Sequels have a tendency to let us down. I mean that "us" in the broadest possible sense, as in the whole of mankind and womankind. Sequels just generally just don't have the same juice as the original. T2 and Aliens being notable exceptions... Sequels are mostly allowed to be unoriginal if they can take a good formula and expand on it. In this light, it's interesting to see how much more was packed into Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice compared to the first game. The graphics are improved incrementally, but still look very much like what we saw in the original Pursuit Force. More happens on-screen and there are improved effects that show up in fiery explosions, damage to vehicles, and the complexity of some of the game environments. The cut-scenes are very well done with lots of CGI, but don't show up nearly enough. There is a complete gallery of unlockables that feature art, game images, and movies that you can unlock by earning points in replay missions. The idea that forcing us to replay the game to unlock stuff we saw once the first time around is a little stale, but not unheard of in the gaming world. What works better is when replay truly unlocks novel gameplay content. There isn't much that will surprise you after a few missions into Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. Everything is a combination of car combat, over-the-shoulder shooting action, and on-rails shooting. The bosses have some neat twists and are much bigger than in the first game, where there was an overall lack of variety. The pace may change in this outing, but the view is mostly the same.

If you lived through the era of the "me-too" driving combat game, you know that there were many losers and few winners. The big complaint about all the copy-cats and even some iterations of a good franchise was that driving around an arena blowing up your friends had a tendency to feel pretty thin. Once you'd unlocked the unlockables and played all the different characters, you didn't have much to do. Then GTA came along and pretty much blew away our notion of what a mission-based driving game might look like if it adopted a take-no-prisoners approach. Who needed car combat when you could combine vehicular homicide with action on foot and all kinds of weaponry that included sniper rifles, machine guns, and bazookas. Compared to a game like GTA that put you behind the wheel in a huge crime-simulator world, how much fun is it to just drive around an arena blowing up your friends? Car combat seemed to go on hiatus and re-emerge as a butterfly from a chrysalis with the first Pursuit Force game.

The premise is much the same this time around in Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice where you get to play a renegade cop with no fear for his life at all. He's also armed to the teeth and has a backup squad of several other well-armed and skilled cops. This bunch was pitted against crooks in the first game and came out ahead; this time there's pressure from a rival crime-fighting squad, new recruits, and unrelenting enemies. It's almost more than a person can handle sometimes, and makes Jack Bauer's world look like a nice, friendly, vacation. No cop ever went so far in the name of duty and no bad guys were ever quite so corny. The action is fast and furious and fans of the first game will find this sequel to be more of the same things they loved.

The single-player campaign, or Story Mode, isn't the only thing going this time around. It's still the major focus of the game, though. You'll start off playing through several missions in order to unlock new challenges and replay missions that will earn you special awards. These awards offer more than bragging rights, as you can cash them in for those unlockables mentioned earlier. The semblance of branching paths is seen in how Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice appears to offer mission alternatives throughout. The extent to which anything is actually branching is dubious; if you skip a mission in favor of another mission, you'll just end up coming back to play the choice you didn't select after you beat the alternate mission. It would have been nice to see more true variety in the way a player can progress through the game. Multiplayer for up to four is a nice break from the main modes and the bonus modes. Online multiplayer is missing and it's a real shame since the options to compete against other players adds a nice dimension to Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. Not that multiplayer seems token this time around, but it takes a serious backseat to the single-player, which is 80-90% of the game.

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice stumbles a bit on this front. The first game had its moments where the frustration would build and these seem even more numerous through Extreme Justice. Because the game is very driven by events, not passing a single challenge will really hold up your progress. Boss battles are the worst. If you get stuck at a checkpoint having performed poorly in the previous checkpoints, you're going to pay the price. Fail to get the best weapon before you face off against a boss and you'll also end up creamed. There are three levels of difficulty in the game, tied to how often you play games. Balancing difficulty against ability is nice in theory, but it falls down somewhat in practice. The Easy setting can be changed at any point during the game to make it easier to move through and unlock all the missions and boss battles. Even on Easy, there are just some moments where it becomes very difficult to defeat a boss without getting creamed. You'll learn little tricks along the way that make these battles easier, but you can't rest on your laurels when it comes to this game. Let your guard down and you'll end up a "street pizza."

There are three different control schemes you'll be required to master in Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. Driving is the most common and you'll find all the major driving controls here, plus the option to shoot at targets or people targeting you. The vehicles are very responsive, especially the newer models. The missions that require you to damage a moving target are engaging but difficult. Getting out of the car and tooling around on foot is an option but not a great one since you typically get smashed as soon as you leave your cover. Dialing down the difficulty helps with this, but the fact is that there's typically a mob waiting for you outside and a bunch of police coming after you because of all those fancy weapons you carry around. There are first-person shooting levels on rails that put you in control of a big chain gun attached to a helicopter or vehicle. You don't have the freedom to just switch what you're doing; that's where scripting comes into play. After being plunked down into the action, you'll have to worry about enemy attacks. Enemies can take you out on foot, by car, or in the air. The unique thing that happens when you're in the car is that you can hit a button and launch yourself right onto another car, usually that of an enemy. This is a handy capture since you can get the weapons carried by the enemies and expose their evil plan.

The event-driven single-player mode is both good and bad for Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. It's impossible to get lost or bored because something is always happening in the game. Missions are fast-paced, dense with action, but short enough to not make you suffer through replays. The checkpoint system is a great way to help players, especially kids, keep track of where they last were and what their new objectives are. It's not like you can get lost, since the whole game is largely on wheels. The Developer seems to have grasped that variety is the spice of life for our Pursuit Force heroes just as it is for us, but nobody likes wandering around a big, empty world. Items are in plentiful supply here and if you hijack an enemy's car, you'll often be able to snag his goodies. Some of the enemies are actually using better weapons, which nobody likes to see. If that weren't enough, you've got to settle the hash of this new manager responsible for leading benefits, but acting like he's running the entire company.

More of the same is a good thing for folks that loved the first flick. I count myself among fans, but not devotees of the first game. The outcome of this sequel is that new people will have a chance to inhabit the Pursuit Force universe. Better to be a gamer in that world than a pedestrian. They seem to be creamed constantly, have their cars broken into, and be shot at. The fact that they have such a cool, cool, demeanor just goes to show that they're the toughest by far in this brave new world. Now if the hero of the game can avenge his fiancee and continue meeting his obligations. He could go vigilante, but he needs his team of specialists and recruits, in order to succeed. You'll laugh at the corny dialogue, cry when you find out how difficult it is to move through certain parts of the game, and shout at the fast-paced action here. It would have been better with more robust multiplayer, and it needed a tweaked level of difficulty to accommodate newer gamers. In all other respects, it continues to be fun and original, with the dream match-up being a match of Pursuit Force versus GTA. Maybe someday...