Video Game / Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

"20 to County, in pursuit of a yellow Diablo."

"We got the power of the OOOH YEAH!
I got the fever for the flava of it! OOOH YEAH!
And did I mention, and pay attention!
Gonna take the hammer to the jammer dimension!
I got the green glow under my car!
I got the boom-boom system you can hear real far!"

— Hot Action Cop, "Fever for the Flava", part of Hot Pursuit 2's soundtrack ^note Actually the bowdlerised version made for the game.

The ones that revolutionized high-speed police chases.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a sub-series of Electronic Arts' Need for Speed franchise. It consists of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998), Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002), Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010), and the latter's remaster, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (2020). The first two games in particular would come to represent the identity of what's considered to be the first era of the Need for Speed franchise, that is, racing exotic cars in various scenic tracks while being chased by the cops. Also, unlike what later titles in the franchise would be famous for, none of these games feature any plot.

III: Hot Pursuit, as its name implies, is the third overall game in the Need for Speed franchise, and it reintroduced the police chases from the first game and improved the AI system, now utilizing several tactics to stop both the player and opponent, thus making the exotic car street racing more of a Blood Sport compared to previous two titles, with each racer having different driving habits. The Windows PC version provided the option to play as the police and catch speeders, while PS1 had unique secret tracks that could only be unlocked using cheat codes. Both versions, however, add the option for players to fine-tune their cars' performance and repaint their cars to unique colors. Also, the PC version was the first NFS that was easily modded with add-on cars, as well as the first to have official Downloadable Content.^note In the form of, what else, free add-on cars; the game did not support any more tracks beyond the nine standard tracks in-game due to hard limits (which also applied to the cars). The Lamborghini Diablo SV made its franchise (and video game) debut in this game.

Hot Pursuit 2 is the sixth installment in the Need for Speed series and the sequel to III: Hot Pursuit, featuring more and bigger tracks, more cars, and more race types. It was developed for GameCube, Xbox, and Windows by EA Seattle, and for the PlayStation 2 by EA Black Box, who would become the new main Need for Speed developer for the next several years. Hot Pursuit 2 was the last game in the series to focus on exotic cars for nearly a decade, and also the last game to have them (until 2005's Most Wanted), as following this game was Underground, which would basically serve as a reboot by radically shifting the games' focus on racing heavily-customized import tuners in urban environments. Hot Pursuit 2 was also the first sixth-generation NFS game, and the only classic NFS game released on sixth-gen platforms.

Both games would eventually receive a reboot/Spiritual Successor for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in 2010, simply titled Hot Pursuit,^note generally known as "Hot Pursuit (2010)" to distinguish it from the others, the sixteenth Need for Speed title and the first game in the series developed by Criterion Games, the EA studio behind the Burnout franchise,^note with some help by EA DICE, the makers of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge, and features some online-focused "race and chase" gameplay, either through multiplayer or the then-new "Autolog" system that continuously compares your best times to those of your friends and challenges you to beat your friends' times. It takes place in a not-exactly-open-world environment called Seacrest County, which is based on the American West Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington. The Wii also got its own Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit developed by Exient Entertainment the same year, though it was essentially a blander, buggier version of Need for Speed: Nitro.

Criterion's game would receive a remastered version, titled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered, in November 2020 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It includes all main DLC packs (with their campaigns now properly integrated with the main campaign), all vehicles except for three cars, the added ability to set custom colors and (via a free update) vinyls for most Racer cars, and cross-platform multiplayer. Stellar Entertainment, who helped with the 2018 remaster of Burnout Paradise, helped with this remaster. Hot Pursuit Remastered also holds the distinction of being the first new Need for Speed game for a Nintendo platform since Most Wanted U in 2013, and the last-ever NFS game on eighth-generation consoles, as 2022's Need for Speed Unbound is PC and ninth-gen only.

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27 County. Commencing Examples.

