SINGLE RACE - Jump right in

Normally I wouldn't recommend going straight to SR. In most WO's you'll want to do some TT before you go into a full weapons-on race, get some track practice in before "the real deal", but in Pure it's different. So go ahead, choose Single Race and have yourself a blast racing the 7 killer AI opponents until you manage to come in first. This will teach you to absorb, a critical skill. You'll probably also try a couple different craft this way, eventually finding one that fits you well. If you keep getting eliminated, change craft! Work your way through all the tracks in a league till you've gotten gold in all of them. Now you're ready for a tournament!

Pro: The AI opponents have access to all the same weapons as you do, and you can get some surprisingly intense races out of them because of it. They're good at shield management, so getting an elimination is difficult, but if two Quakes rip through the group then chances are you're going to hear "Contender Eliminated!" at least once.

Con: These are supposed to be professional-level pilots, but you're the only one on the track that can get the good start? They race like demons for the first lap, and then turn into slackers? The end result is that you get a good race through the pack, and winning is a bit of a challenge but isn't too difficult, but I would have hoped that it was high time for an improvement in the AI.

TOURNAMENT - Test your skills

If you can get a SR gold in each track in the league, then you can win the tournament. So do so! Not just because you can, but also because winning tournaments is how you unlock the game. Beat Alpha to unlock Beta, beat Beta to unlock Ascension, beat Ascension to unlock the next speed class. Rinse and repeat 4 more times. Tournaments are a lot of fun, and this is where the majority of the multiplayer action will be. Set it up once, race for 20 minutes solid. Very nice packaged racing.

Pro: The scoring system only rewards placement, there's no additional reward for eliminations (one of Fusions best features many would say, but whether this is a good or a bad feature is obviously opinion-based), and repeatedly coming in 1st can give you enough of a lead so that you can win even if you get eliminated in a race. Solid piloting skills overwhelm small patches of bad luck. This is probably the core functionality of the game, so it's good that it's been well designed.

Con: Leagues are static. If you like 3 tracks in a league and hate 1, you still have to race all 4. Also, the Descension tournament is prone to crashing your PSP when you're 3/4 of the way through this "gruelling 12 race monster". If anything in this game is going to make you want to push the PSP through a wall, that'll be it.

FREE PLAY - From "cruising" to "hotlap madness"

New in Pure is the "Free Play" mode, something that many have wanted for a long time. Want to "walk the track" and have a look at certain corners from any and all possible angles? Want to see if you can ride along the top of that wall over there? Want to try and figure out how tight you can cut that corner before the game decides you've gone off-track? Want to try and generate the fastest possible lap time? That's what this mode is for. Your shields slowly regenerate, so there's no need to exit and restart just to refill your "barrel roll energy".

Pro: Mission accomplished, you can do all of that any anything else you can dream up!

Con: None. You can ignore this mode entirely if you want, or you can spend most of your playtime in it. It's up to you. Like it should be.

TIME TRIAL - A brand-new challenge?

It used to be that TT mode was just there for you to practice on. No longer! Now there are posted goals, times you have to achieve before you can say that you've "beaten" a track. The time to beat varies from "no real challenge" to "serious challenge". This portion of the game can be skipped entirely (only tournaments are necessary to unlock the game), but completionists and race record makers will be focussing on this area. The posted time to beat gives you a good signpost, a way to know when you're "good enough" on the track. You can always lower your time more via practice, but once you've gotten the TT gold you know that you've got at least a basic understanding of the track and you can move on if you want.

Pro: Totally optional, but set up to be a rewarding experience. The ghost ship is "best lap" based, so every lap you've got a fresh ghost to follow. These ghosts are totally sharable, too! So if you want to see how a sub-20 second lap is possible just get someone else's ghost and put it in your PSP and follow it around the track. A fantastic addition to a required game mode, it's good to see that they were looking to make improvements in all aspects of the game. I think here they've really done it.

Con: To get the high speeds necessary to beat this mode, you're going to need a fast ship. If you're particularly attached to, say, FEISAR, you're not going to be able to get through all of these. This is nothing new to practiced TT pilots, who think that finding the best ship for this particular class and track is half the fun, but you might have to get into a ship you don't like in order to beat the challenge. Addionally, while having a "lap based" ghost is a very nice thing, there's no ability at all to have a "race based" ghost. If someone has a really nice lap time you can get their ghost and follow it, but you'll never be able to see their full race. Neither of these things is a big deal to most people, but it's probably enough to turn some off entirely.

Wow, that was a lot of typing. Did you know that there's a 10,000 character limit per post? I didn't know that.

Anyway, I was planning on having a look at each track next. The tracks are the most important part of a WO game, so I figured I'd review each one seperately. Later though.

Yes, I'm crazy, I know. 8 )