When I heard Disney was publishing a trick-based ATV racing game, an image of mudcovered Disney princesses catching air on four-wheelers flashed across my mind. I was bummed to find that PURE does not feature Jasmine, Ariel, and the rest of the gang. Despite this, the game does not fail to please.

PURE (which actually isn’t an acronym) brings ATV racing back on the video game map in a big way. The game gives you humongous, visually impressive racetracks with death-defying jumps, while it kindly asks you to perform the most insane tricks you’ll ever see. Think SSX Tricky but on four wheels.

The game offers a fairly decent number of modes. The single player is divided into three modes — Race, Sprint, and Freestyle — and you pretty much rinse and repeat them in dif-ferent locations across the globe. If you do get bored, there is an online mode (and good luck finding people who aren’t playing Call of Duty 4), but sadly no split-screen multiplayer.

One of the really appealing features in PURE is the risk/reward system between speed boosts and tr icks. The sicker the tr ick, the more boost you get; the more boost you use, the less complex your tricks become. When you start a race, you’re only able to per-form basic tricks with the A button. After landing a few basic tricks, your boost meter begins to fill, allowing you to bust intermediate tricks (B button + left stick) and, finally, advanced tricks (Y button + left stick). So the game forces you to master the balance of the two, which hasn’t really been done in an arcade racer before.

Overall, though, if you’re big arcade racing fan, then you can’t go wrong with PURE. My only real problem with the game is that the single player mode fal ls somewhere between “8 a.m. Chemistry lecture” and “David Blaine’s latest stunt” on my “I’m really getting bored” spectrum.

PURE (X360, PS3)
Developer: Black Rock Studios
Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Price: $60