In General

• Battle in the Rain: III: Hot Pursuit introduces this feature to the series, used as an option for all tracks but required in random races on the expert tournament and knockout races. Some specific events in Hot Pursuit (2010) also has the player driving in the rain.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • The McLaren F1, which first appeared in Need for Speed II, missed two games (not counting the Porsche-exclusive Porsche Unleashed, and the F1's GTR "Short Tail" and "Long Tail" models appearing in High Stakes) until returning in Hot Pursuit 2.
  • The Lamborghini Diablo SV (which first appeared in III: Hot Pursuit) followed a similar pattern to the aforementioned F1, but it returned much later, in DLC packs for Hot Pursuit (2010).
• Call-Back: All of the Hot Pursuit titles have a Lamborghini on the cover. Additionally, they all feature a racer being chased by a cop on their covers.
• Cool Car: A given for Need for Speed games, from sports cars to blisteringly fast hypercars.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • III is this to II, brought back police pursuits and turned the exotic car street racing into a serious Blood Sport.
  • Hot Pursuit 2 is this to the more sim-cade Porsche Unleashed.
  • The 2010 game is this to the fairly legal Shift and the wacky Nitro.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Or rather, Getting Arrested is a Slap on the Wrist: This seems to be the case in-universe for both III: Hot Pursuit and Hot Pursuit (2010) where being stopped means a simple speeding ticket and fine. In III: Hot Pursuit's case, you get as many chances as there are laps in a Hot Pursuit Race, and the first time being pulled over will have the cop simply urge you to watch your speed or "pretend your accelerator was stuck". In the latter case, it seems that completely trashing the carbotanium body of a Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster simply means that the racer was issued with a ticket, judging by the dialogue in SCPD events.
• Marathon Level:
  • Event 30 of Championship mode in the Black Box release of Hot Pursuit 2: Ten laps on Palm City Island. It takes about half an hour to complete.
  • Events 28 and 29 in Hot Pursuit 2's Ultimate Racer mode are 8-race tournaments, with 3 laps per race. Takes even longer. You have to finish first in both tournaments to unlock the next event, but fortunately, you can restart individual races without having to start the whole tournament over again.
  • Tournament mode itself in III: Hot Pursuit is this, driving four laps in eight of the available tracks in order to unlock two new vehicles.
  • The Seacrest Tour in Hot Pursuit (2010): a 43-mile, roughly 15-minute race across almost the entirety of the virtual county you've been burning rubber on throughout the game. Tends to be a Curb-Stomp Battle against you if you make too many mistakes. The last racer event in Rivals is just like this, but adds cops into the mix.
• The Most Wanted: All the Hot Pursuit titles have the racers being chased by the police and having as objective not just win the races, also avoid getting caught by the cops.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Sure, the missions at the beginning of Hot Pursuit 2 are easy, but watch out for some of the missions after halfway through. The opponents really stop going easy on you. The Hot Pursuit event branch adds traffic to the mix, alongside the police. At higher stars, the AI will end up defaulting to spike strips first and roadblocks second - if at all. And in the PlayStation 2 port, you have to deal with both spike strips and a helicopter firing bombs, missiles, and spike strip bombs at you at the same time.
  • The first Hot Pursuit was no slouch, either. Tournaments and Knockout races at Expert difficulty generally lead to you having to race through rain at night at very high speeds.
  • Hot Pursuit (2010)'s response missions are incredibly hard as they require to dodge everything and perform a perfect run while under a time limit at more than a hundred miles an hour. Weather conditions amp up these missions considerably. And there's that damned Bugatti Veyron response mission which does all of this at more than two hundred miles an hour, and it's recommended to reach its top speed of ~250 MPH(!) during that mission for max points!
• Racing Game: You either try to get to the finish line before your rivals do or attempt to stop racers from doing so.
• Shifting Sand Land: Desert levels appear in all Hot Pursuit titles. III: Hot Pursuit (and High Stakes) had Redrock Ridge and Lost Canyons, Hot Pursuit 2 had Desert Heat and the Outback.^note The point-to-point equivalent is Rocky Canyons, though it's primarily set in Outback. All three only appear in the PlayStation port of the game. Most likely as a homage to both, Hot Pursuit (2010) had desert levels.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The tracks in III: Hot Pursuit (and High Stakes) can (or occasionally have to) be raced on in the rain. Summit, however, a track that's Exactly What It Says on the Tin already, replaces rain with snow. And no, you don't get any vehicle that's halfway sensible to drive on this track in such conditions. Good luck keeping a Countach on the street.
• Vanity License Plate: Hot Pursuit (2010) and the EA Seattle release of Hot Pursuit 2 has the player driving with "ND4SPD" license plates. The PlayStation 2 release of Hot Pursuit 2 meanwhile has their lettering based on the vehicle being used.
• Villain Protagonist: Street racing is illegal, so the player character is this while playing as a racer. Even if playing as a cop, you are still indulging in Police Brutality such as destroying properties and other cars, making you a villainous Rabid Cop at the worst.

