A great demo can turn a game you know nothing about into a must buy. The Burnout Paradise demo was great at this, taking the essence of the game - free-roaming racing - and letting you try it out properly. Pure does this in part, mainly because the demo has a set structure each and every time you boot it up, and you get a fair amount of racing for your download.

You're thrown onto your first ATV within seconds of the demo beginning, a section that acts as a tutorial for the racing ahead. Each of the moves available to you is explained in detail and you learn them as you perform the various tasks that are required of you. This introduces the somewhat weird control scheme, which uses the left analog stick not just for steering but for jumps and tricks too. When you accelerate up to a ramp, you preload the jump by pulling back on the stick, launching off the ramp by pushing forwards. It feels surprising similar to the controls that 2007's skate uses, which, in case you're unacquainted with the excellent skating sim, is a good thing.

Once into the air, tricks are activated by simultaneously pressing face buttons and moving the stick in a given direction, the buttons changing the difficulty of the trick. This builds up your boost meter, in turn giving you more air and a chance to activate really over the top moves by pressing both R1 and L1 with a direction. This boost will be vital in the heat of the action, where a sneaky boost near the end of the race could make the difference between silver and gold medal position. After a last blast around the training course, where you must achieve a flawless run, you are taken to the course included in the demo.

The race itself is an epic three-lap battle around a muddy, shortcut-riddled course that takes a lot to get around in one piece. The AI drivers you're racing take some beating; brutal is an understatement. They will bash you into the scenery in an attempt to knock you off your ride, all the time pulling off tricks of their own. They act intelligently, rather than one rider being programmed to go off at a blistering pace and overtake the rest of the pack, and so you never know what's going to happen. Other racers crash as often as you do, replicating the sport itself pretty well, and you will crash a lot during the first lap, if not the whole six-minute race. When you do crash however, it isn't long before you're driving at a blistering pace once more, the game instantly recovering your racer from a nasty, but very well animated fall.

If there was one thing that shocked me about playing the Pure demo, it was just how gorgeous it looks. The tutorial doesn't really show the game off too well, but when I got to the main race and saw the small patches of muddy water reflecting the action as it happened, I knew that the graphics in Pure were special. It has a slick look throughout and the drivers are excellently animated in both tricks and falls. The sound is good as well, although only two audio tracks are available in the demo. The combination of ATVs screaming during the race and a great driving tune will make for audio that can stand up next to the fantastic graphics. Let's hope the final list of tracks is as good as it should be.

Pure was one of those demos that really surprised me. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, it not only looks amazing but it has enjoyable gameplay to boot. It leaves you wanting more, so in demo terms it's perfect. Comparisons to MotorStorm are obvious, but with the trick system in place and the promise of Freestyle - points-driven races - it's SSX on ATVs. This could well be the next best thing until EA decides that it's time to bring their snowboarding franchise to the next gen, and if the demo is anything to go by, Pure will be an awesome game. Let's hope it lives up to my lofty expectations!

Previewed by Sam Atkins for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).