"20 to County, in pursuit of a yellow Diablo, a yellow Murciélago, and an orange Zonda."
"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!"
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
The ones that brought exotic police-chasing goodness on scenic roads.
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 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 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 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.
27 County. Commencing Examples.
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In General
- Always Night:
- III: Hot Pursuit has this as an option for tracks in the non-Tournament modes.
- Hot Pursuit (2010) has a good amount of events always take place at night.
- In Wii, this applies to all of the tracks in the Las Vegas locale.
- 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 police were already present in The Need for Speed, but omitted in Need for Speed II, thus returning in Hot Pursuit.
- 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.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Zig-zagged across the series:
- A straight example comes from 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.
- An aversion comes from Hot Pursuit mode in III, where rival racers can get fined and even arrested just like the player if the cops catch them.
- Wii is even more fair with its AI as there is no rubber-banding in Career mode, so a good player can get ahead and stay ahead without any CPU racers magically catching up to them.note On top of this, the cops are total pushovers and can easily be passed or even knocked off the road with relative ease.
- Cool Car: A given for Need for Speed games, from sports cars to blisteringly fast hypercars.
- Critical Existence Failure: This applies to all games except the Wii version of Hot Pursuit 2010; While damage has no effect on how cars drive, it does effect how much boost a racer can store; Being at almost maximum damage essentially prevents boosting period.
- Darker and Edgier:
- III is this to II, bringing 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.
- Hot Pursuit: You don't say? Either play as a racer and tear up the track and the cops or play as a cop and use your arsenal to bring street racing to a grinding halt.
- 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.
- Nitro Boost:
- Cops have them in Hot Pursuit 2 and 2010, while racers only have them in 2010.
- In the HD versions of 2010, racers have a boost that is more gradual but lasts longer, while cops have a much shorter but more powerful boost. Also, racers get Turbo, which grants them ludicrous speeds at the cost of handling.
- Wii combines the two boosts above; Pressing the boost button once grants racers a more gradual, longer-lasting boost, while pressing it again while boosting grants a shorter, more powerful boost.
- No One Could Survive That!: This is a given with the high-speed crashes that racers will inevitably get into, but III and 2010 get a special mention for allowing cars to fly into the air while flipping and tumbling.
- No Plot? No Problem!: III and Hot Pursuit 2010 for Wii have absolutely no plot, just racing.
- Optional Traffic Laws: A given for being a series of street-racing games.
- 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 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, 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. - Artistic License – Cars: Subverted. The Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR as depicted in the EA Seattle version (PC/Xbox/GameCube) of Hot Pursuit 2 is modeled after the homologated, road-going trim known as the CLK GTR Strassenversion in contrast to the Black Box version (PS2), where it's based on the touring car instead (albeit with CLK LM's orange mirrors since III: Hot Pursuit and High Stakes).
- 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 each of them has an Expert counterpart with the alternate route as the main course, albeit with different weather or time of day. The only exception is Empire City which doesn't have an Expert counterpart although it was planned and unfinished remnants of it can be found in PS1 version's files.
- 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 High Stakes (which is basically its Mission-Pack Sequel) also introduced upgrades that turns your car into a sufficiently Pimped-Out Car.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each power-up in Wii has its own color to help distinguish them. Also, each player has their own color on the mini map in Quick Play.
- Continuing Is Painful: Getting fined in III (if the player isn’t outright arrested) while racing against a rival meant losing a lot of time and makes catching up to said rival much harder.
- 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.
- Disk One Nuke: The PlayStation 2 version by Black Box is quite fond of this trope, especially with the chunk of Need for Speed Edition variants.
- The Ferrari F50 NFS Edition is unlocked via World Racing mode by leading an eight-lap single race with full grid in Advanced difficulty. And the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR can also be obtained at the same time if you do eight consecutive clean laps. Meaning that if you tap or crash into walls, traffic or even cars, you'll have to start all over!
