Pursuit Force [PSP/2005]

System Played: Playstation Portable

Year Released: 2005

Year Reviewed: 2015

Pursuit Force is a vehicle-based action game from Bigbig Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment for the PSP.


Set in the crime ridden Capital State, the Pursuit Force is a new police unit given carte blanche to kick ass in a Team America sort of way. You play as the rookie schmo out on the street, banging into nobbers while the Chief mouths off in your ear, constantly reassuring you that you're just no good...


Career is the main mode, where you start by selecting which of 2 gangs you want to go after, with more unlocked as you progress. Each gang has 6 missions to play through where you will be given some not so varied objectives, mostly involving pursuing and neutralising so many enemy vehicles.

You’ll drive cars, bikes and boats in your pursuit, all of which control the same and also handle pretty awfully. There are ‘on foot’ sections where you run around shooting people, and helicopter-based turret shooting levels, which are never good in any game, so why should this be an exception?

Pursuit Force reminds a bit of Just Cause but isn’t an open world type game. Levels generally start with you already in pursuit, and you have to take out the enemies before they get to the literal end of the road, navigating winding streets and dumbass pedestrian vehicles as you go.


The objective of most missions to is to take out all the enemies, but there is some variety to be had with the likes of tail and escort missions, some straight race sections, hostages to protect, etc.

A lot of the levels mix up different mission types with multiple sections, even switching between land, sea and air as you go.


Combat is as much a part of Pursuit Force as driving, with the preferred method of taking out enemies being a (somewhat comical) vault through mid air from your vehicle onto the enemy's (whilst both are moving at high speeds down a crowded road), where upon you proceed to shoot everyone in the face, before getting into the driving seat and moving onto the next target.

The vehicle jump is the main USP of Pursuit Force and there is some depth to the mechanic.

Basically you chase an enemy vehicle down and when close enough, a little context sensitive logo pops up indicating you can jump. Once on the vehicle, you ‘negotiate’ with enemies by choosing when to duck down, as they periodically pop out to shoot at you, and when it is safe to return fire. Some drivers will start veering around, trying to shake you off which you have to counteract by jabbing the d-pad.

It’s all big budget, dumbass action movie stuff, and is pretty cool.


You’ll need to manage 2 health bars, one for the player and one for your current vehicle.

If the vehicle is about to explode, you have to jump to another quick. You can commandeer civilian vehicles which litter the street if caught short, but if you need to do that then you probably aren’t going to be completing many levels in Pursuit Force due to one of the games biggest shortcomings, the level time limits.


Another mechanic is the Justice Meter, a bar which accumulates as you ram enemy vehicles and take them out, but depletes if you clip civilian vehicles. Filling this meter grants you benefits like faster weapon firing and a slow-motion vehicle jump, where you can shoot while in mid air, taking out enemies before you’ve even landed on their vehicle.

This technique becomes key to your success in Pursuit Force, as time limits throughout almost the entire game often mean you need a perfect run through of the level in order to beat it.

With the bar full, you can enjoy the benefits or if needed, choose to sacrifice the Justice Meter to restore the health bar of the vehicle you’re in currently. On the non-jumpy missions where you can’t switch vehicles, this technique becomes necessary as asshole enemies are constantly taking shots at you, draining your vehicle life bar.


Fail at any stage of a mission and you have to redo the whole thing, no checkpoints. The combination of long levels, no checkpoints and extreme time limits means you will be failing a lot in Pursuit Force.

Whether it be an actual timer on the screen, the distance an enemy has to go before they ‘escape your jurisdiction’ or a set period before the enemy kills a hostage, you’re pretty much constantly against the clock, and need to have a pretty perfect run of a level if you’re going to succeed.

This means that failure is constant and really frustrates as it accumulates, exacerbating other aspects of the game like those fucking pedestrian drivers who are constantly getting in your way. If you get stuck behind one of them or hit something and get turned around because your vehicle handles like shit, JUST FORGET IT! you’ve wasted too much time and there's no point in even carrying on.

Sometimes you can be right by an enemy vehicle, and for whatever reason, the Jump icon doesn’t show?! so you hang about, pissing around while precious seconds disappear until you finally see the option appear ...and later, probably fail the mission (again!) because you’ve run out of time.

Hell, sometimes if you don’t have the Justice Meter full you’ll run out of time before you complete the level, as shooting enemies from the hood of their car takes longer than just shooting them in mid-jump.

The time limit is just too strict on a lot of the levels, but there is no rhyme or reason to the difficulty. One level can be neigh on impossible, taking hours to get through ...and the next you might just breeze through on the first attempt!


At the end of each stage, you’re given a rank and a spot on the leaderboard (or not). Higher ranks = more unlockables for the other modes like Time Trial which most people probably won’t even play.


Adrenaline fueled music straight out of a Michael Bay movie really gets your pulse pounding on pretty much every mission, even if most do eventually end in failure. Voicework is intentionally hammy, fitting the ‘dumb’ action movie motif.

The graphics are decent, but a bit dark sometimes which combined with the PSP’s reflective screen can make it hard to see where you’re going.


Pursuit Force ended up being a bit of a shame I thought, because there is a decent arcade action game in here. The jump mechanic is fun, and the high speed action mixed with the music just works. The problem is the unfair default difficulty and other annoyances like shitty vehicle handling just erode any enjoyment.

Mid-level checkpoints might have made things a bit more bearable or better yet, relax the fucking time limits a bit. Was a difficulty option too much to ask for? As is, you need to be looking for a real challenge and be immune to frustration if you want to enjoy Pursuit Force.

5/10