venture into the world of snowboarding. Wow! This is a field I thought no one could get right and I am so happy to be proven wrong. Pure Ride is pure excitement.| Current Issue | The Archives | Our Top 5 Articles | Ebay Auctions | The Shoppe |
| Message Board | Company Info | E-Mail Directory | Search YBFREE | Subscribe |
| ©2002 Formerly BANDWIDTH: A Popular Culture E-Zine |
Last issue, I totally ripped on MTV's venture into skateboarding. This issue, I set out to totally praise their venture into the world of snowboarding. Wow! This is a field I thought no one could get right and I am so happy to be proven wrong. Pure Ride is pure excitement.
Players pick from a selection of characters and equipment, each having their own strengths and weaknesses depending on the various courses. Then it is off to the slopes where you get to show your stuff in a variety of cool modes to keep you busy. You can go freestyle and just roam through the slopes fine tuning your skills for the championship mode, or you can go right to the stunt mode and show them what you got. You can even go into head to head competition and let a rival know you mean business. Basically, once you have chosen your method of extreme madness, the game really begins to fly.
Backed by a phat soundtrack featuring songs from Bender, Gray Area, Project 86 (which I review in the next issue), and Incubus, you take your snowboarder all over the course, zipping at ultra fast speeds. This game may not kick ass in the graphics department, but it sure makes up for it in game play. I mean, everything is smooth, fast and exhilarating. I totally enjoyed how easy everything was to control. My boy was doing some hot jumps, twists and turns and he actually landed perfectly.
I hate when a game makes it hard to land your skater. This game does not encounter this problem. My boarder took some falls, but they were understandable. I mean I cracked right into a big box. If I didn't fall, I would be complaining how bad the crash detection was. This game is fluid. I totally enjoyed when I jumped a hill and then landed on a rail, and skated right across it. Totally cool!
Here are some of the problems that arise with this game. I do not like the load times at all for this game. In between runs on the same exact track, I have to wait a minute or two just to start the next attempt. And it gets to be quite tedious at times. Luckily for Pure Ride, this game is worth the wait.
Next on the list are the graphics. This game's graphics are not the best, but they are good. They could be tweaked to look better, but that would have been a bigger deal had the game play not been so good. The only other complaint I have is that there could be some more tricks. I felt like the amount of tricks I was allowed to pull off were not plentiful. Still, you have to play this game, it is probably the best snowboarding game on the market.
Badseed's Bottomline: 4 out of 5. This game totally kicks ass. Great music, phat moves, and exciting game play. Pure Ride is a pure adrenaline rush. Send your comments and or questions about this article to Badseed@ybfree.com.