14-Jul-2007 This crazy-mad PSP road-rage sim leaps all the way to PS2! Pursuit Force was an early highlight of PSP's line-up, boasting arcadey, high-octane thrills and absolutely no unnecessary frills. So things like plot, believability and dullness were tossed out the window in the name of a rollicking good time. There was little to trouble the mind, save for timing outrageous leaps between vehicles and trying not to get messed up by toxic waste-wielding terrorists. We loved it.
So we were collectively rather chuffed when, after getting Sony in a headlock and messing its hair up, we found out that Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is headed for PS2 (and PSP) and will pack more vehicle-straddling cops, more luxurious police cars and even more wonky-driving nutcases to chase. The new game opens with you chasing a flame-spewing fire truck through a wedding.
Perhaps the biggest reason to look forward to Extreme Justice is the prospect of playing the game on a proper control pad instead of PSP's injury-causing nubbin.
The controls have been refined anyway, so on PSP it'll handle better when you're screaming along the highways, byways and skyways of Capital City - and on PS2 it should be great. It's especially important that the driving has been tightened up considering the array of vehicles you'll be driving/piloting/torpedoing into burning wreckage, and while there wasn't a great deal of variation in handling in the first game in the series, the overall sensation of excess speed and impending chaos was nailed. Happily, that looks like being the case once more.
As well as a line-up of exotic cars, there'll be a range of boats, tanks and aircraft to get hold of too, and the explosive new capabilities on offer will be much-needed in order to have a pop at some of the game's new, multi-tiered ultra-challenging bosses.
TOGETHER AS ONE All the new recruits have specific skills you'll want to take advantage of -there's the cop with the chopper licence, the expert driver and last, but not least, the demolitions master.
Two of the first game's gangs will return (the Vixens and the Warlords), and they're likely to be joined by several more. All will play a part in a new overarching story, as the developer wants to tie together the encounters in the game rather than keep them all in isolated stages.
The three levels we saw were all fairly similar at heart, featuring a combination of different vehicles being used to ultimately destroy a villainous group. The first challenge sees you giving chase to a tank by forcing it back on itself, firing on it from an attack chopper and then transferring to a car to take it out on the ground. Once its escort has been dealt with, your task is to somehow get aboard and place explosives to see it off.
There's a slight change to the formula for the next mission, which sees you rescuing the president before he kicks the bucket and then driving home to safety while avoiding the attention of a sniper. The last mission has you saving a techno-geek with info that's valuable later in the game.
Expect a very similar experience to the original PSP game, with added splitscreen multiplayer and more of, well, everything.
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