Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5035900-20161011045511

Having played the Hotline Miami games (highly recommend the first game, the second is for hardcore fans only) and with Jacket having been added to the Wiki some time ago, it's just occurred to me that it could be quite tricky trying to define the exact capabilities of both Jacket and his fellow playable characters.

For those of you that haven't played the games, Hotline Miami has a top-down perspective with the levels almost appearing like floorplans, allowing the player to see enemies wherever they are on the map, allowing them to plan out their next move. Along with that, the playable character is typically killed with a single hit and upon death restarts in their current room so as to reattempt it.

Now the obvious one to knock off is that the characters do not have an ability to reattempt a battle upon dying until they win. The Prince from Prince of Persia actually has such an ability (alebit limited to three attempts) with his dagger of time and it is entirely canon, whereas with Hotline Miami, it is simply for gameplay purposes.

...but now the tougher case regarding the top-down perspective: does that mean Jacket and the other playable characters have X-ray vision to see through walls or can sense/smell/detect anyone in the vicinity? I seriously doubt Jacket could see Batman through a wall or track his movement without physically seeing him. Jacket and the other playable characters are normal humans with a few having police or military experience and there are no supernatural elements in etiher game (closest you get is a drug trip in the 2nd game: keyword drug trip).

That still begs the question of what explains their incredible feats of clearing out entire rooms of thugs, mobsters, and cops. I highly doubt that it is the in-game enemies' being incompetent and nothing implies the characters ever using floorplans to plan out ahead of time. But then what is it? Faster reaction speeds than the average human? Using their surroundings to their fullest effectiveness? Dumb luck? A and B? B and C? All of the above?

For Jacket (and any additional Hotline Miami characters added to the Wiki in the future), it may be worth trying to discuss their abilities to most effectively and accurately portray them without them becoming all-seeing superhumans. 