Review: Pursuit Force
Bust crooks and jump from car to car as you try to take them amidst high speed chases.
Pursuit Force owes more to the late 80's arcade styled action games than anyone would like to comfortably admit. Harkening back to an era of Chase HQ and Spy Hunter clones, Pursuit Force delivers a nonstop eclectic ride of various chases and shootouts.
The basic premise in Pursuit Force tasks you to assume the role of a rookie cop who's assigned to a special crime prevention taskforce created to take down Captial City's five most notorious and brazen gangs. Every gang has a cheesy tongue in cheek theme, including an Asian crime syndicate, mafia crime family, militia group, ex-con gang, and all female gang of criminals who dress in revealing Union Jack jump suits.
Wait . . . He Did Say Union Jack Jump Suits, Right?
Gameplay mainly consists of you behind the wheel of your vehicle following a long winding high-speed chase to kill or arrest criminals --very similar to Chase HQ. However, Pursuit Force mixes up the equation a little by allowing you to abandon your vehicle at high-speed to commander any other vehicle on the road, including criminals, by pressing the Circle button while your vehicle is near another. While ordinary citizens will gladly allow you to take their car in the name of justice, you'll have to shoot it out with criminals to jack their cars. Furthermore, you'll be able to take control of speed boats, sports bikes, and man the mini-gun on a police gunship.
In addition to the vehicle commandeering gameplay feature, players also have a Justice Meter which fills up every time you kill or arrest a criminal. If you can max the Justice Meter out you can activate it by pressing Triangle which refills your health and your vehicles health gauge. Maintaining a high Justice Meter is essential in the latter levels where you'll be taking a lot more damage from foes.
My Justice Meter is Longer Than Yours
The main mode for Pursuit Force is the Career Mode where you'll be able to take on a series of ever increasingly difficult missions --many of which are inspired by the above mentioned classic games and various summer blockbuster movies such as Speed. The missions vary wildly from escorting a convoy, retrieving stolen property, to actual apprehension of big time underworld figures.
In addition to the Career Mode, Pursuit Force also has Race and Time Trial Modes which really don't add that much gameplay value to the title. In both ancillary modes, you can't shoot or board any other vehicles while racing. All you can do is race from point A to point B. Also, the races, tracks, and vehicles have to be unlocked in Career Mode by obtaining a gold shield rank for the various missions.
Bad Stereotypes Galore
Gameplay mechanics and controls are pretty solid, but there're a handful of missions where after a cut scene my shooting button actually ceased to function for a minute or two. Additionally, the ally AI is pretty dumb. For example, in the mission Velocity, you're tasked to take control of a bomb laden bus which can't go bellow 100 mph or else it'll explode --shades of the movie Speed. The AI is so horrible in this mission that the police vehicles, which are suppose to be helping you evacuate the bus passengers off the speeding bus of death, will collide with your bus and even run you into the guard rail which depletes your speed and you die.
If rampant explosions and car chases float your boat and you can forgive the list of obvious short comings of Pursuit Force, then this game can be an enjoyable ride and a minor trip down video gaming nostalgic lane.
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