Pursuit Force

Getting a PSP for launch was very exciting until i realized that the launch lineup for the machine is pretty mediocre. I got two titles at launch, and those were this one and a Sudoku game, and i think i ended up putting more hours into the sudoku game. This is not a bad title though, but its heavily flawed in the design.

You play as a copper who gives chase to criminals and kills them all. The basic layout of a mission in this game starts you off in a pursuit vehicle and you must hop from vehicle to vehicle to kill all the bad guys. The shooting is done through auto aim, and so are the jumps from vehicle to vehicle. The difficulty in the game is more about when to shoot, when to use the powers and of course the actual driving, The plot is quite comedic but pretty secondary and skippable.

Its definitly a game made for setpieces, and it offers some incredible moments. Jumping from car to car, killing the occupants by cover shooting in the back of the car, avoid being shaken off are all adrenaline fueled moments. There is a nice variety of weapons and vehicles, that you appropriate from the deceased criminals. With good actions you build your power meter, and this can be expended either by restoring your health or alternatively use a jump shoot move, in which time slows down when you jump to an enemy vehicle and you are given the oportunity to shoot them all mid air. Its really incredible to pull these offs, but you dont really have a lot of time to admire your feats. This game is extremely hard, both due to the very short time limits given for each mission, as well as the damage dealt out by the enemies to you and to your car.

Everyone who plays this game knows the bus mission when i talk about it, which is a level in which you must maintain a certain velocity with a bus or it explodes. It pure bullshit and one of the hardest missions in the game. But unfortunatly its not the only one, as each boss mission is a huge spike in difficulty and this can kill the pacing of the career. Some missions have several stages, and a gameover in the later ones means back to the beginning. The game also lacks a bit of polish in the on foot missions and the turret sections, which do add a nice amount of variety to the game but feel weaker.

There are also some side stuff that is unlocked as you beat the main campaign like races and time trials. These are very passable and feel like filler for the most part.

Overal its a solid action title, somehow hampered by the limitations of the console as well as some insane difficulty spikes. It offers some incredible chase sequences and action moments, stuff that i have never seen anywhere else except perhaps Sleeping Dogs, but this one is one another level. For that reason alone i think its worth a shot playing it.