III: Hot Pursuit and Hot Pursuit 2

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The commercial trailers for Hot Pursuit 2 include a Lamborghini Murciélago or a HSV Coupé GTS parking near a Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser, in which the driver and/or passenger show their ass to the officers, using graffiti in a "speed limit" sign to paint a 1 before the 65 to "increase" it, ask them for directions to the nearest bank so they can rob it, and taunting the police with donuts, and then smugly eating those in front of them.
• Bowdlerize: The songs by Hot Action Cop which were featured in Hot Pursuit 2 had their lyrics changed so they're racing-themed rather than sex-themed. On a lesser scale, in the same game, Uncle Kracker's "Keep It Coming" has its "dare ya punk ass to ask me 'what'?" lyric changed to "dare ya (dare ya) to ask me 'what'?"
• Broken Bridge: III: Hot Pursuit has a variation of this trope. The first four courses in the game have closed alternate routes that deviate from the main path and, in the PlayStation release at least, the ones with the alternate route as the main course can be unlocked by winning the tournament, albeit with different weather or time of day.
• Character Customization: Well, car customization, but III allows you to repaint your cars to unique colors, and fine-tune your cars' handling and performance.^note II beforehand had the simple handling tuning options High Stakes (which is basically its Mission-Pack Sequel) also introduced upgrades that turns your car into a sufficiently Pimped-Out Car.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • In Hot Pursuit 2, after the cops use the spike strips for the first time, more spike strips, not flanked by cop cars, will be on the road, and will be darker, so you can't see them, and you get busted after unknowingly running over them.
  • Ironically, this was inverted in the original III: Hot Pursuit (the PC release), where the police AI was a lot dumber, making the very hook of the game much easier than its single player!
• Crapsack World: Implied in III: Hot Pursuit with Empire City; the track narrator goes so far as to say: "Metropolis gone bad..." when listening to the description in the menu.
• Creative Closing Credits: Since just Creative Credits don't exist, III: Hot Pursuit has them in the form of fake Seattle and Vancouver drivers licenses for the main developers, including role, birthplace, birthdate, driving style and vehicle. Aside from their role, it seems anything goes when they wrote their information, such as answering birthplace with "A hospital, duh" and driving styles ranging from "The road's mine!", "What speed limit?", to "Aggressively courteous".
• Cyberpunk: What the world of III: Hot Pursuit's Empire City most likely is.
• Death from Above: Hot Pursuit 2 had a helicopter that would rain bombs across the road to blow you and your car to smithereens. The PlayStation 2 port amped this up by allowing the helicopter to dump two bomb barrels at once instead of just one, as well as firing a heat-seeking torpedo toward you, and worst of all, dropping spike strip bombs in front of you. All because you were speeding.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In Hot Pursuit 2, one of Rotor 1's voice samples contains the phrase "he's really moving down there".
• Infinity +1 Sword: Played with in the PlayStation release of III: Hot Pursuit. The beginner tournament requires the player to drive class B vehicles^note Ferrari 355 F1 Berlinetta, Chevrolet Corvette and Lamborghini Countach in its first four events^note Hometown, Redrock Ridge, Atlantica and Rocky Pass. While class A vehicles^note Italdesign Nazca C2, Ferrari 550 and Lamborghini Diablo SV unlocked by default in other modes, they won't be accessible in this mode until the second half of the tournament where player has to race in the expert-labeled courses in the game^note Country Woods, Lost Canyons, Aquatica and The Summit. The AI roster will match the car required for each half of the tournament.
  • This is averted on expert tournament since the player will have to drive the fastest vehicle available to complete it.
• Market-Based Title: For an in-universe example, Hot Pursuit 2 had "both" the Opel Speedster and the Vauxhall VX220. For those who don't know, "Vauxhall VX220" is simply the name the car is sold in the United Kingdom (Opel and Vauxhall are sister brands). The only difference in the game is the lack of a roof on the VX220 while the Speedster had a slightly higher acceleration and top speed.
• Missing Secret: All regular tracks in III: Hot Pursuit have an alternate variant that detaches from the main route, with the exception being Empire City. Although, the PlayStation release still have closed routes that would be open in a different track that was Dummied Out.
• Nitro Boost: The PlayStation 2 version of Hot Pursuit 2 was actually where the famous nitrous was introduced in the franchise, where police cars used it to catch up with racers, then turned mainstream since Underground as a generally racer-exclusive ability.
• Scare Chord: Sort of. Similar to Need for Speed II, crashing your car in III: Hot Pursuit would cause a short riff to play over whatever song was playing, depending on track and location.
• Schizo Tech: The Atlantica course in III: Hot Pursuit, which looks very futuristic but only features 1990s cars. In fact, Empire City in the same game overall is your standard, dystopian Crapsack World city yet there are high-powered, rare sports cars racing around the district.
• Shark Tunnel: The first Hot Pursuit has one as a segment in the Aquatica track, which is also available in PC release of High Stakes. The PlayStation version of III: Hot Pursuit also has a giant version of it as a secret track.
• Shout-Out: From III: Hot Pursuit:
  • In the PC release, a Death Star can be spotted in the sky of Empire City when the course is driven at night.
  • The livery of the NPC Eagle Talon police vehicle^note Empire City cop in the PlayStation release; Redrock Ridge/Lost Canyons cop in the PC release resemebles the one seen in the Metro City Police Department from the TV show Viper. The Talon police car that it resembles can be also seen in the background of a few episodes◊.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: III: Hot Pursuit did this if you were using the rock or techno Variable Mix pertaining to the track, the music would switch to a short, intense loop when you were being chased by the police, then there was a more intense loop when they were close. Rom Di Prisco opted for shorter, three-to-five second loops while others like Matt Ragan and Saki Kaskas had longer chase loops around fifteen-to-twenty seconds long.

