Back in 1998, while I was still a student, my boss asked me what I wanted to be doing in 10 years. I said: “help to run a games studio” and my boss laughed, spurring me on to prove him wrong. I was just a naive youngster but I fell in with the right crowd and just three years later, I was ready to try it for real with a heap of enthusiasm and three talented and experienced friends. As the four of us quit our stable jobs, we held on to the thought – we love games; how hard can it be to make games the way we think they should be made?

During a wild spring break vacation in Cancun, we dreamed up the foundations of the studio. A place where real gamers could use their talent to make ‘proper games’ that everyone would enjoy. A month later we showed our first demo to Evolution Studios. Somehow, they saw potential in a bright blue car driving around a plain grey square, and Bigbig Studios was born. Before long we were hard at work on a series of demos including a prototype F1 game, a streetwise car-modding racer and a free-roaming action secret agent game where players could jump between vehicles and kick out the enemy drivers.

Our first game began with one of those “Eureka!” moments in the pub – wouldn’t it be cool to fight on a moving vehicle like Indiana Jones, and as far as we could tell, it had never been done before; something that’s incredibly rare in the games industry. After a lot of hard work, we had a great looking demo, but the marketing guys needed a new twist to make it stand out from the crowd. Sony was looking for teams to create games for its new handheld console, the PSP, and loved the idea of an action movie-styled cop chase game, so Pursuit Force was born. We worked like crazy, hired a load of talented new artists, coders and designers and in what seemed like a flash, our first game was released and selling very well.

When you work in a small team making ambitious games, there are always tonnes of ideas that you can’t fit in the first game, so when it came to the sequel we wanted to make it bigger, better and more explosive in every way. The team pulled out the stops and created what’s still one of my favourite action games, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. Cheesy Hollywood script, massive bosses and even better vehicle-jumping-car-chase gameplay. You know your studio is in a good place when you’re making games the entire team wants to play!

On our next game we had to rethink our strategy. We decided to create a PSP version of the PS3 classic, MotorStorm. With Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, we were determined to make a true sequel, and so we evolved the gameplay and came up with a sub-zero setting, adding a splash of retro ‘80s style. We also took a more streamlined approach to the way we worked and, thankfully, released a great game with the minimum amount of pizza fuelled all-nighters.

While we were adding the finishing touches to MS:AE, we had our second “Eureka!” moment behind closed doors. A secret team within Sony was looking for cool things they could do with their new handheld – codenamed NGP. We pride ourselves on originality and, while dual analog sticks were the obvious choice, we took up the challenge of creating something cool for the console’s unique Rear Touch pad. The original concept was called “Cloth Ball” where the idea was to push up the landscape and roll a ball around. Our tech demo showed off this Rear Touch pad control innovation, and we buffed up the demo with some real character and next-gen graphics, resulting in PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida giving us to go-ahead for Little Deviants.

As the game progressed we found that NGP offered huge potential through its extensive control inputs. So we set out to use every input and Little Deviants became a series of action packed mini-games, each showing off the NGP hardware in cool ways, and telling the story of the mischievous Little Deviants. You may have seen our tech demo at the NGP announcement, and we’re due to show off even more as we reveal four of our mini-games at E3.

So that’s what we’ve been up to these past 10 years. We’ve been so busy making games that we only recently realised that the studio needed a revamp. We’ve got a new logo, upgraded our offices and have relaunched our website, www.bigbigstudios.com. The new website is now in a blog style which is ideal for sharing quick, friendly updates and hearing what you guys have to say. If there’s time at E3 we’ll be doing a live Twitter feed, but NGP is going to be big, so we’ll be spending most of our time talking the talk to journalists on the show floor.

So, enjoy what Sony has to offer at E3, and I’m sure you’ll hear more from us soon as the launch date for Little Deviants and NGP draws near.

Last time, we showed you the familiar faces returning to Capital City’s gang lineup. Now, meet the city’s new breed of criminal. Pursuit Force is now a team, and sports some really high tech weaponry so we thought it would be a shame not to be able to unleash justice on some equally hardcore gangs. Unlike Pursuit Force 1, EJ is story driven and each gang has a specific part to play in the plot. We wanted to make sure that each gang had clearly defined roles that make them integral to unfolding the story of the game.

The Raiders
From the outset that we wanted to include more water based vehicles in the game such as Hovercrafts so we came up with various ideas for a ‘Water Based’ gang. The team also wanted to include a bayou style region so brainstorming began for the gang with quite clear goals in terms of what we wanted to achieve. We wanted the Raiders to have the ‘Transport Pirate’ theme of the gang in Fast and Furious and at the same time they needed to have the insane drive of the gangs in Mad Max. A stereotypical ‘Deep South’ mentality seemed to fit the Mad Max style remit and we instilled the ‘Fast and Furious’ theme throughout their vehicles, behaviour and transport targets. The result is that we have a gang who have super cool vehicles and a rabid ferocity to achieve their goals. A subtle mix of humour blended with a deadly menace, these guys are intense and relentless.

The Syndicate
Being a British developer we had always toyed with the idea of having a home brewed gang, but during conception of the first game there were a wide variety of ‘Brit Films’ on the market and we felt that the medium had been somewhat saturated. During the early stages of Pursuit Force EJ our external producer raised the idea again, so we decided to explore it. And in keeping with the ‘Tongue in Cheek’ nature of the game we knew we didn’t want to do a stereotypical ‘Meathead’ gang. We thought it would be cool to have a stylish gang that didn’t take itself too seriously, mixing elements of the thieves in ‘Pink Panther’ with the more comical ways in which people in other countries see our various diverse mix of culture. A gang that was responsible for the heist of London’s Millennium Dome, coupled with their legendary ability to remain in the public eye but never get caught, made them a intoxicating mix of working man’s hero and gentleman thief.

