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You're a criminal in a city who has just committed a crime. The police are on their way, but rather than run, you decide to risk a shoot-out. After all, you have a truly ludicrous number of weapons. Besides, even in a large city, surely the police won't throw more than 50 cars and a couple of helicopters at a problem before trying another strategy, will they?
A hundred cop cars, 20 helicopters, and at least 300 individual officers later, there still seems to be no end to the rampage. At this point you have to wonder whether or not the police force of this city simply has an unlimited budget.
This trope is common in any video game where you're acting as a Villain Protagonist. In most games where the police will chase after you, they will continue to send more police cars and helicopters (And whatever other resources they have in that particular game, up to and including tanks; Grand Theft Auto San Andreas will even hit you with Harrier jump jets) until you evade them in some manner. No matter how many cars and helicopters you destroy, they always seem to have another ready to go.
This is especially egregious in games that keep track of how much damage you've caused the police. This number will easily reach into the millions, making you wonder at what point it would be more economical for the police to just bribe you to go away.
A subtrope of Infinite Supplies. Compare to Lemming Cops, where the cops show absolutely no concern for their own personal safety.
Film[]
- Used to hilarious effect in the Blues Brothers movie's climatic action sequence. (According to the article, this movie held the Guinness world record for cars destroyed in a single movie for 18 years, and was then trumped by its sequel.) After Jake and Elwood evade every single member of the Chicago police and the Illinois state troopers, the National Guard gets called in to apprehend them.
Live Action TV[]
- In The Dukes of Hazzard, the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department has an unlimited automobile budget: every week they manage to crash at least a couple but they have all-new cars next week.
- Possibly partly Justified by the Duke boys not being the only gearheads in the county; it's probably fairly easy to find some good ole boys to help fix up the department's cars.
Video Games[]
- The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
- Freelancer
- Grand Theft Auto
- In Jet Grind Radio, Captain Onishima sends out swarms of police officers, police dogs, helicopters armed with missiles, SWAT forces, and paratroopers equipped with machine guns to stop a vandal on roller skates.
- Need for Speed
- Prototype
- Saints Row takes this to absurd degrees, which is part of the fun. By the third game, the police have laser rifle-armed soldiers in full body armor, an aircraft carrier, VTOL jets equipped with missiles and lasers, and a flying aircraft carrier.
- Red Faction Guerilla the EDF will continue to send troops to hunt you down untill you either die or manage to get to escape house. Slightly justified, since they are an army, but it get's ridicilous if you ever get your hands on mehcs.
- Payday: The Heist:: The cops just keep on sending in assaults.
- Red Dead Redemption Whenever you have a bounty on your head, there will be a posse of gunmen somewhere on the horizon. Of course, if you do massacre the first few dozen guys, the bounty is going to climb into obscene territories.
Western Animation[]
- SpongeBob SquarePants, episode "Hall Monitor": The moment SpongeBob says out loud that he's the maniac everyone's been looking for, he's instantly surrounded by police officers.