If you can get past the occasionally repetitive gameplay, Pursuit Force is a definite diamond in the rough.
-Story mode features 30 individual missions, spawning land, sea, and air
-Car jumping mechanic really feels out of an action movie
-Driving controls are good, clean, arcadey fun
-Voice acting is surprisingly good
-Graphics are great for the PSP
-A.I. is not too easy to dominate, but not too hard to beat
Cons:
-Race missions felt like an afterthought
-No multiplayer whatsoever
-The system, for some reason, will not go to sleep in some of the game's menus
-The groups of criminals you're after, as well as the story itself, is pretty cheesy
-Weapons have little innovation
-Repetitive at times
-Repetitive at times
-On-foot controls could use some tweaking, and also feel out of place
Pursuit Force is, in all honesty, a great game. Sure, some may find the gameplay to be repetitive. And yes, others may find the gameplay to be repetitive. (X-Play FTW!!!) But, there is plenty of innovation here, and the minor gripes are easily ignored.
You are a super-cop, designed to clean up the mean streets of _____________ City (I couldn't remember, just write a "dangerous" word on your monitor in the space provided). There are five gangs for you to take down; the Warlords (Army vets), the Capelli Family (think "The Sopranos" meets "Seinfeld"), the Convicts (someone at S.C.E.A. watches WAY too many NatGeo specials on prisons), the Vixens (Charlie's Angels, with less plastic surgery), and the Killer 66 (Yakuza with cars). You know, pretty generic stuff. The story is somewhat shoddy, but the voice acting (especially from your boss) is surprisingly clear. Better yet, most of the time, it's believable. For the PSP, this is no easy feat, and I applaud Pursuit Force for it.
There are 30 missions in the game: each takes about 5-10 minutes per try. The load times are O.K.; about 15-20 seconds per level. However, restarts are near-instant, as the loading time is longer to allow each level to be reloaded quickly. That's a double Yay! in my book. A third Yay! is that the game is not too short, since most levels will take a couple of tries to do. I'm almost done with the game, and I'm about 15 hours back, excluding the other modes.
The main draw here is the vehicular combat. You'll be jumping from car to car, or boat to boat, or even jumping into a helicopter's turret position for an aerial assault. As you kill the baddies, your Justice meter goes up. With it, you can either fill your health (as well as your current vehicle's), or choose to save it, gaining a speed and damage bonus while it's full. A cool part of the game is when you jump to a different vehicle with a full justice bar. The game will go into slow motion, and you can start killing the people in the car in mid-air, instead of using the well-refined system of ducking and shooting on the roof of the trunk. It's mandatory to use in mid-air, though, and since it drains some of your Justice, you may want to think about jumping with a full bar. You'll also lose justice for killing civillians, ramming innocent cars, and the like. All standard stuff, all executed well.
The graphics are great: smooth edges, not too many jagged pixels, and plenty of portable eye-candy in the nice-looking vistas you'll be driving in. My only major graphical complaint was in the airport: you'll drive there numerous times in the story mode, and it's just plain ugly graphically. Other than that, this game is an A+ in the graphics department.
However, there are a few flaws in this game that should be noted. The race mode, a simple race against other vehicles, just wasn't very fun. Not to knock bonus content, but there wasn't any originality at all. Also, the weapons never feel like a lot of fun to use, with the exception of the helicopter machine gun. Pistols, shotguns, nailguns, magnums, they all seem the same. The story is very uninspired as well, but if you're buying a balls-to-the-wall action game like this, story is probably not one of the Yays! that you're most looking at. Multiplayer is surprisingly absent in this game, which I think was a big mistake. Who wouldn't want a co-op battle through a few truckloads of ruthless killers? What about a Cops 'n Robbers style chase mode? Just suggestions, but to me, more like missed opportunities. Moving on, the few on-foot action sequences felt a little stiff to me, and did not quite fit in in a game like this. Don't get me wrong, they worked O.K. They just felt a bit wonky in the control department, and out of place in a car-combat game. Finally, everyone's biggest issue: repetitivity. It can get a little boring killing wave after wave of cold-blooded killers, jumping from car to car in slow motion. (Did I just say that?) It sometimes boils down to drive-jump-shoot-drive-shoot-drive-jump-shoot en masse. This happened very rarely for me, but for others, it may prevent the Yay! from sinking in.
So, to close, Pursuit Force is one of the Yayest! of games out on the PSP today. If you like action, and don't mind some minor quirks and some mildly repetitive gameplay, you're in luck: this game is perfect for you. See Ya!
-Aven13