- The Lamborghini Murciélago VT patrol car, which is the can be used in "You're The Cop", is accessible after winning a full grid Knockout event via "Hot Pursuit" mode in Advanced difficulty. Considering how aggressive the police AI can be in comparison with the EA Seattle version, it's expected for the player to bring a Class B or A car like the aformentioned CLK GTR.
- 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".
- Downloadable Content: III: Hot Pursuit had free downloadable cars available on the official website: Ferrari 456M GT, Jaguar XKR, Lister Storm and Spectre R42. It even has a "Download Car" button on the car select screen to take you to the page for these cars although it no longer functions correctly since the page was taken down.
- Fake Difficulty: In the Hot Pursuit mode in III, the amount of fines that the player can accrue before being arrested and taken out of the race is completely random. Sometimes it takes three fines, but other times they can be arrested on their first fine.
- Gang Up on the Human: Downplayed in III: Hot Pursuit. The police can and will chase after the AI opponent on sight in Hot Pursuit mode but with no more than two police cars at once (not counting roadblocks). There's no such cap for the human player.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Played with in the PlayStation release of III: Hot Pursuit. The beginner tournament requires the player to drive class B vehiclesnote in its first four eventsnote . While class A vehiclesnote 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 gamenote . 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 featured both the Opel Speedster and the Vauxhall VX220. For those who don't know, the VX220 is a rebadged version of the former that's sold in the United Kingdom (as 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.
- Metropolis Level: Empire City, with the track information announcer describing it as a "metropolis gone bad".
- 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.
- Non-Standard Game Over: In Hot Pursuit mode in III, the player will immediately lose the race upon being arrested (that is, being stopped and fined by the police 1-3 times in the race).
- Recycled Soundtrack: "Romulus 3", one of the menu themes in III: Hot Pursuit, first made its debut as an alternate menu theme in Need for Speed II SE.
- Remixed Level:
- The expert courses in III: Hot Pursuit, with the exception of Empire City, are all harder, extended variations of the four beginner courses.
- The point-to-point courses in Hot Pursuit 2 are all comprised of the two circuit courses in each of the game's four environments (Five on the PlayStation 2) merged together.
- 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 vehiclenote 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.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Wii lets the player reset their car's position on the track in case they get spun around.
- 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:
- In the HD versions, this appears when the player clears all of the offline missions for one side.
- In Wii, after finishing all four locales and the grand prix, the player gets... a credits roll.
- Beat: The police dialogue onscreen literally says "{BEAT}" whenever there's a pause between sentences during the same dialogue clip.
- Benevolent Architecture: Zig-zagged in Wii; On one hand, the abundance of elevated roads allow for plenty of air, which grants the player boost and bounty. However, it can also cause a player to crash into walls and slow them down, especially when there's a bump right before a sharp turn.
- 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:
- In the HD versions, racers and cops can ram each other to deal damage to and wreck rivals.
- In Wii, the Tank and Cruise Control power-ups make racers invincible for a limited amount of time, allowing them to crash into rivals without suffering any damage.
- 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.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Subverted in Wii. The cops may decide to pull out Bugatti Veyrons to stop your Mazda-RX8, but Rubber-Band A.I. works the other way round and will slow them down to your level. However, it works the other way too, where cop Mazda-RX8s can threaten your own Bugatti Veyron if you're driving one.
- 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.
- 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.
- Defeat Means Playable: In Wii, beating a boss will grant the player their unique car.
- Denser and Wackier: Wii is this to the other Hot Pursuit games thanks to its arcade-style power-ups and loose physics engine that makes the cars feel floaty at times. The graphics are also far less realistic and opt for a more vibrant color-scheme.
- 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
- The February 2021 update features a Livery Editor, allowing you to create custom wraps and designs.note
- 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
- Developer's Foresight: The Time Attack mode in Wii has pylons that each add penalty of one second to the player's time if they hit them. Often times, they'll be placed along the outsides of turns, discouraging players from grinding against walls.
- 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!"
- Drives Like Crazy: The Tank power-up in Wii enables racers to drive into civilian vehicles and other racers without taking any damage.
