We caught up with Pure game director Jason Avent of Black Rock Studios – the company behind successes such as Moto GP - to discuss the experience he’s spent the last 20 months helping to create, and started by asking him to tell us about the game…
“Pure is an off-road trick-racing game where you jump off mountains and get thousands of feet of air,” he explains. “You spend 60 per cent of your time in the air pulling mad tricks. It’s set in an exaggerated reality and so you go so fast it scares you, jump so high you get vertigo and pull tricks from the sublime to the insane.”
Whilst working on Pure, Jason faced a few different challenges that he hadn’t experienced before. In the past, the studio had made simulation games, however with Pure, Jason wanted to create an arcade game. Getting everyone to think on the same wavelength was something that took a bit longer than he anticipated.
“We’d worked on simulation games before and sometimes people who’d worked on those games still wanted to make that the core, so breaking that link to the past was quite a challenge. I had to pull the team out of the old mentality and drive them into the new where anything could happen and you can throw the rulebook away. For some it was scary having that freedom and they were concerned that we’d alienate what used to be our core market. I think we’ve broken out of that niche with PURE.”
During Pure’s production, Jason and his team worked with pro quad bike rider, Wes Miller, to make the game as realistic as possible. They used his expertise on how the ATVs should look, how the riders should be positioned and how some of the tricks should be performed.
Even more fun; in order to really get into quad biking for the development of the game, Jason took his team to Baha in Mexico and to the California State Vehicular recreation park in Octillo Wells.
“Going on these trips enabled us to have a fair idea of how ATVs handle and how it feels to jump,” he explains. “They have thumb triggers, thumb throttles, and if you shift your weight to one side and then push the throttle, they power slide on demand. We really wanted to get aspects of this into the game.”
Of course, though, creating the ATVs for the game was one of the most time-consuming aspects. A team of four people worked on creating the in-game vehicles for 14 months; most of the pre-production and production period. They created thousands of components, which will now allow you to create around 60,000 different ATVs to race in the game.
“The guys did a lot of reference gathering and are good vehicle artists but in addition to that, a lot of code work has been put into good lighting and how the bikes move realistically. Riders even get dirtier as the race goes on! Wes Miller was also able to give us a lot of advise regarding the ATVs.”
Having developed its own tools and technologies over the past nine years as a studio, the team had its own mature rendering and physics engines. What that gives them is complete control, and the technology is optimised for making racing games.
“It means we can draw 20km into the distance on our tracks and create beautiful vistas, terrifying drops and a huge amount of vertical change in the tracks,” Jason explains. “At the same time, we’ve created incredibly organic looking environments. Every frame we draw somewhere between two and three hundred thousand pieces of grass, gravel, twigs and other bits of nature’s detritus. This helps to create the illusion of wilderness. There are no straight lines in nature and so there could be no straight lines in our tracks.”
But we had to ask, what is it like to develop games as a day-to-day job? Frustrating, challenging, enjoyable? You’d imagine that at times working day and night on getting one title ‘just right’ had be pretty damn taxing…
“It’s different every day and constantly challenging. My favourite part is when the game starts coming together in production. You get to see and play new pieces of game virtually every day at the peak and it’s really exciting. It’s like Christmas morning each day.
“I like the fact that the game industry is constantly changing and evolving in terms of hardware, game content, peripherals and technology. I don’t like the fact that we’ve rounded on a few key genres and can’t seem to break out of it. There are basically lots of brilliant first person shooters on the latest generation of consoles and not much else. Pure is quite different. It’s a new experience and I hope people find it refreshing,” Jason enthuses.
For the developers, Pure is widely regarded as the best game that the team has ever worked on. Members of the team have worked at lots of other developers and publishers on lots of cool, big games and they still agree that Pure has been the most fun to work on and the best result.
“We all still enjoy playing the game. That doesn’t happen very often. Developers are usually sick of the sight of their game after living with it for months and years of their lives. Pure isn’t like that. It’s really fun and sort of comforting. We’ll miss it.”
Can’t wait for this game.
Comment by Niraj Shah — Sep 18, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
“A team of four people worked on creating the in-game vehicles for 14 months; most of the pre-production and production period. They created thousands of components, which will now allow you to create around 60,000 different ATVs to race in the game.”
