Friday, March 24 2006 @ 12:00 AM CST
BigBig Studios has brought us Pursuit Force for the PSP. Pursuit Force aims at giving us the most off the wall car chases and stunts from any movie, and kicking them up a notch! Your job is to leapfrog from vehicle to vehicle, take down the perps, and move onto the next vehicle rinse and repeat.
While it sounds like it is a style of gameplay that can quickly become a bore, Pursuit Force has enough unique missions to keep your attention for hours at a time trying to out do the last insane stunt you pulled. Pursuit Force places you in the role of a rookie cop, and it's your job to take care of the five gangs that are wreaking havoc on Capital City. The game features 30 levels, 55 vehicles, and ten different weapons. You'll try and take the bad guys down by car, boat, motorcycle, helicopter, and even on foot.
Action is straight forward enough. Each mission your job will be to save the city and will start you in a vehicle. Pressing the X button will control your throttle with the square button handling the brakes. Using the left and right shoulder buttons will allow you to target and fire at enemy vehicles. When you have an enemy vehicle in your sites an icon will appear letting you know that you can jump onto his car. Simply tap the circle button and you'll hop onto the moving vehicle in cinematic style, where you'll be able to take out the bad guys face to face. Rinse, wash and repeat.
Also at your disposal is the "justice meter" which fills up when you take out criminals. When this meter is full you can either restore some of your health by pressing the triangle button, or you can dazzle your foes by using bullet-time when you jump from car to car and fire upon them as you leap from vehicle to vehicle.
The over the top arcade style gameplay is a blast to play but can get old. Though the game does an excellent job giving the player a sense of speed, the repetitiveness of jumping from vehicle to vehicle is only changed during a few missions where you play the game entirely on foot or the boss fights. These boss fights are about the only thing after awhile you want to keep playing for to unlock as they add a great mix of excitement into the game after you get dulled with impressing yourself by jumping over and over.
For example, one boss fight takes place with you in the air in a helicopter, and the boss below. You are manning a machine gun, trying to take out the boss as he jumps from car to car.
When a level is completed you're given a score, which is based on how quickly you beat the level, how many baddies you killed, and how few civilians you harmed. After the points are calculated you are put in the top scores list and a grade is associated to the score.
Graphically the game does an excellent job presenting the action. Jumping onto cars is one fluid motion and the camera always follows smoothly. Dead bodies inside the car will bob and weave with the vehicle, as will antennas. You can appreciate the little touches that BigBig Studios put into the game.
Unfortunately Pursuit Force does not feature any form of multiplayer. Hopefully a sequel will be made that can feature at least Ad-Hoc mode as I think it would have added to the replay value of this game.
Overall despite the fact the game is much more of the same Pursuit Force is still a highly addictive title. Though I found times when I had to put the title down, when I picked it back up I was easily losing track of time. Though I would love to say the repetitive nature of the game is the fault, I have to admit it is probably mainly always trying to out do what you did last that is the biggest knock. With so much over the top action I was left wanting to see bigger and better, but in the end was always happy with what Pursuit Force was able to deliver. Pursuit Force does an excellent job holding your attention for one mission or a handful. I’m just unsure how much you will want to pick up the game once you complete the missions.
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