Hot Pursuit (2010) and Remastered

• Anachronism Stew: A subtle but noticeable one is an F-14 Tomcat that likes to fly by every now and then near Memorial Highway. Though not a particular source of frustration, it still has some of the fans that are well-versed in aviation crying foul because the game more or less takes place 20 Minutes into the Future and that the plane in question has been out of service since 2006. It does serve as an homage to the film that inspired the series' name.
• Artificial Brilliance: It's subtle, but while playing as a Racer in Hot Pursuit mode, the A.I. police do actually engage the A.I. Racers racing with you. It doesn't sound like a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that they could have simply made the Police and Racer A.I. only engage you to save the trouble. They don't hold back either, the Police can be seen and heard ramming, administering EMP strikes, and Spike Striping your fellow Racers all around you. However, that doesn't stop...
• Artificial Stupidity: ...the police chopper, who lacks complete navigation skills. For some reason, it prefers to navigate between spike drop points by flying along the roads with all their twists and turns, instead of simply flying straight over the terrain.
• Artistic License – Cars:
  • The McLaren F1 has the airbrake deploy when driving at speed when this particular part is only meant to deploy to assist in braking. This is odd because the active wings on both the MP4-12C and the Veyrons that will deploy at speed to provide downforce but then flatten out against the wind to assist in braking.
  • While each of the car's specs are about as near-accurate, it can't be said for the number of gears in the transmission, which means most of the cars in the lineup magically grew an extra gear. A Porsche 959 or a Mazda RX-8 has 7 gears as oppose to the 6 in Real Life.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Turbo. After a short charge up, it launches your car forward at speeds that exceed the regular boost. However, this makes it harder to turn and dodge traffic. You also can't shut it off early unless you brake hard enough or crash.
• A Winner Is You: This appears when the player clears all of the offline missions for one side.
• Beat: The police dialogue onscreen literally says "{BEAT}" whenever there's a pause between sentences during the same dialogue clip.
• Call-Back: The "Blacklisted" event calls back to Most Wanted (2005), and during the event itself, you are chased by several police cars and a single Chevrolet Corvette Z06; Cross's car from Most Wanted (2005).
• Call-Forward: The "Cannonball" event is a Shout-Out to the opening scene of The Cannonball Run. The year after Hot Pursuit (2010) saw the release of The Run, which would feature an even bigger shout-out to that film, as the game is about completing a Cannonball-style race known as The Run.
• Car Fu: Racers and cops can ram each other to deal damage to and wreck rivals.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The SLR McLaren (both the 722 Edition and the Stirling Moss) and the Carbon E7 Concept were removed from the Remastered version, the former due to being made while Mercedes and McLaren were a joint company but now being separate (and competitors) again, and the latter due to being put out of business in 2013, therefore making it impossible to secure a license to feature either car.
• Critical Existence Failure: The damage modeling usually means that cars on the verge of being wrecked look the part - but they're still perfectly capable of driving like new until that last sliver of health is gone. In addition, it is possible to get caught in a pileup at a roadblock with other drivers, leading to some hilarious, spectacular moments as one watches cars suddenly become wrecked by a fender bender.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A lot of the Duel Events can fall into this, particularly the "Power Trip", "Twin Turbo", "Racing Stripes" and "Title Fight" Duels.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: You may have remembered some advice you got back in Most Wanted (2005) about slamming into the rear of a police car if you had to hit a roadblock as the cars were weighted towards the front. As a Racer, do not do this here, as it will only result in your car taking damage, and in an online race, busted if the cops box you in during the crash cutscene.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The racer-exclusive Turbo. Like the game says, "it's hard to evade spike strips when you're going at 200mph" (especially since, unlike your standard boost, once it's activated, it can't be stopped until it runs dry unless you brake hard enough). It doesn't help when you're out of Jammers and can't prevent the cops from dropping spike strips in front of you...
