Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice review (PSP)

When Extreme Justice first kicked open my UMD slot and came storming onto my XMB, it left me pretty cold. So much to whinge about- from the arcade handling to the Bad Boys tone, loopy central gimmick and gormless, rubber-bodied FMV. I’d managed to steer clear of lacklustre titles over Christmas, burying myself in Phantom Hourglass and WipEout Pulse, but plainly my reprieve had been a fleeting one, or so it seemed. Time to bite the bullet. I took my red pen, stamp and thesaurus out of the cupboard, put my editor on high alert and settled down to be disgusted.

Strangely enough, this failed to occur, and after running through the alternatives- pinching myself, checking my pulse, ensuring that I hadn’t absently poured Wild Turkey into my tea- I was forced to conclude that I was having fun. And the game, somehow, despite sitting at an interstellar remove from my notions of excellence, was responsible for this.

What seems to be the problem, officer?

The premise, you ask. Well, you’re this cop who’s good at jumping between cars while driving very fast and being shot at. Yes, you read me right. Alongside firearms training and extreme driving lessons back at the academy, the Pursuit Force team must have been taking evening classes at the Super Mario Institute of Law Enforcement.

The nub is your steering wheel, X is your gas pedal and square applies the brakes on those rare occasions you’ll want to slow down. Right trigger fires, and the D-pad cycles weapons. The car-jumping itself is a matter of context and timing rather than agile fingerwork: simply steer your rather flash station wagon close to the fugitive vehicle, hit circle when the little jump icon flashes up, and you’ll be aboard your prey before you can shout ‘police brutality’, cue a quick bout of whack-a-mole with the occupants.

The Justice gauge in the top left corner of the screen splats this steaming pile of gameplay chips with tactical ketchup. Effective policework (i.e. ramming into and capping the victims of society) fills it up. Accidentally punting civilian cars into the gutter drains it away. You can dump the contents of the gauge into your health bar if desired, or fill it to the brim to make use of special moves like ye olde John Woo slo-mo (TM) or a fusillade of rockets.

The demented handling and ticking mission timer make Extreme Justice more than a little redolent of Crazy Taxi. Missions- of which there are over fifty, split across four acts- tend to break down into two or three checkpointed segments, and run the gamut from escort duty to on-rails shoot-outs to ‘boss’ missions which task you with taking down large, multi-part vehicles. There’s little here in the way of real innovation or depth, but the variety and pace conspire to make the game feel like more than the sum of its parts.

Out on the beat

That’s the crux of the matter, really. Stop the action at any point, pause to actually analyse what’s happening and you’ll lose the vibe. The trick is to keep going. Ignore the way your higher brain functions are withering up like a slug in a saltshaker. Sure, individual challenges are about as intellectually substantial as a packet of smoky bacon flavoured crisps, but they rarely outstay their welcome, and each adds its own signature spin to the universal silliness. One minute you’re riding a hovercraft, then the game throws an aircraft carrier at you. One mission sees you fighting to keep an unwieldy army truck out of raider hands, the next has you struggling to remain inconspicuous as you trail a convoy of syndicate cars. It only really falls down when you have to blunder around as a pedestrian, but such sequences are few and far between, and the graphics are chunky, colourful and zap past at an appropriately adrenaline-fuelled rate. The music is as OTT as you’d expect, bubbling over with grandiose orchestral strains and growly acoustic guitars.

Wait, did I mention there’s a plot? There’s a plot. It involves lots of still portrait dialogue, a big gruff black guy who just happens to be a heavy weapons specialist, beastly vulgar renegades who all hail from Texas, kidnapped nuclear physicists, conspiracies and lots of helicopters, and thankfully it shows very little inclination to take itself seriously. Everything kicks off when a bunch of convicts gatecrash the unnamed protagonist’s marriage, busting up the cake and high-tailing it without so much as a ‘congratulations’. Rather than sobbing genteelly into his prospective father-in-law’s shoulder, Mr Protagonist (who is conveniently wearing his PVC police suit rather than a tux- these New Age marriages, eh?) gets behind the wheel and gives chase, with his bride-to-be providing helicopter support. Only in America, as they say. A British bobby would have just written a sternly worded letter.

Throw the book at him

Outside the main campaign, there’s the option to replay missions under more stringent conditions to earn gold stars, which can be spent in the shop to unlock concept art and the like, and Ad Hoc multiplayer for up to four players. The multiplayer modes vary in quality. On the one hand there’s frantic fun to be had with ‘Cops ‘n’ Robbers’, which tasks one team with stopping another from reaching an objective; on the other there’s ‘Rampage’ aka insipid on-foot deathmatch.

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is the sort of game ‘real’ gamers hate to acknowledge, and having it in my collection makes me feel somehow illicit, like a raw-foods vegan tucking into a Big Mac. It’s bold, brash, skin-deep but oddly irresistible, and while it doesn’t leave my desk with a firm recommendation, fans of arcade action could certainly do worse.