Creation in excess, methinks.
Talking of Australian bands, Pendulum must be very grateful for all the recent PS3 racing titles
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
Motorstorm meets SSX. Demo was quite good fun. Shall I buy this or Motorstorm 2? Hmmm….
Comment by reakt — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
would like to play it to feel how it’s different to motorstorm. looks good tho!
Comment by E-ROLE — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
that’s strange, fracture demo in the PSN update. Didn’t see it coming
Comment by E-ROLE — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
Demo of Pure much better than Motorstorm IMO
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
E-Role, is there a LBP theme thim week? Cheers.
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
And don’t forget the 2009 coming of Fuel developed by Codemasters! It’s looking promising.
If we remember just a year ago when we hadn’t to make choices for which motor-game to get… better being in this kind of doubt than no doubt at all!
Maybe if I could get them all, hmm…
Comment by Ricardo — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
@Robothamster
These’s a little big planet theme on the japanese PSN. Pretty good aswell.
Comment by E-ROLE — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
Cheers E-Role.
Maybe I’ll take a look at that.
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 18, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Demo was fun, but i don’t buy games that don’t support 1080i/p.
Comment by someguy — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
never really liked the atv’s in Motorstorm or any other racing title for that matter. But I have to say the Demo was ALOT of fun. Motorstorm 2 takes priority for me but this will be on my xmas wishlist for sure.
Comment by xMonkeyWrenchx — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
I thought it was Fracture demo, next week and Mercs 2 this week, must been some sort of switcharoo…
Well we all know whats out next week on the PSN update…
*Yipee*
Comment by Mr. Monkey — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
@ Someguy, are you telling me that you won’t play a game which is 720p max just because of a few lines of resolution? That’s just madness, some of the best games out there are 720p max.
720p on most HDTVs runs better than 1080i anyway.
I really can’t understand some peoples comments on this site….
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:20 pm
maybe i am one of the many PS3 owners that have a fantastic hdtv that doesn’t support 720p and does support 1080i?
Comment by someguy — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Well if that’s the case than I apologise mate.
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
Doesn’t suport 720p?? ok mate
Comment by E-ROLE — Sep 18, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
@E-ROLE
He is right, 1080i only sets are mainly found in the US tho and the PS3 lack of a scaling chip means, that a 720p only game downscales to SD on a 1080i only set…
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&message.id=1543717
This doesn’t happen on the 360 as it can upscale 720p to 1080i/p on “any” game via a dedicated scaling chip…
(Note this is just upscaling, not native rendering, but the results are very good)
@Robothamster
720p tends to look better on smaller sets, however if your set is above 40″ 1080i/p can look better…
That is the case on my 50″ Sony Bravia, 720p = a lot of Jaggies…
But it always is down to personal preference…
I been a Avforums member for years, and jaggies on 720p is a big gripe…
Comment by Mr. Monkey — Sep 18, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
i have a 1080p CRT HD screen that i built from a Compaq P1220 that i use while at my workstation for my PS3 gives me a 19″ 16:9 display (borders top and bottom as it was a 4:3 screen) i know not the meaning of the word jaggies. seriously puts the quality of my 32″ HD LCD to shame and cost me about a hundred to put together.
ps: i’ve just managed to load threespeech into life with playstation via its google search page. sweet.
Comment by mobiletone — Sep 18, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
@18 [Mr. M]:
…but juggies on a 720p is a big grope…
(I’m an AVForums member too; small world, etc.)
OK… back on topic…
As much as I liked the original “MotorStorm” and (yes, don’t worry, I’m not going to quote the URL for my review of) the Private Beta of “MotorStorm 2″, I played the demo of “Pure” & found it both reassuringly similar but challenging at the same time.
The soundtrack is certainly worth the price of the title alone.
Check out the official site for a sample (and yes, I also know this needs a more snappy URL):
[ http://disney.go.com/disneyinteractivestudios/pure/index.html ]
“Best XBOX 360 racing game”, apparently.