• Death from Above: Police helicopters will drop spike strips onto the road in order to damage racers and spin them out.
• Design-It-Yourself Equipment:
  • The Remastered version allows you to give any of your cars a custom car color, as opposed to just selecting the available factory colors.^note Although the iOS version of the original 2010 game already had the ability to give the cars a custom color.
  • The February 2021 update features a Livery Editor, allowing you to create custom wraps and designs.^note Livery designs cannot be shared though.
  • Its Wii version has already this in spades. It allows you to apply decals, give the car a custom color and even applying a body kit and custom rims.^note Once you purchased and installed a body kit, you cannot revert the car back to its stock body.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Basically the premise of this game. "Hey, that guy is speeding! Quickly, let's lay down spike strips, use electromagnetic pulses, call in the helicopters, and ram them off the road! Hopefully off the side of a cliff! That'll teach them a lesson about speeding!"
• Excuse Plot: As the intro video shows, Seacrest County has a big problem with street racing, and has police units specially tasked with shutting them down. That's about as much plot given to justify both sides tearing through the county's roads with exotic cars.
• Fragile Speedster: Most exotics and hypercars are the fastest cars in the game, but are the most susceptible to getting totaled.
• In-Vehicle Invulnerability: If you knock out a car, the most you might see the driver do inside is just shaking his head in disappointment. No fear. This happens even if the racer in question uses a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss Edition, which has no windshield or roof. Averted in that if you wreck a cop, they sometimes request EMS.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Due to EA losing the license, the iconic Italian police livery for the SCPD Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 was replaced with a much more generic police livery in the Remastered version.
• Limit Break: Underground 2's mechanic of refilling your nitrous with stunts returns here. In fact, it's about the only way to win in the Exotic or Hyper series when you're a Racer. The fact that the cops' cars are significantly better than yours doesn't help.
• No One Could Survive That!: Most of the wrecks, takedowns, busts, and crashes involve rolling the car multiple times, launching cars off of cliffs, brutal head-on collisions with traffic, and sending supercars into walls while going at speeds climbing over 240+ MPH. Especially in a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss, a car that literally has no roof and no windshield! A roll-over in that car would clearly kill the driver.
• Oil Slick: The iOS version has this weapon for racers instead of the Spike Strip.
• Old Save Bonus: Hot Pursuit (2010) offers "loyalty bonuses" if you played a previous game in the series, usually in the form of additional experience points.
• One-Man Army: You are always this in some of the installments that let you play as a cop, but you are especially this in Cop mode. Unlike the Hot Pursuit events on the racer side, you are always the only cop after several racers in Hot Pursuit events, and your arrival to Interceptor events is often treated like Superman just arrived on the scene.
  Police radio: Confirmed, interceptor unit on station, standing down.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Listen to the woman who reads off each car's description in the vehicle selection menu. She frequently slips between an American accent and a British one, especially on words like "dollars" and "goggles" (for example, during the description of the SLR Stirling Moss).
• Product Placement: "Roadblocks of the SCPD in association with FORD." & "Porsche Cayenne Turbos now deployed to add spice to your roadblocks."
• Nitro Boost: Available to bother racers and cops.
• No One Could Survive That!: Most of the crashes, especially at speeds of +100 mph.
