes will blow out smoke, you'll see your bikes suspension working overtime all while 15 other riders are throwing up mud, water, tearing up the track and doing their best to complete their own tricks so that they can leave you eating their dust.

To build up your turbo boost, stunts must be completed (and landed) and while seeming like an outright arcade racer, the trick system in PURE has quite a bit of depth. Initially you can only pull off simple tricks with the A button but once you build up your turbo, B and then even Y tricks become available that can also be tweaked with the left bumper button. These more advanced tricks reward you with more turbo, and more turbo allows you more advanced tricks. It's a cool system and the "special” tricks are the ultimate reward with totally outlandish animations.

To get the maximum air, you must "pre-load” your jump by flicking the left stick backwards and forwards before you jump and then it's simply a matter of squeezing in as many tricks as possible. Not always as easily done as it is said. The special tricks take the longest to perform and must be held in reserve for the biggest jumps in the track. Try performing these just anywhere and you'll most likely end up crashing and losing your turbo boost. Building up your boost takes a bit of strategy as not every jump is suited to every type of stunt.

PURE just isn't about the racing though (well, it almost is) but throughout the World Tour mode you'll encounter 3 race modes. Race is your typical hoon around X number of laps but what makes PURE challenging is that the most obvious path may not always be the quickest. It certainly pays to watch where the A.I riders go and pre-loading your jumps may not always reward you with the fastest lap times as sometimes it may be faster just to turbo boost over them. Discovering this is all part of the fun. Sure, to get first place in every event I had to re-race quite a few of them, but it was never frustrating. The second mode is Sprint which are still race events, but on shorter tracks. The third mode is Freestyle and it's in this mode that all your skills gained pulling off stunts will bear fruit.

The Freestyle mode takes place in the same locations, but instead of crossing the finish line first, it's all about getting the highest trick scores. Located around the tracks multiple paths are score multipliers, boost icons, special trick icons as well as fuel (which runs out as you race and must be replenished or the race will end) and a combination of massive tricks, power boosting to the next jump to build up your score multiplier is what will win you these events. It's the Freestyle events that I enjoyed the most and I hate to inform that in this day and age of screenshot uploading and replays that none of these features are available. A replay feature is sorely missed, and being able to save replays of your coolest moments to edit together ala SKATE would have been a pretty nifty addition.

Now while the Race modes are all about handling and top speed and the Freestyle mode is all about pulling off stunts, PURE comes complete with a garage mode where you're free to build custom Quad bikes for each event type. Some parts are better suited to racing and some are better suited to freestyle, and tinkering with these combinations to create perfect rides for each event type is the key to success. You're given 10 slots in your garage so there's plenty of room for experimentation or simply making sexier and sexier rides as you unlock new parts and decals.

Multiplayer handles up to 16 people and while I've only been able to test it out with 2 other XBW'ers, (me in Melbourne hosting on Bigpond Cable, one in Newcastle, one in Brisbane) there seemed to be absolutely no lag and a fun time was had. It would be cool to actually fill a race up with 16 real people (the A.I fills in the rest of the riders), especially in the sprint events! There's nothing fancy about the multiplayer modes, but it does the job and takes the single player experience online against your mates quite nicely.