Pure was released this week to eager gamers, keen to try for themselves the title voted IGN's Best Racing Game at E3 this year.
Developed by Black Rock Studio, Disney's award-winning development studio in England, Pure takes quad racing to a new level, featuring massive jumps and spectacular airborne tricks in memorable, photo-realistic settings all over the globe. We've been following the progress of Pure throughout the year, and have spent many hours with preview and review code getting a handle on the truly insane jumps and challenging terrain available.
Disney NZ has kindly put some of our questions to Jason Avent of Black Rock, who has taken some time away from racing quad bikes to give us a bit more of an insight into his role with Pure.
GP: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and what your role in the development of Pure has been?
Jason Avent: I am Game Director for Pure which means I'm the head of the project.
GP: It seems the trick system is pretty comprehensive, how did you come up with so many different moves?
Jason Avent: There are more than 70 tricks in the game. Many of them are real world tricks from ATV freestyle or motocross. The special tricks are really out-there though. We wanted to make them exciting and manic so they're a really good reward for charging up your thrill bar by doing the lower class tricks. Those ones were plucked from the imagination of the team.
GP: What lessons learned from ATV Offroad Fury have carried over to Pure?
Jason Avent: We wanted to throw away all the rules and do something different and new.
GP: Kiwi gamers will be delighted with the inclusion of a New Zealand level. Did you visit NZ to get a better idea about the scenery?
Jason Avent: Some of our team members have visited the areas in the game yes. We got loads of photos from the internet and agencies too though. It's an incredible place and fits with the Vistas, Vertigo and Verticality rules we came up with for Pure.
GP: Did you have a lot of recreational quad bikers giving you tips at each stage of development?
Jason Avent: Yep and we went out to some of the coolest spots in the world to go quad biking ourselves. We got pretty good in the end. I jumped about eight feet high and I can do wheelies in second gear.
GP: You’ve chosen a stack of great songs for this title, how did you decide which would make the list?
Jason Avent: We had a committee of four people and employed a specialist music agent to search for us.
GP: Do you have plans for any additional DLC post release?
Jason Avent: We're not working on it right now but it's possible.
GP: Has there been any discussion surrounding establishing Pure as a franchise?
Jason Avent: there has been discussions, so lets wait and see
GP: What was the single hardest aspect of development? Was there anything you had to walk away from?
Jason Avent: Lots of things had to go. We did three iterations of the HUD for example and threw away most of the tracks at least once. Split screen was a distraction that would have compromised the look and epic feel of the levels too so we dropped that.
GP: We’ve seen the demos loaded on XBL and PSN, is there a Windows demo due to be released?
Jason Avent: There certainly is. It'll be out before the end of September.
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Our thanks to Disney NZ and Jason Avent from Black Rock Studios. If you'd like to see Pure in action, check out GP Downloads.
