Pursuit Force
So this is what it feels like to play a portable action movie.
Published: April 30, 2006
When some of the folks responsible for WRC left their cozy Sony home, they formed Bigbig Studios... another cozy Sony home. Luckily, they stuck at least a little to the racing roots that paid the bills but branched off in a direction that feels uniquely like a PSP game. It's hard not to make the comparison; Pursuit Force is the distillation of what makes a Hollywood action movie so much fun; the high speed chases, impossible stunts, clichéd characters (right down to the cigar-chomping chief that chews you out when you mess up and doles out half-assed complements when you do things right).
It's this tongue-in-cheek homage to summer blockbusters that gives the game its backdrop, but the action, a mix of car chases, health management and races against time and distance to kill bosses that keeps things interesting -- at least until you realize you've been doing the same thing over and over again for the past couple of hours. Luckily, the game works great as a bite-sized action flick turned game, and if taken as such, you're liable to walk away from the experience happy that you own both the PSP and this game.
Though the storyline is about as throwaway as most action movies, it's still worth setting up. You're a generic cop on the newly-formed Pursuit Force, a police wing created to combat the rise of five stereotype-a-riffic gangs (no, we're serious; the Warlords are all ex-military mercinaries, the Capellis a typical mob family, the Convicts are escaped mercinaries, the Vixens an all-girl ex-stuntwoman crew and Killer GG is your typical triad collective) all vying for control of Capitol City. What this means is that you have access to high-powered guns with unlimited ammo, a license to forcefully commandeer any vehicle on the road, and of course the freedom to kill any gang members you see.
Most of the time you'll do this by hauling ass on a boat/car/motorcycle right up to the rear bumper and leaping onto the trunk or hood and unloading a couple rounds right into the bad guys' face. You can hold the square button to hang off the side and avoid incoming shots and use the d-pad to climb back on top of the car if you've been shaken off. As you off guys slam into their cars or take them over, you'll fill your Justice Bar, max that out and you can either dump it into refilling your health and completely repairing your vehicle or use it as you leap from car to car to gun down enemies in slo-mo (which is one of the coolest moves in the game, by the way).
Bigbig tried to mix things up a bit every couple levels by throwing in a mid-boss, letting you man a chaingun from a helicopter, introducing a Speed-like element that won't let you drive a vehicle below a certain speed, and regularly tries to mix up vehicles to include things like trucks or boats (sometimes mid-mission), but save for when you're actually out of the car and on foot, it all plays more or less the same. When you are on foot, the segments are more or less brainless unless you're trying to get close to enemies to arrest them.
Though the game is very obviously designed around the PSP and the Sony-suggested 15-20 minute play times, there is one mysterious "feature" that baffles me: you can't put the system to sleep in between missions. If you flip the toggle to suspend the PSP, it won't take effect at any point on any of the menus in the game -- the part where you'd think the game wouldn't mind being paused. Worse yet, if you flip the switch, it waits until you've gotten into a mission to suddenly turn off. It's not a huge deal, but it is the first game I've seen that does this, and it's certainly annoying.
It's this tongue-in-cheek homage to summer blockbusters that gives the game its backdrop, but the action, a mix of car chases, health management and races against time and distance to kill bosses that keeps things interesting -- at least until you realize you've been doing the same thing over and over again for the past couple of hours. Luckily, the game works great as a bite-sized action flick turned game, and if taken as such, you're liable to walk away from the experience happy that you own both the PSP and this game.
Though the storyline is about as throwaway as most action movies, it's still worth setting up. You're a generic cop on the newly-formed Pursuit Force, a police wing created to combat the rise of five stereotype-a-riffic gangs (no, we're serious; the Warlords are all ex-military mercinaries, the Capellis a typical mob family, the Convicts are escaped mercinaries, the Vixens an all-girl ex-stuntwoman crew and Killer GG is your typical triad collective) all vying for control of Capitol City. What this means is that you have access to high-powered guns with unlimited ammo, a license to forcefully commandeer any vehicle on the road, and of course the freedom to kill any gang members you see.
Most of the time you'll do this by hauling ass on a boat/car/motorcycle right up to the rear bumper and leaping onto the trunk or hood and unloading a couple rounds right into the bad guys' face. You can hold the square button to hang off the side and avoid incoming shots and use the d-pad to climb back on top of the car if you've been shaken off. As you off guys slam into their cars or take them over, you'll fill your Justice Bar, max that out and you can either dump it into refilling your health and completely repairing your vehicle or use it as you leap from car to car to gun down enemies in slo-mo (which is one of the coolest moves in the game, by the way).
Bigbig tried to mix things up a bit every couple levels by throwing in a mid-boss, letting you man a chaingun from a helicopter, introducing a Speed-like element that won't let you drive a vehicle below a certain speed, and regularly tries to mix up vehicles to include things like trucks or boats (sometimes mid-mission), but save for when you're actually out of the car and on foot, it all plays more or less the same. When you are on foot, the segments are more or less brainless unless you're trying to get close to enemies to arrest them.
Though the game is very obviously designed around the PSP and the Sony-suggested 15-20 minute play times, there is one mysterious "feature" that baffles me: you can't put the system to sleep in between missions. If you flip the toggle to suspend the PSP, it won't take effect at any point on any of the menus in the game -- the part where you'd think the game wouldn't mind being paused. Worse yet, if you flip the switch, it waits until you've gotten into a mission to suddenly turn off. It's not a huge deal, but it is the first game I've seen that does this, and it's certainly annoying.
