Pursuit Force Q&A
Released in Europe earlier this month and only today
GameSpot: What's the premise of Pursuit Force? The game's title refers to some kind of law enforcement group, right?
Ryan Hamlyn: Pursuit Force is a special unit of the police force, formed in response to the uncontrollable gang activities in the state and given the charge to bring peace back to the streets by any means necessary. You play as a rookie cop in this newly formed unit and are given a series of cases to solve, where you will bring your own brand of justice to these highly dangerous gangs.
GS: Why did you decide to develop Pursuit Force exclusively for the PSP? It seems like the game would be well suited to home consoles?
RH: We were very excited about the power that the PSP brings to handheld gaming and thus wanted to really showcase the hardware through this unique and action-packed new IP. Gameplay progression through the cases as well as the race and time trial modes really lent themselves to handheld gaming, so we felt that this was the most natural fit to begin with. The PlayStation 2 was not included in the initial release of Pursuit Force, but we're keeping our options open for the future.
GS: Was Pursuit Force inspired by any movies or other games that you care to mention?
RH: We feel that Pursuit Force fits nicely into what we like to call the "summer blockbuster movie" genre, so there are naturally a lot of movies that we drew inspiration from. Starsky and Hutch, Indiana Jones, Bad Boys, and the Bond films immediately come to mind.
GS: We've heard that Pursuit Force features around 50 different vehicles. Can you give us an idea of how varied they are by giving us some examples?
RH: Sure. To start, there are the police vehicles, which range from sports cars to off-roaders to helicopters to speedboats. You can also look forward to jumping to and from motorcycles, buses, big rigs, and SUVs, to name a few others.
GS: And what about weapons? There are plenty of those to play with, right?
RH: You bet. Each of the gangs has their own specific weapons that fit with their "style" and preferred criminal activities, so there's a lot of variety there. Then we have the standard police-issue pistol, which is upgradable as you progress through the game.
GS: In addition to driving and the much-publicized jumping-between-vehicles mechanic, what other activities can we look forward to in Pursuit Force?
RH: In terms of main gameplay activities, there's railgun action from the helicopter and on-foot sections, too. Also, we have a bunch of boss battles to keep you on your toes. Outside of the cases, we have race mode and time trial mode, and using the unlockable cheats is also a lot of fun!
GS: Are there any multiplayer features in Pursuit Force, and if not, were any ever considered?
RH: Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any multiplayer features in this time, even though we had a ton of ideas.
GS: North American gamers will be getting their hands on Pursuit Force much later than their UK counterparts. Can they look forward to any bonus features not found in the European version?
RH: We're using the majority of that time to really tune the difficulty of Pursuit Force, as that was one of the main concerns with the European version. But, one feature not available in the original version is the image-saving feature. We're allowing players to save the images that they've unlocked in the gallery to the images folder on the memory stick so that they can view them outside of the game and also use them as wallpaper for the PSP, which we think is pretty cool.
GS: Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to someone about to play Pursuit Force for the first time, what would it be?
RH: Watch your justice meter. That's the key!
GS: Thanks for your time.
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