Hats In Video Games

[Corky]

Perhaps the game with the most interesting use of hats as a game element is the superb first-person-shooter Team Fortress 2, the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map.

"Throughout history, men have worn hats as a way of showing how much better they are than other men. "I buy hats," a behatted man seems to say. "I am better than you."

In wartime, hats were a useful way of conferring rank, and ensuring that casualties were confined to the lower classes (hence the famous command of "Don't fire till you see the tops of their heads" at the Battle of Bunker Hill by William Prescott, a general renowned for only shooting enemy combatants who were poor).

During peacetime, hats have been instrumental for men to let the non-hatted know just who is wearing the hat around here."

— Hats: The Ultimate Status Symbol.​

Team Fortress 2 Hat Video

Complete Team Fortress 2 Hat Wiki

 

[Neophyte]

Don't forget Red Dead Redemption. There are a ton of amazing hats in that game.

Uncle, that ol' rascal:

Marshal Leigh Johnson (I want this hat ):

The ex-gang member seeking the titular redemption, John Marston:

 

[The Good]

Here's a couple from Mafia II.

 

[Mr E Train]

Atari 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[ScionPI2005]

Tex Murphy:

 

[Neophyte]

Firo Prochainezo, recently initiated into one of the smaller crime families in 1930s New York. His mentor buys him his first real hat as a "coming-of-age" present. Almost immediately afterwards he is assaulted by a pack of hooligans, and manages to pummel them roundly without ever letting the hat touch the ground. DO NOT mess with the hat, brother lol !

From the Baccano! game, based off the anime, based of the light novels:

 

[Repairman Joe]

I want John Marston's hat from Red Dead...looked for it online when the game came out,but finding a particular cowboy hat among the many,many cowboy hats out there is like finding a needle in a haystack.

 

[The Good]

Since an anime video game was mentioned (Baccano!), I thought I'd mention another one, Lupin III: The Treasure of the Sorcerer King. I don't have it myself, but I'm a fan of the series, which once aired on Adult Swim:


Here's the gang's sharpshooter, Jigen, in action:

Then here's the Interpol-employed Inspector Zenigata, constantly trying to track them down (the guy in the red jacket in the background, Lupin III, in particular)

Both of these characters always wear fedoras, different variations depending on the series, manga, or TV special/film (it's very popular in Japan). The graphics are cell-shaded, so they're trying to emulate the anime it's sourced from, not be realistic.

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

Lupin III was huge in Italy, too! A lot of guys of my generation grew up with japanese anime and Lupin III in particular...
mutual love between countries, I'd say (Miyazaki for example, besides being a personal friend of old school italian animators, often homaged Italy in his works, including Lupin's car- Fiat 500- in The Castle of Cagliostro).
Jigen was the epitome of hat-wearing gangsters for us young boys

 

[Neophyte]

Good ol' Lupin III, gotta go and re-watch that sometime.

Hell, guys, I almost forgot about The Stranger of Oddworld lore: http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/games/1600x1200/wallpaper_oddworld_strangers_wrath_01_1600.jpg

I was wondering, are we trying to keep it realistic here, or are the hats in this thread gonna get all Final Fantasy on me lol.

I'm all for keeping it under control, you know. That pretty much limits it to Mafia/Western, but whatever .