Sony PSP Pursuit Force
Posted April 13, 2006
There have been many gameplay elements incorporated into racing games since the nascent days of the genre. Racing games with a boost meter or a life meter, games featuring hovercrafts or Jet skis, games with weapons or turtle shells, games with free roaming or only left turns, games with quick resets or pit stops, but never a game like this. Never a game that lets you leap from your vehicle onto another and use the hood as cover. Pursuit Force is a gorgeous looking game for the PSP that's finally made it's way stateside after rocking Europe since last fall.
Gameplay:
You're the charter member of a new police unit known as Pursuit Force, whose number one mandate is apparently to apprehend criminals by jumping onto their vehicles and perforating them with a variety of weapons. Your chief provides the objectives along with comic relief, a caricature of police captains from 80s movies. But it won't take long for you to get as frustrated with his as Jack Cates was with Captain Haden in 48 Hrs, because on the more difficult levels you could use a little encouragement.
Typical level breakdowns consist of a combination of driving a car, motorcycle, and/or boat with some occasional third person shooting. The levels where you're on foot stick out like a sore thumb, the camera is slow to react, the auto-aim is fickle, and there isn't the same sense of urgency in the chase levels. The driving stages are a blast; most involve leapfrogging through a series of enemies' trucks in order to kill them before they reach a certain point. You hang on to either the roof or hood of the car, and you can duck out of the line of sight similar to Time Crisis with the square button. They will try to shake you off, and you maintain or regain your balance with the D pad. If you enough baddies in a short enough period of time you can enter bullet time and you can empty a clip into a couple of bad guys while in the process of jumping on their car. The boating stages are similar except you have a fraction of the turning radius.
This game feels like it belongs in an arcade more than on a console, which I mean as a compliment. The sound, cutscenes, and menus are reminiscent of many arcade shooters. At about ten minutes most levels feel like something you'd play at an arcade. Problematic reminders of the arcade style are the lack of a cohesive plot and any checkpoints during missions. The lack of checkpoints would have hurt the score more if it weren't for the relatively painless load times, which are virtually nonexistent on level restarts.
One inherent problem with the game is the controls. They're tight and responsive enough, it's just that there's a lot to learn. In order to leap onto a vehicle you're chasing down, you'll often be holding the X button to accelerate and the L button to aim, while rapidly shooting with the R button and waiting for your cue to go TJ Hooker with the circle button. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but after a while you get the hang of it.
The auto aiming makes the game frustrating and easy at the same time. Frustrating because if you release the L button and hit it again, you lock onto a new enemy. But if you've got a guy near death and your finger slips, he'll continue to hurt you until you can get another bead on him. Easy because shooting is just holding down L and hitting R a bunch, with no regard to direction or head shots. There's really nothing that can be done, though, outside of the PSP growing more buttons.
Although there is no Wi-Fi support, there are unlockables for everybody. Movies, races, time trials, new cars, and (a first) artwork than can be used as wallpaper for you PSP.
Graphics:
The graphics are absolutely stunning. The frame rate never drops below an acceptable level and usually hums, and there is so much attention to detail that you don't appreciate until you play other PSP racing games. Mud and dust kick up from tires, rain sticks to the camera, and my favorite touch: corpses rattle around riding shotgun.
Audio:
The sound track is generic, but base-heavy repetitive action themes can sometimes add a sense of urgency. I found it be reminiscent of the score for Speed, which may be deliberate since one of the stages involves keeping a bus above a certain speed. The dialog is solid and the voice acting strong, but the in-level comments get old quick when you repeat a level.
Conclusion:
This game isn't for everyone. It's fairly violent, it isn't very deep, and it's harder than a coffin nail. I would rate this game higher if the stages on foot weren't included. But who says every game needs to be a non-linear 20+ hour epic? If you play your PSP in 10-25 minute spurts then it's hard to get any sense of continuity out of a Grand Theft Auto or Tales of Eternia. For fans of arcade racers or shooters, this title comes Highly Recommended.
Gameplay:
You're the charter member of a new police unit known as Pursuit Force, whose number one mandate is apparently to apprehend criminals by jumping onto their vehicles and perforating them with a variety of weapons. Your chief provides the objectives along with comic relief, a caricature of police captains from 80s movies. But it won't take long for you to get as frustrated with his as Jack Cates was with Captain Haden in 48 Hrs, because on the more difficult levels you could use a little encouragement.
Typical level breakdowns consist of a combination of driving a car, motorcycle, and/or boat with some occasional third person shooting. The levels where you're on foot stick out like a sore thumb, the camera is slow to react, the auto-aim is fickle, and there isn't the same sense of urgency in the chase levels. The driving stages are a blast; most involve leapfrogging through a series of enemies' trucks in order to kill them before they reach a certain point. You hang on to either the roof or hood of the car, and you can duck out of the line of sight similar to Time Crisis with the square button. They will try to shake you off, and you maintain or regain your balance with the D pad. If you enough baddies in a short enough period of time you can enter bullet time and you can empty a clip into a couple of bad guys while in the process of jumping on their car. The boating stages are similar except you have a fraction of the turning radius.
This game feels like it belongs in an arcade more than on a console, which I mean as a compliment. The sound, cutscenes, and menus are reminiscent of many arcade shooters. At about ten minutes most levels feel like something you'd play at an arcade. Problematic reminders of the arcade style are the lack of a cohesive plot and any checkpoints during missions. The lack of checkpoints would have hurt the score more if it weren't for the relatively painless load times, which are virtually nonexistent on level restarts.
One inherent problem with the game is the controls. They're tight and responsive enough, it's just that there's a lot to learn. In order to leap onto a vehicle you're chasing down, you'll often be holding the X button to accelerate and the L button to aim, while rapidly shooting with the R button and waiting for your cue to go TJ Hooker with the circle button. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but after a while you get the hang of it.
The auto aiming makes the game frustrating and easy at the same time. Frustrating because if you release the L button and hit it again, you lock onto a new enemy. But if you've got a guy near death and your finger slips, he'll continue to hurt you until you can get another bead on him. Easy because shooting is just holding down L and hitting R a bunch, with no regard to direction or head shots. There's really nothing that can be done, though, outside of the PSP growing more buttons.
Although there is no Wi-Fi support, there are unlockables for everybody. Movies, races, time trials, new cars, and (a first) artwork than can be used as wallpaper for you PSP.
Graphics:
The graphics are absolutely stunning. The frame rate never drops below an acceptable level and usually hums, and there is so much attention to detail that you don't appreciate until you play other PSP racing games. Mud and dust kick up from tires, rain sticks to the camera, and my favorite touch: corpses rattle around riding shotgun.
Audio:
The sound track is generic, but base-heavy repetitive action themes can sometimes add a sense of urgency. I found it be reminiscent of the score for Speed, which may be deliberate since one of the stages involves keeping a bus above a certain speed. The dialog is solid and the voice acting strong, but the in-level comments get old quick when you repeat a level.
Conclusion:
This game isn't for everyone. It's fairly violent, it isn't very deep, and it's harder than a coffin nail. I would rate this game higher if the stages on foot weren't included. But who says every game needs to be a non-linear 20+ hour epic? If you play your PSP in 10-25 minute spurts then it's hard to get any sense of continuity out of a Grand Theft Auto or Tales of Eternia. For fans of arcade racers or shooters, this title comes Highly Recommended.