Pursuit Force was released in Europe last year when the PSP launched in that territory. The game was generally received well, though there were a number of complaints in regards to the game's rather high level of difficulty. BigBig Studios and SCEA thankfully took a few months to tweak the game in a number of ways before unleashing it onto North America. Pursuit Force takes the best of Hollywood-style car chase scenes, skims out all the useless movie stuff, and leaves us with a unique driving/action title for the PSP.

As a member of the Pursuit Force, you are assigned with bringing to justice five criminal gangs in and around Capital City, by any means necessary. The gangs found in the game range from the Capellis, your typical mafia crime family, to the Vixens, a group of scantily clad high tech thieves. Most of the game is centered around pursuing these gangs using various vehicles, including cars, motorcycles, speedboats, and a heavily armed chopper. A small portion also involves some quick and painless on-foot action, but those segments are few and far between. Chasing down enemy cars sounds simple enough, but there's a unique catch - you can actually lean out of your moving vehicle with a weapon to inflict some damage, and most importantly, abandon the vehicle entirely and leap onto another. Think of any memorable car chase scene in Mad Max or The Road Warrior and you can picture exactly how the game plays out. After grabbing onto the roof or hood of an enemy's ride, you need to work to shoot down the driver along with possibly a heavily armed passenger or two to regain control, all while trying not to be shot or tossed off. The fence swings both ways though, and you may find a gang member on your hood trying to commandeer your vehicle as well. If you successfully bring criminals to justice lawfully, it will boost what they've dubbed the "Justice Bar" meter. Once activated, you can then slow down time during vehicle jumps, shoot at enemies in mid-air, and even restore player health as well as vehicle condition. It sounds complicated, but the gameplay involved is well thought out and fairly intuitive.

As a whole, the game plays and controls well. There are a handful of vehicles which take some time to get used to, such as the sluggish boats and the touchy motorcycles, especially on missions with many twists and turns. Being an arcade-style title, colliding with structures or other vehicles doesn't significantly affect you in any way. The on-foot segments feel somewhat strange at first, since your character almost moves and turns like a vehicle of sorts. Even with the few minor issues, BigBig has done a great job in cohesively accommodating the many gameplay styles into one game.

There are about 30 missions in all broken down amongst the 5 gangs. These missions range from simply eliminating all gang members within a certain time frame, to regaining control of a speeding bus while keeping its speed above 100 MPH (no kidding). Pursuit Force mixes up the various elements and vehicle types to keep missions interesting. You may start off on a motorcycle or speedboat, then transition to on-foot for a short time, then finish off manning a massive chaingun on a police helicopter. There are also a number of boss-style battles with the gang leaders and their lieutenants. No matter what the combination, the game is incredibly fast paced and rarely is there a break in the action. As you'd expect, the better you do in each mission, the more items you'll unlock, including new missions, vehicles, cheats and gallery items, among other things. It takes about 10 - 12 hours to play through all the missions with the highest possible rankings and unlock mostly everything. There are additionally time trial and race modes in which all the unlocked items and cheats can be put to good use.

The real difference between the European original and the North American version is the game's difficulty. Unlike the Euro version, the difficulty ramps up much more gradually, and the developer has added a much needed mid-mission checkpoint feature. That's not to say that the game is now a total pushover, because it isn't. There are definitely some difficult missions which may require a good amount of practice to successfully complete, especially within the last 1/3 of the game or so.

Bigbig Studios was founded in 2001 by a team of four ex-Codemaster employees, all of which played significant roles in Codemasters' Colin McRae Rally and TOCA series. Pursuit Force was not only BigBig's first PSP game; it was also their first game, period. Yet somehow, despite actually being a first generation PSP title, Pursuit Force comes along and shows off some of the systems best visuals yet. The engine is blazingly fast moving, the stages and environments are interesting and varied, and the framerate is smooth and never budges. The game takes on a slightly over-the-top comic book style which fits the theme of the game well. Pursuit Force is also packed with little details and animations such as people jumping from cars, your character forcefully arresting gang members, or your vehicle smoking and catching fire after taking too much damage.

The gameplay does a great job in conveying the hectic nature of a car chase, but the Hollywood blockbuster-style soundtrack really seals the deal. The sound effects are also well done, with nice quality engine noises, weapon blasts, sirens, and screeching tires. The North American version does feature different voiceovers than the original for whatever reason. The acting is on the humorous side, and the voices almost seem intentionally badly acted, though like the soundtrack and comic book-style, they fit in with the theme of the game.

The load times are all more than bearable, with the worst being about the 10 seconds it takes for a mission to load. I have come across some type of glitch which prevents the game from using the PSP's sleep mode on occasion. I'd need to quit out of the game first for it to work, which completely defeats the purpose of it. At this point, it looks like there's no way around the issue, but again, at least the game loads rather quickly and infrequently.

Pursuit Force is more of a unique action title than anything else, and labeling it as just another driving/racing game for the PSP would be unfair. The fast paced and varied gameplay, intense soundtrack and attractive visuals should satisfy those looking for a something new and a bit different on their PSP. I'm looking forward to see what BigBig Studios has in the works for the future.