- Endless Daytime: The tracks in the Dubai locale in Wii have bright blue skies all around.
- 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.
- Face–Heel Turn: The cop mission "Double Cross" has you up against an ex-SCPD officer who went AWOL, and you have to take down their Koenigsegg CCXR Edition. If you bust them, they get arrested as usual.
- Fake Longevity: In Wii, the Grand Prix consists of races on tracks that the player has already done.
- Forced Tutorial: Wii has one upon starting Career mode that teaches the player the driving basics while letting them drive a Lamborghini Murciélago for a single lap.
- Fragile Speedster: Most exotics and hypercars are the fastest cars in the game, but are the most susceptible to getting totaled.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
- The racer mission "Hotting Up". It's description is "It's a long run down to the desert, but you should have no problems out-running the cops. Right?" Then a Bugatti Veyron comes out, when the best car you'll have is a Pagani Zonda Cinque.
- Interceptor mode in the Wii version has the first three bosses appear all at once, even if they haven't been encountered in the campaign yet. Anything that happens to them in the race won't affect their status there, and you'll have to beat them there to unlock their cars.
- 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.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Not just to the Hot Pursuit series, but NFS as a whole; There's a heavy emphasis on car combat with gadgets and even using cars' own bodies to damage rivals and cops (especially in the HD versions). Wii takes it a step further by having straight-up power-ups on its tracks and a very loose physics engine.
- 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.
- Modular Difficulty: Wii allows for races in Quick Play to be customized, allowing you to configure how many racers are on track, up to 20 (as supposed to 8 in Grand Prix), how many laps the race goes for, or whenever or not cops and/or traffic appear.
- Nitro Boost: Available to bother racers and cops.
- 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.
- Oddball in the Series: The gameplay and graphical style in Wii is unlike any other in the Hot Pursuit series.
- 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).
- Police Are Useless: CPU cops in Wii, since they mostly just try to nudge racers off the track with little success. While they can set up roadblocks that will make racers crash if they hit them, they're too infrequent to do much harm.
- Product Placement: "Roadblocks of the SCPD in association with FORD." & "Porsche Cayenne Turbos now deployed to add spice to your roadblocks."
- Ramming Always Works: The default way to damage racers and cops in the HD versions. It's less practical in Wii unless the player gets a Tank or Cruise Control power-up.
- Rubber-Band A.I.: In Quick Play on Wii, it's an option that the player can turn on for the CPU and human players. Cops also use this as well, so just because they decided to use Mazda-RX8s in a field of Bugatti Veyrons doesn't mean that they'll be harmless.
- 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.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Players can get into intense police chases... while listening to the chill Shining Down by Lupe Fiasco.
- 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: Played with.
- A starter cop mission gives you a Lamborghini Reventón, 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.
- Played straight with the tutorial in Wii, which lets the player drive a Lamborghini Murciélago before limiting them to just a Mazda RX-8, Chevrolet Camero, or a Dodge Charger.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Time Attack in Wii has pylons which add a one second penalty to the player's time each time they hit one. The issue is that the placement of said pylons can be quite devilish at times, like having an almost full line of them placed right after a jump right where a player will land. This can force players to restart, especially if they're going for gold.
- Villain Team-Up: Wii's Interceptor mode has the first three bosses from the campaign appear at once, requiring the player as a cop to hit them three times each in the midst of a 50 car field to stop them.
- Wacky Racing: Wii is a rarity for the mostly down-to-earth NFS, as it features power-ups that do things like draining rivals' boost, emitting shockwaves to push vehicles away, or making a racer invisible to cops. On top of this, the physics engine enables racers to really get some airtime, whether its from jumping off of elevated roads or being sent flying by a racer with a Tank or Cruise Control power-up ramming into them.
- 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.
- You Break It, You Profit: Crashing into things like pylons, barrels, and lampposts grants Criminal Damage bounty.
- 27 County. I'm out of examples.Copy 27. An index is en route. ETA 5 minutes.