Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is the follow up the hit 2006 PSP title that puts you in control of an elite band of cops trying to take back Capital City. It’s a fast paced vehicle based shoot-em-up that’s set to provide great pick-up-and-play portable gaming. The original was great, but did have its flaws. Does the sequal fix those issues? Here is a breakdown of some of the facets of Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice for the PSP:

Presentation and Graphics: Extreme Justice has a great blend of CGI cutscenes and crisp graphics to engage you into the fast paced environments of Capital City. It’s not the best graphics we’ve seen from Sony’s handheld, but the framerate runs at a crisp pace to keep the game up to speed. Environments have pretty good details and each of the 12 vehicle types look great. I would have liked to have seen more animated characters during the gameplay, as pop ups when characters talk are just still images. 8.5 of 10

Sound and Music: Pursuit Force features a fairly bland rock soundtrack to get you pumped to take down criminal gangs of Capital City. It’s pretty good, but there’s no big licensed tracks or anything very recognizable. Voice acting is decent throughout the game. Vehicle and weapon sound effects work very well and are individualized for each of the 12 vehicles and 30 weapon types. 7.5 of 10

Gameplay: Fast paced vehicle shooting is the bread and butter of Pursuit Force. You take the reigns as the Commander of Pursuit Force, an elite group of cops set to take Capital City back from five gangs that have taken over. Gameplay centers around driving various vehicle types and taking out enemies as you accomplish various tasks, such as escorting armored trucks, stopping crimes, and reaching certain destinations in a timely manner. Controls are very solid for every vehicle type and shooting enemies is extremely fluid. The mission variety will keep you interested throughout the game. A few cases put you into a first person mode where man the turret of the Pursuit Force helicopter.

As you ram, shoot, and disable enemies, your Justice bar will increase. This will allow you to refill needed health for yourself and vehicle. With a maxed out Justice bar, you can board enemy vehicles in slow motion and shoot at them while in the air. While in the helicopter, a maxed Justice bar will allow you to fire missiles at enemies for major damage.

After you complete missions in the Story, you can replay it in Bounty Mode where you earn stars to unlock new abilities and cheats. Also available are mini Challenges in each mission to add replay value. 8 of 10

Multiplayer: One of the biggest drawbacks to the first Pursuit Force title was no multiplayer mode. Extreme Force remedies that with up to 4 player Ad-hoc multiplayer with 4 distinct gameplay types. Cops and Robbers pits one side against other as Robbers try to destroy of capture vehicles before hitting the finish line, while the Cops do everything they can to stop the Robbers. Survivor pits a Pursuit Force vehicle against enemies. The object is to survive enemy onslaughts until you reach the finish line. Ram Jam puts criminals in bullet-proof cars against cops who must try to run them off the road to destroy the vehicles before the finish line. Finally, Rampage is your standard on-foot deathmatch gameplay mode. My personal favorite is Ram Jam. The only downside is the multiplayer is Ad-hoc only. I would have liked to see Infrastructure mode over Wi-Fi. 7.5 of 10

Lasting Appeal: There are a little over 50 criminal cases in the single player campaign in seven districts of Capital City, set to offer more than 20 hours of gameplay. The ability to replay missions to unlock content is a huge plus. With the planned downloadable content to expand single player gameplay and the Ad-hoc mulitplayer modes, you’ll be playing Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice for a while. 9 of 10

Final Word: If you’re a fan of quick pick-up-and-play action on your portable console, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is for you. The game offers the ability to hop in quickly and play in short bursts, something that’s a must for a lot of portable gamers. With the deep single player campaign and available multiplayer modes, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice should make it’s way up your purchase list soon.

Overall: 8 of 10

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