Pursuit Force

By Spencer . March 10, 2006 . 2:52am

Pursuit Force sheds any concept of story and gives players what they want high speed action. You take on the role of a rookie cop who’s part of the Pursuit Force, a special police unit designed to take back the streets of Capital City. These elite officers are trained in combat on foot, in a car, and even in the air.

As a rookie you’ll have to master all three forms of combat to complete the game. Most levels start out on the highway and some in a speed boat. These missions have you drive on a set track and chase down criminal gangs. This won’t be a leisurely country drive, there’s time pressure to catch the gang members before they reach their destination. The controls in Pursuit Force are simple and quite responsive when you’re using the d-pad. Just hold down the accelerator button and tap square (break) when going around tight turns to drift. While you’re blazing down city roads players will need to dodge civilian cars and worse have to battle criminals while driving. You can shoot your gun while driving (don’t worry about aiming everything is automatically targeted), but a more effective tactic is to jump over to an enemy vehicle. Once you jump aboard you have to hang on for dear life and shoot the criminals in the car. A few shots will dispatch your enemies and then their vehicle will be yours. Defeating criminals and capturing vehicles charges your justice meter. When the meter is full players will get increased health regeneration and the ability to shoot while in mid air. Most missions have a certain requirement on how many enemies you need eliminate while other missions throw players a curve ball like protecting civilians from gang attacks. The main gameplay is like Need for Speed with guns.

Learning how to drive is only part of the game. Once you get to your destination you’ll have to do combat while on foot. These missions require players to quell hostile gang members. It’s probably easiest to complete this by running around and shooting. If you get up close enough to a convict you can do an arrest, which subdues the criminal. There isn’t too much to worry about while on foot except your health bar. Most areas provide ample cover, but you can’t duck forever. If you sit in one place for too long the criminals will come to you and start shooting. However, if you manage to stay still for a little while you can completely recover your health.

Pursuit Force also puts people in the seat of a helicopter. You’re given a fast firing mini gun to shoot down crime lords and bosses. The mini gun has an overheat meter you need to pay attention to. If you constantly hold down the fire button the gun will jam and you won’t be able to fire it for a few seconds. Another change when firing the mini gun is that you lose auto targeting. You have to manually scroll the targeting cursor where you want to shoot. Aerial operations play out like a moving shooting gallery. You don’t have to worry about piloting the copter, just shooting down criminals.

When you first start playing Pursuit Force you won’t be able to select many missions or try out the race track. The first few missions in career mode give essential pop up tips on how to play the game. Once you complete those missions players will unlock a set of cars and a few race tracks. As you continue to beat missions your cop will rise in rank and more content will be unlocked. However, the core gameplay doesn’t change too much from the first mission when you’re trying to recover nerve gas from the Warlords to later missions where you’re trying to stop the criminals from crossing the border. It’s always drive and gun. Because of this Pursuit Force can be a bit repetitive if you plan to play it for a few hours. Instead Pursuit Force is best played in half hour increments. That’s just enough time for players to complete a mission and not get sick of doing the same thing.

Overall Pursuit Force is a welcome addition to the PSP library. The game has sharp graphics, fluid animation and best of all it feels fast. Missions are intense, you have just barely enough time to win so players are always on their toes. If you’re into action games and have a PSP there’s no reason not to give Pursuit Force a try.

Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 0

The US release of Pursuit Force is entirely in English.

US Bound?

Pursuit Force was originally released in Europe first back in Nov’ 05 and it made its US debut on 03.07.06.

+ Pros: Plenty of action and the missions are well suited for short bursts of play.

- Cons: After a while the drive-jump-shoot gameplay gets redundant.

Overall: All action gaming enthusiasts should check out Pursuit Force, it’s one of the best PSP exclusive titles to date.

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