Just a routine patrol
Pursuit Force is a video game series developed by Bigbig Studios for the PlayStation Portable. It puts the player in the role of a police agent who joins up to a law enforcement agency known as the Pursuit Force, to restore order to a city overrun with crime. This elite unit specialises in direct armed encounters with adversaries, whether it be on foot or on the bonnet of a speeding car. The player has to try to seize cars and motorbikes while engaging in gun battles at speeds of over 150 miles per hour (240 km/h). It is set in fictional Capital State (which includes Capital City) in America where there are various criminal gangs to contend with. So far, there are only two games in the series.
- Pursuit Force (2006) — Set 20 Minutes into the Future (into 2007), the story opens with a news report showing a rise in vehicle-related crimes across Capital State. There are five gangs to blame, "The Capelli Family", "The Warlords", "The Convicts", "The Vixens", and "The Killer 66". The report also states that a new kind of police, The Pursuit Force, has been organised to destroy the threat posed by these gangs. There are a total of thirty missions, six per gang. These missions include escorting, protecting, and destroying the enemy on foot, by speedboat, in a car, or in a helicopter.
- Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice (2008) — The game takes place 2 years after the events in the 1st game, a wedding of the commander and fellow teammate Sarah Hunter is attended, which is then destroyed by the Convicts, who have escaped from prison once again to come and take revenge on the Pursuit Force. Shortly afterwards, a police chase commences. The action kicks off from here, with eventual encounters with the return of The Convicts and The Warlords in addition to two new gangs, "The Raiders" and "The Syndicate", the introduction of a new police division called "Viper Squad", Sarah getting killed by the Warlord lieutenant, a plot to nuke numerous parts of Capital State, the appearance of an unknown gang, and the revelation that the nuclear threat was a joint venture between the Warlords and Viper Squad, where the Viper Squad's objective on doing so was to turn Capital State into a fascist Police State.
Examples of tropes in the series:
- All There in the Manual: Well, admittedly, it's not the manual, but it on the website. The PDA's character files provide quite a lot of backstory for pretty much all the characters in the game.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: More like quadvirate: All gang leaders in Extreme Justice are in on the nuking plan with The General being the lead - who in turn answers to Decker.
- Bloodless Carnage: Criminals and police all use guns, though non of the bullets ever leaves a scratch.
- Continuity Nod:
- In Extreme Justice, the Convicts goons are made up of former members of gangs from the first game.
- Also in Extreme Justice, the face of one of Don Capelli's hitmen can be seen on a few billboards.
- Cultural Translation: The Capellis, as evidenced by generic Mooks saying they'll put Johnny Leone in a wooden kimono... which is Japanese.
- Death Course: The bonus video of Extreme Justice shows The Commander going through one of these.
- Destructive Savior: The commander often sends empty cars careening into traffic, caused a train wreck, a plane crash, and 3 massive tank explosions, not to mention all the massive shootouts and cars exploding on city streets.
- Difficulty by Region: The American release of the original is somewhat easier than the European version (mostly, there are more checkpoints).
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Commander, The Chief, and The General are all only known by their nicknames, and their actual names are only listed on the website.
- Excuse Plot: You're a cop, and there are criminals to deal with, go. All five gangs in the original are self-contained stories, but otherwise there's no relation between them. Extreme Justice averts this by giving us a bigger, more connected plot.
- Foreshadowing:
- Later on in Extreme Justice, a mystery gang enters the frame, wearing black with red markings. Which other organization in the game wears the same colors?
- In her introduction, Ashley laments that the criminal gangs are not dealt with sufficient force by Pursuit Force, and that Billy Wilde should have been killed not arrested. Guess what happens to her later on?
- High-Speed Battle: The whole series' premise.
- Homage: The fifth mission in Pursuit Force is a big homage to the movie Speed. The Warlords have rigged a bus with a bomb. Should the bus's speed decrease below 100mph, the bomb starts ticking and will eventually blow up. The difference between this and the movie is that the bad guy lets you try to save the commuters. But with traffic getting in your way while you try to line up the bus with the ranger's jeep without slowing down and only having little distance to spare,
it's not that easy, especially if you're trying for an A grade. - Jerkass:
- All criminals (even the ones you help), but The Chief is a huge one, only berating the main character without doing anything himself. Although the Chief becomes more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the second game.
- Decker. Put Sociopathic Soldier and Evil Is Petty together.
- Lucy may subvert the Evil Brit nature of other Syndicate members, but she is still bitter at the Commander for blowing her cover. It does not last long however, and by the third act she becomes just as helpful as other Pursuit Force members.
- Macross Missile Massacre: An ability that the Commander can pull off in the police chopper with a full justice meter.
- Nintendo Hard: The original European release of the first game can be hard as nails due to Checkpoint Starvation.
- Pastiche: Of Cowboy Cop movies.
- Press X to Not Die: In Extreme Justice, the melee battles and the boss fight against Ashley play out like this. There also several times during the boss battles where you'll be prompted to press buttons in order to avoid an attack or do a counter.
- Run for the Border: Many missions in the first game have the gangs doing this.
- Not that it makes much sense, since some of them are just fleeing to the next state. Considering that quite a few of them aren't against killing innocents, even the ones that aren't just fleeing to a different state should be focused on by higher-ups.
- Sequel Escalation: Extreme Justice moved away from the first game's "catch all the criminals" Excuse Plot into a Conspiracy Thriller dealing with nuclear bomb threats and an attempted coup. The boss fights also became more elaborate, with the Commander fighting against tanks, armored trains, and bomber planes.
- Shout-Out:
- One mission in the first game (called "Velocity") has you driving a bus full of innocents which has a bomb planted in it, that ticks down if you don't drive fast enough.
- In The General's Revenge mission of the first game, one of the taunts The General says is the famous "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" quote from Apocalypse Now, with a cop related pun.
- Stalking Mission: Several cases has the Commander tailing the gangs' vehicles, without getting too close or tool far.
- Super Cop: The Commander can be this, being a Badass Driver who can leap from vehicle to vehicle, and is great in combat too.
- The Something Force:
- Title Drop: From the opening:Reporter: And what should we call this new addition?The Chief: The Pursuit Force.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The driving/shooting is the meat of the game, but there are also occasional Third-Person Shooter portions where you get out of the car and Rail Shooter segments behind a helicopter-mounted gattling gun. Extreme Justice added rail shooters sections from other positions and sniper missions to the mix.
- Useless Item: Extreme Justice has cross-platform saves. Except the PlayStation 2 version was cancelled, so the feature is totally pointless and useless at the same time.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: When you switch into a gang vehicle, you do not subdue the driver or ask him or her to move over; you just shoot the sucker and toss the corpse out when you enter. If you are taking over a motorbike, you will wring the biker's neck and shove him or her off. Oh, and if the car you took had passengers, you have to kill them all too before taking over. Afterwards, you can enjoy the wonderful 3rd-person view of still-bleeding stiffs merrily swinging in the car beside you.
- You can only arrest enemies on several infantry battle missions (which are pretty brutal and modified from Dead to Rights: Reckoning's execution scripts), and you are not given any non-lethal firearms or devices. Most of the time, you must "neutralize" them via a faceful of bullets.
- Wedding Smashers: The Convicts in the intro to Extreme Justice, ruining the Commander's wedding to Sarah.