Add your own punchline about that not being too hard.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Sep 18, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
@Mr Monkey,
I agree, but would argue that on anything under 40″ you can’t actually see a difference between 720p & 1080i/p. At home I have a 32″ 720p and at work we have a 50″ 1080p screen, have played GT5p on both at the native resolutions of the screen and IMO there wasn’t any noticable difference.
I believe what you are saying about 720p Jaggies on a set that large though, for a change makes me glad that I’ve got a smaller set!
Incidentally, I’m also on AVForums!
Comment by Robothamster — Sep 19, 2008 @ 9:26 am
In response to the “Davis” update for “Burnout Paradise” yesterday…
News for “Race Driver GRID” players from the Codemasters web site:
[ http://www.codemasters.co.uk/news/?showarticle=11904 ]
—
Race Driver: GRID
Downloadable content
19 September 2008
The first downloadable content pack for Race Driver: GRIDTM, the summer’s hit game that made racing exciting again, is coming this autumn. The ‘8 Ball’ pack includes two new online events and eight stunning new cars:
* McLaren F1 GTR - The McLaren F1 GTR wrote itself into the history books as the only GT car to ever win Le Mans and is considered one of the finest examples of automotive engineering in history.
* TVR Cerbera Speed 12 - The TVR 12 smashes past 60 MPH in just under 3 seconds. Production models were planned, but they were considered too powerful to sell to the general public.
* Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X - For over a decade the Evo has been billed as a supercar slayer - now the Evo-X in GRID lets you unleash its sledgehammer aggression in the Pro-Tuned class.
* Honda S2000 - This roadster is heavily modified for drifting and has become a cult-favourite thanks to its award winning engine.
* Nissan GT-R (S-G2008) - The production model was Top Gear’s Supercar of the Year 2007. Now one of the world’s hottest cars makes its debut in Race Driver: GRID in its fully tuned racing spec.
* VW Nardo - This powerful concept car made real from VW uses its 600BHP engine to rocket to 60MPH in 3.1 seconds.
* Pontiac Firebird Trans AM - The 1971 racing edition of this true American legend is a worthy addition to GRID’s exclusive group of muscle cars.
* Volvo C30 - Adding to Race Driver: GRID’s touring car roster comes the C30, Volvo’s agile, cutting edge hot-hatch straight from the STCC grid.
All eight cars will be available to drive in the game’s ‘Race Day’ mode and online races. In addition to the cars, the pack will make two new multiplayer events available, set on existing circuits from across Race Driver: GRID’s three continents and to test drivers to their very limit online. On Xbox 360, the pack will also feature four new Achievements worth a total of 100 points to earn from four new competitive challenges:
* Jack Of All Trades - Win an online race in each of the 8 Ball pack cars - 25pts.
* Drift Master - Achieve a 99x combo in the Honda S2000 - 25pts.
* Gas Guzzler - Clock up over 250 miles in your favourite 8 Ball pack car- 25pts.
* Clean Passing - Win a clean race in an 8 Ball Pack car from last position - 25pts.
Further content is expected to be released for the game, including a V8 Supercars featuring Ford and Holden cars and the Bathurst circuit, later this year. For all the latest information and videos, be sure to visit the Race Driver: GRID website [ racedrivergrid(dot)com ].
—
Competition is healthy!
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Sep 19, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
is this game eny good
Comment by ben — Sep 20, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Downloadable content now priced…
[ http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=203195 ]
—
Eight new racers for GRID
Thursday 4-Dec-2008 12:30 PM
Two new multiplayer events and fresh achievements feature in DLC too - screens inside
Codemasters has released a batch of new downloadable content for the PS3 and 360 versions of Race Driver: GRID.
Available now, the 8 Ball DLC delivers eight new high performance racers to drive in the game’s Race Day mode and online races, including the McLaren F1 GTR, TVR Cerbera Speed 12, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and Honda S2000, which, let’s face it, most of us are never going to get the chance to race in real life.
In addition to the cars, the DLC boasts two new multiplayer events to compete in, which are based on existing circuits from across GRID’s three continents, and four new Achievements for the 360 version worth 25 points each.
The 8 Ball pack can be yours for 800 Microsoft Points via Xbox Live, or £6.29 from the PlayStation Store.
—
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — Dec 4, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
am game is the best
Comment by kevin — Sep 3, 2009 @ 12:38 am
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