(andPOP) - The Pursuit Force is back in this second instalment for the PSP and no doubt they are looking forward to unleashing their brand of extreme justice. The Pursuit Force is a group of officers who specialize in high speed chases and cutthroat action. Already promoted after his victory in the first game, you play as a man only known as 'The Commander'. Some of the goons you put away last time have sprung out of jail and are planning to destroy Capital City so it's your job to stop them. In the previous title (this is a sequel), you chose missions based on which gang you wanted to pursue – five in all, now they have all been integrated into one continuous storyline.
Basically, the game is broken down into racing cars, boats and hovercrafts as well as tracking down bad guys and stopping them from reaching their destination. It is a racing-action game similar to games like Driver and Grand Theft Auto. The structure of each mission varies, so you will occasionally get out of the car and man a helicopter-mounted machine gun or a sniper rifle and provide cover for team mates.
The more gang members you kill or arrest, the higher your justice meter grows. Once this meter has peaked, you can jump from car to car in slow motion and shoot the bad guys in mid-air, very cool stuff. Leaping into new cars allows you not just to get a potentially less-damaged vehicle, but also lets you steal the weapons from any bad guys that were inside it. The game has changed a lot, however, since its first version was released a few years ago. This time, the controls are finer-tuned in terms of the justice meter, and can use it to restore lost health and repair damage to your vehicle, rather than using it solely for offensive purposes. The gameplay does suffer from one weakness, and that happens in the melee missions. The controls on the PSP are just not deep enough for these mission types, as the right analog stick being used for aiming is nearly required and missed. Instead of having separate controls to look and move, you are forced to shoot in a relatively straight line going forwards. You can push L to stop running and enter an aiming mode, but it is too blocky to be used effectively. One other control problem is the very timely addition of the God of War style context-sensitive button mashing technique. In the first game, to arrest a perp you had to push R. Now, you must push a randomly generated combination of the triangle, circle, square and x buttons. This same effect is occasionally used during chase missions, and in both cases creates a downturn in the game’s momentum, but at least it keeps players on their feet.
Despite all this, there are enough unique missions to keep the game interesting. As a break from the usual ‘Drive fast and catch this bus’ or ‘Drive fast and ram into that truck’, there are some highlights. Early on, you capture one of the criminal masterminds and probe him for information during a cut-scene. You can look forward to loosening his lips by tying him to the hood of a car and scaring the information out of him by bumping into other cars, swerving left and right, scraping against guard rails and driving into oncoming traffic.
The graphics don’t do much to separate the missions, gangs or locations. Each of the five criminal groups has their own gimmick and their cars are designed to look identifiable from normal traffic on the road. However, it’s just a difference of some orange paint and some protruding spikes, I guess if they wanted to blend in they could have avoided the flame motif and weaponry on the outside. You will find yourself driving through the same indoor shopping mall a few times, as you take familiar corners through the downtown core. Frame rates are fast and graphics clean and adequate – nothing too spectacular.
In terms of sound, you will find a lot more detail involved. In a specific cut-scene, the camera pans across a speeding car on the highway creating a distinguished stereoscopic effect. You can hear the engine hum from your left to right speaker. Some of the smaller effects are more subtle but still appreciated. In one mission you are being tailed by a large tank, and as oncoming cars drive past you, they can be heard getting crushed behind you once they have left the screen, almost like a mini surround sound effect. Finally, as this is a portable title, us gamers do have a tendency to revert to our physical surroundings during the boring parts between missions. If you look up a lot from your PSP in the subway like me, the game will sound a few beeps when the next mission is loaded, bringing you back into its virtual world, perhaps not a big breakthrough in gaming, but appreciated.
The game is a long one, so you will be sure of have plenty of time to enjoy the sound effects, voice acting and generic music of Pursuit Force for many hours. Completing missions allows you to customize your stats and improve your reload times or jump distances. Beat missions a second time, and you can set high scores and unlock cheats, movies and concept art. There is also the Challenge mode, which bubbles each mission down to its core chase dynamic and lets you replay it with extra tough stipulations. Try beating them again while weaponless, with a time limit, or without crashing. There are also a slew of multiplayer modes to keep you and three of your friends busy.
In many ways, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice on the PSP is better than its 2006 predecessor. It has a more engaging and deliberate storyline. Your character’s stats are upgradeable, which loosens the difficulty setting. There is the occasional unique task to perform in a mission. And there are some finer touches to the sound design. But overall, the game does feel quite generic and uninspired. BigBig Studios really could have heightened the ironic enjoyment to be found in this game by subverting some of the clichéd missions and characters. Instead, you are left with a game that gets by on conventions already established by the Grand Theft Autos and God of Wars of the game world. It might be mindless fun to kill 20 minutes on the bus, but the experience won’t last for much longer than that.
Graphics: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Sound: 4/5
Replay Value: 4.5/5