American Intelligence has been gathering intelligence over the last year. The reports aren’t good, a storm is brewing over Capital City and the Mayor has been made aware of the incoming hurricane of crime. Petrified by the vision of a City once again in chaos, the Mayor has decide to create a new elite police unit. And this is how Viper was born.

We loved the idea of creating a new police force that was the Ying to Pursuit Force’s Yang. A brutal police unit specialising in Riot Control. We wanted them to overshadow Pursuit Force (and when you play the game you will see why) in terms of their high tech vehicles and equipment and in their merciless tactics. A ‘Zero Tolerance’ unit that would roll over anyone including Pursuit Force to see their law enforced. The unit is loosely based on Police units that are already operational in various countries around the world. The question is, how far will they go to enforce their own brand of justice?

This time Pursuit Force is on the ropes and once again the city needs a hero!

With PF:EJ hitting stores this Tuesday, January 29th, it’s time to tell you more about Pursuit Force, Capital City and its Infamous Gangs…

Pursuit Force has always been about over-the-top action and larger than life characters, and Extreme Justice is no exception. We knew from the start that we wanted EJ to be bigger, badder and bolder, and our characters are a big part of this. So when we finished Pursuit Force 1 we spent a long time listening to our fan base about which characters and gangs they liked the most, and the majority seemed to go for the Warlords, Convicts and the Killer 66. The first two made it into EJ; we would have loved to see return of the Killer 66 but they didn’t quite fit into the storyline and direction that we wanted to take the new game.

I think the Convicts were popular because they were quite humorous in a psychotic way; they were also like a cross between MacGyver and The A-Team when it came to building their own crazy contraptions. And like the Warlords they had a very clear personality and focus. The Warlords’ main strengths were in their relevance to current affairs, and to some extent their “Kick Ass”, “No retreat No surrender” mantra.

For Pursuit Force EJ we wanted to boil their characters and personality down even more. We wanted to see just how far we could take them, in terms of humor, irony, and psychotic drive.

Players of the first game may remember that Hard Balls (the Convict Boss got run over by his ‘Mad Max’ styled bus) got absolutely hammered by Pursuit Force. He ended up entering prison via a wheel chair and let’s just say he was worse for wear. So we thought it would be cool to have the Convicts go to work on him whilst they were in prison, welding a steel cap to his broken head and steel brace style structures to his crushed limbs. And to top it all off, the guards attached two massive steel balls to his leg to keep him in check. This example encapsulates what we have done with the Convicts; we have focused more on what makes them tick and taken it to the max. So expect to see an even more psychotic, tooled-up and funny band of deranged misfits. And this is an example of how we have turned everything up to 11 in EJ.

We left Pursuit Force 1 on a bit of cliff hanger in regard to the Warlords. We wanted the General to survive but were unsure of how we could bring the gang back the rest of the gang. So we thought about the General’s very patriotic and regimented character and decided that it would be very ironic and fun to have him hire his new gang from Russia. So we went about creating a gang of Cold War mercenaries led by a 5 star US general and having them ship over 1990s Soviet military technology. So we now have this strange and exciting situation in which a Cold War battle is being fought on America’s shores. It was really fun to take the gang in this direction, and now the gang oozes “Raw Warfare” and brings back a sense of what made the Cold War so deadly and yet so utterly insane. So be prepared to battle on a huge Soviet Tank and take to the fight to skies at 25,000 feet on a gigantic long range nuclear bomber (nearly all the gangs have huge Boss vehicles which the player can fight on).

On Monday, we’ll have details (and videos) on the two new gangs rampaging through Capital City – and the elite new police unit challenging Pursuit Force with their own merciless brand of law enforcement.

OK, come the new year when the smoke has cleared we’ll be bringing you an action packed title which you’ll wished you could’ve played as you listened to grandpa’s favorite story for the bagillionth time. On January 29th, be prepared for Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice.

This time around, we bring you more “jump-jacking” excitement with new vehicles, weapons and the most featured option, MULTIPLAYER!!! Here you can go head to head against your friends or work together through 4 game modes using PSP wireless ad-hoc.

• Rampage is a free for all, on foot, “blast before you get blasted” mode. There are 3 maps to choose from and various weapons on each level which makes it feel like the quad-screen gem of the N64 days.
• In Ram Jam, the cops must pursue and ram the criminals over 3 levels of varying terrain. Catch the criminal and you win. Robbers, if you have the speed and skill, leave the cops in the dust.
• Survivor mode is, well, survive or fail. ;) You and your teammate are working together to get out of the firefight. One person drives, the other shoots, if either one of you suck, you’re both dead!
• Cops ‘n’ Robbers is where the robbers need to wreak havoc as they drive through the city “jump-jacking” cars. The Cops need to stop them at all cost.

Let’s not forget Single Player. With Story mode, Bounty mode and Challenge mode, there will be more than enough to grab your attention. With over 30 levels of play ranging from sniping missions, on foot firefights, to mounted helicopter gunner missions, you won’t wonder where all your time went. In addition, you still get to drive, race or ram as many people as you can on your way to ridding the city of crime using hovercrafts, massive swamp buggies, speed boats and some retro-styled British criminal cars plus more …

With the varying gameplay modes, you’ll wish your grandpa’s story was filled with all new criminals, vehicles, pimp cups and the replayability to endure some of life’s best moments. And the likes of 1up, GamesRadar, GameSpot, GameZone, IGN, and PSP Fanboy would seem to agree.

For updated information and to check out more content like the trailer above, be sure to visit the official game site at www.pursuitforceextremejustice.com.

Happy Holidays – See you in 2008!