ATV + videogames = how could you go wrong!?

I like riding ATVs. It's up there with snowboarding as one of my favorite things to do. I actually rode earlier today in a soggy pasture as fast as I could. But I've never ridden quite like the folks do in Pure for Xbox 360. I'm okay with that though. Doing 200 ft. jumps and crazy tricks seems like something that's better left to the virtual world.

ExciteTrucks is about the closest thing I can think of to compare this game to. Lots of ridiculous jumps and stunts that you could never pull off in real life. The whole boost/trick system is well done but doesn't even try to be realistic. Which is where I was a bit confused with this game. The tutorial starts you off by teaching you how to pre-load to jump higher and what buttons to push to pull off the sickest tricks. Then you're set loose on a racing circuit. I was trying crazy tricks on every jump and often failing since I didn't have enough time in the air to do it. Or jumping really high just made me fall behind the other competitors. There's also a freestyle section of the game that rewards you with points and it doesn't matter who finishes first. But the race and freestyle sections are mixed together in the tour without much differentiation. You even run the freestlye ones on the same overused courses.

Once I learned to focus on racing or tricking, I did a bit better, but the game just doesn't seem to have enough to keep my interest for very long. I had almost the same reaction to playing Dirt last year. Maybe I'm just not into racing games? I dunno, I think I'll stick to real ATVs.