Talking through the details of Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice on PSP (part 2)

Yesterday, designer Chris Whiteside explained how the team at BigBig Studios used the feedback from Pursuit Force – especially complaints about its difficulty spikes – to ensure Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice will be a more consistent and enjoyable experience.

Several areas of the new game were left undiscussed, however; notably the story and buddy characters, as well as the multiplayer modes.

"In terms of its plot, Pursuit Force was based around the best action sequences from your favourite films, but with Extreme Justice we've tried to make everything more coherent and narrative," Whiteside begins.

Indeed, as it often the way with game development, a couple of hot shot script writers from Hollywood made their way over to Leamington Spa to help shape the vision.

"We don't like bolted-on stories so we created a three-pronged approach to the plot," says Extreme Justice's designer. For this reason, the ongoing chatter between the non-playable characters relates to what's going on in the game, and there are hotspot screens at the end of every mission, as in Advance Wars, to further drive the plot. The final element is the cut-scenes, which as before are all created in-house at BigBig.

Of course, we shouldn't expect an epic such as Bioshock, let alone War and Peace. "It's more like a Saturday morning cartoon or Die Hard, but there are twists in the story," Whiteside reveals. "I don't want to give too much away but the subtitle 'Extreme Justice' is all to do with how far you'll go to gain revenge for something that happens in the game."

Helping you out are the four support characters, each of whom has their own specific skill. Ash is a special operations driver and will capture vehicles, Sarah provides air support, whereas Preach is the on-foot heavy assault guy, and Gage is the pursuit driver, who also has an important part to play in the plot.

"He's the most basic in terms of artificial intelligence but he takes the mickey out of the chief, which is something we've shifted over from the player's character," Whiteside says. "We thought it worked better that way so you don't have this negative attention in terms of conflict with the chief placed on you."

The complete plot arc will open up as you play through in the Story mode, and once completed, each mission will be unlocked in the Bounty mode. This treats a mission as a standalone, with each of the three difficulty levels being associated with a score you have to match.

Whiteside compares this to way you could play through the levels in classic N64 game, GoldenEye, although in this case, success will provide you with stars that are used to buy items such as screensavers and cheats in the in-game Pursuit Force shop. The final single-player element relates to the 60-odd Challenges, which see the main missions remixed with only strict ways of completion being allowed.

As for the multiplayer, that's something else entirely. The original Pursuit Force was only a solo experience, so BigBig has spent plenty of time on the four-player ad-hoc PSP options.

Two modes are shared with the PlayStation 2 version of the game. These are Rampage (a standard onfoot deathmatch variant) and RamJam, a chase mode in which the criminal has to get to a specific location on the map before the cop rams them.

The PSP exclusives are more interesting, though. The first is Survivor: "It's co-operative with one guy driving and the other sitting on the back of the jeep and shooting vehicles," Whiteside says. "The other is Cops And Robbers, in which the robber has to steal a certain number of cars and the cop has to stop him.

"That's the most freeform of all the options, although, in general, we've exposed loads of variables in the main menu so you can tweak them before you start each multiplayer game so it's just the way you like it. We've put a lot of time in developing the multiplayer and we're really pleased with the way it's turned out."

Our thanks to Chris for his time. Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is due to be released sometime in November and you should expect our review soon.