• Scenery Porn: While this is a staple of just about every game in the series, Hot Pursuit (2010) takes it to the extreme. Think about it, Seacrest County has tall redwoods, a large lake, long rivers, a mountain range up north, long stretches of desert... all presented in Crysis-matching graphics! It just looks absolutely brilliant!
• Serious Business: While daft street racing with a straight face is what the games are basically about, the police here have dedicated speed enforcement units with tricked-out cars to match those of racers.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title of the Porsche Unleashed DLC itself is an obvious one to an older series entry, while Lamborghini Untamed is a reference to that make's long-standing ties to the NFS franchise. (It also makes for a nice idea of what EA would call a Lamborghini-focused entry if they ever made one.)
  • An F-14 can be seen flying near the desert portion of the Memorial Highway, in reference to the video game series being named after a quote from Top Gun: "I feel the need... the need for speed!"
  • There are quite a few in the achievement/trophy list.
    • Just so you know who made the game, there's an achievement/trophy called "Burnout" that requires the player to fully charge up the Nitro Boost and use it all in one go. To drive that point home, one of the routes in-game is called "Point of Impact".
    • One achievement/trophy requires the player to win a certain event in a "bee yellow" Camaro. The name of the achievement? "Flight of the Bumblebee".
    • There's another achievement/trophy called "Iron Man" that requires completing three police events in an Audi R8.
    • And there's one called "Shaken, Not Stirred" that requires completing an event in an Aston Martin vehicle.
    • Speaking of James Bond and Astons, there's another Aston-only event called "Do look after it".
    • Finally, there's one called "Godzilla" that requires completing a certain police event in a Nissan GT-R Spec V with no weapons used, a reference to the film series and the Affectionate Nickname of the car in question.
    • One of the Racer events in the Lamborghini Untamed Downloadable Content pack is called Cannonball and has the player racing against the clock and police in a Lamborghini Countach. The event even has a small homage to the opening credits of that film in the opening intro to the event.
    • In a bit of a throwback, hitting top speed in the Lamborghini Diablo SV on a coastal road nets you the achievement "The Diablo You Know", referencing both III: Hot Pursuit and the coastal tracks "Atlantica" and "Aquatica".
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Spike Strips? EMP? Nah, only a metal wound.
• Stealth Pun: During the final roadblock upgrade briefing for police, the game would helpfully notify you that "Porsche Cayenne Turbos are now deployed to add spice to your pursuit." Keep in mind that cayenne is also a type of chili.
• Suspect Is Hatless: One not-at-all-helpful police description is thus:
  Police Dispatcher: Suspect is in the sand, heading toward the rocks!
• A Taste of Power: Defied. A starter cop mission gives you a Lamborghini Reventon, and things don't get worse from there. Mind you, this game absolutely loves this trope, heck, fairly early in the game (whichever side of the law you are on), you're gonna get a preview of a handful of cars you won't be driving for a while. The best examples include the McLaren F1, Pagani Zonda Cinque, Corvette ZR1, and the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. All of which can be unlocked after a few hours of playing. Another example occurs in the form of the following: More often than not, you'll unlock regular events that you have no eligible cars for (eg. Porsche Patrol, which unlocks much earlier than either of the 2 eligible cars you can use for that event). In such a case, you'll be loaned an eligible car just for that event. Yes, the Veyron and the Koenigsegg CCXR are the last two cars you'll unlock.
• Weaponized Car: This game allows Cops and Racers alike to shoot ranged-damage EMP blasts and drop tire-deflating spike strips at each other. Cops can even order helicopters to do the latter for them and call in roadblock units; Racers have Jammers that can interfere with police department equipment, preventing them from using the aforementioned weapons, as well as Turbo boosts for extreme bursts of speed.

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27 County. I'm out of examples.

Copy 27. An index is en route. ETA 5 minutes.