With FIFA and PES (LOL) locked in a seemingly endless two horse race, only a fool would try to break the stranglehold with a new football simulation and so, despite the 'Pure' in the title, Ubisoft have rather wisely gone for the super-arcadey, five-a-side version. In essence they are taking on EA's risible FIFA Street series, which is a much easier endeavour.
After some nonsense about millionaire footballers settling scores on the streets with no referees - you know the kind of thing that Nike likes to pretend happens to Wayne Rooney and chums instead of them doing their usual thing of sleeping with prostitutes and punching women in clubs - and a weird "twenty-eight days earlier" bit of exposition, the game's main campaign mode has you creating your own captain (using a mix and match bunch of elements from an incredibly limited selection) and club (despite all your opponents being national teams, but you know... whatever) and then picking your matches from a list of four events per venue.
Each match will either be time or score limited and will have individual conditions for unlocking opposing players to use in your team (such as having a number of shots, completing a number of tackles or scoring a target number of goals - sometimes higher than the win condition for the match, but again... whatever). Winning matches and generally performing well rewards you with Pure Points that can be used to upgrade your captain.
So far, so good I guess but it's on the pitch where things get pretty weird. The viewpoint is looking up the pitch from goal to goal rather than the traditional side-on view which is fine for five-a-side but does lead to the camera spazzing out a little too often. Also, for reasons that I imagine are to do with complete stupidity, sprinting gives you that 'roadie run' view that you get when you sprint in Gears of War. Except more blurry. It's more than a little off-putting and takes a little too long to get out of if you suddenly need to take on a defender, not that you'll know what with the confusing viewpoint and blur.
The slow, locked-in animation gives you that kind of old-school Fifa clunkiness as you wait for your player to complete what he's doing when what you really need him to do is get rid of the ball and indeed pretty much everything on the pitch feels scripted, especially when the majority of shots all behave exactly the same. You'll start predicting saves in advance just because you'll spot the patterns in the animation. It's all very, very underwhelming.
That said though, this isn't the complete dog you'd think it is. It is possible to have fun, dramatic matches and the power bar with sweet spots shooting system (basically it's like an old golf game) actually works quite well, giving you more control than the other footie games out there where shooting often feels completely random. That said, the game doesn't in any way account for your player's position, so if you are facing away from the goal, he'll still put in an accurate strike (if you stop the power bar at the right time). Compared to PES it's laughably arcadey. And PES is rubbish these days. Also, the game isn't averse to letting you score from the halfway line.
The skill system (mapped to the right stick as is now mandatory) seems entirely random and also completely useless, but it does reward you with Pure Points even if you're stood alone in your own half flicking it around randomly. It rarely helps you beat a player and given the high-paced nature of the game, holding onto the ball is never a good idea.
Tackling is where the game gets completely odd. Fouling has no effect on play so you can slide in for most of the time. There are no injuries either so it hardly matters. The odd thing is that after a certain number of fouls, your next one will be a penalty. Regardless of where it happens. It's a fairly ridiculous system but you do get used to it after a while.
Add to this an already fairly dead online component and a basic exhibition mode and Pure Football seems an incredibly empty package compared to the big boys. It does however allow for some degree of fun and matches can be exciting. Also, despite the gulf in quality, FIFA's started getting a bit boring now with the last couple of games barely building at all on Euro 2008's impressive gameplay, so a nice variation on the footie theme is certainly welcome. Also it's not drenched in all that nonsense that you get with Fifa Street, you know all the stupid trick names and attitude.
Presentation-wise it's a bit of a mess. The graphics are functional, although most of the players look like cadavers. The previously mentioned camera and a bunch of odd pitch designs make things even less attractive and the animation is pretty stiff too. The music (which plays during matches to give you some idea of how arcadey this is) and sound effects are pretty useless also. There isn't any commentary either. That's probably a good thing.
Overall it's a bit rubbish but it's still kind of fun. Given that in October many of us will be paying £40 for EA's latest minimal update, shelling out £15 (which is the price this seems to have dropped to in many places) on something this daft doesn't seem like a bad option and, for all it's faults, I've been playing it solidly for days so it's definitely got some addictive qualities. It's not up to Ubisoft's usual standards when it comes to quality and it's no substitute for the proper football games, but there's a chance that Pure Football will prove to be fun for open-minded gamers out there.
2/5
Achievements ReviewMost of the achievements are easily gotten by playing this on easy and running through the campaign mode. Just take long pure shots (ie - get the power bar in the white) from distance and they'll either go in or the keeper will parry them for a corner most of the time. Do a pure corner followed by a pure header and you'll score more often than not.
The harder achievements involve playing this online (which is dead) or unlocking all the players (which involves a long grind through campaign mode).
So it's an easy 500GS but a grindy 1000GS basically.
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