Power-ups can be classified according to the type of benefit they give the player.
Offensive Power-ups can give players a new weapon, or transform the player character into a more aggressive form that increases its attack power or makes some enemies vulnerable. This also includes "nukes", which are weapons that destroy every enemy on the screen at once; these are prevalent in many different genres including
vehicular combat,
run and guns, and
platform games. The effect of the power-up can be time-limited, have a limited number of uses, last until the player is hit, last until the player is killed, or last until
game over. •
Mega Man series: Weapons are earned from the Robot Masters/Mavericks upon defeating them. The weapons are kept until the game is turned off (unless a
password is used which can bring the player back to a point after the weapon was acquired) or when the game is completed. •
Donkey Kong: The hammer that Mario (Jumpman) can use to destroy barrels and fireballs. •
Pac-Man: Power pellets can be picked up by
Pac-Man, allowing him to attack ghosts. This also makes Pac-Man temporarily invulnerable. •
Mario: The player can smash overhead bricks by jumping into them after picking up a Super Mushroom, and can throw fireballs at enemies after picking up a
Fire Flower. In addition to those two, there are Ice Flowers, Mega Mushrooms, Super Bells, Super Hammers, etc. Mario loses the Super Mario effect after being hit; if he has also collected a Fire Flower, then this is lost along with it. •
Sonic the Hedgehog: There are several kinds of defensive power-ups in the
Sonic franchise. The
first game introduced the Shield, which would protect
Sonic from being hit one time. This would prevent the player from losing Rings and lives, enclosing Sonic in a spherical barrier. There are several variations of this item as well, including the Thunder/Magnetic, Aqua/Water, and Fire/Flame Shields. These games also feature the Invincibility box which grants temporary invulnerability, and the ability to defeat enemies by simply touching them. •
Blur: This game also features defensive power-ups like shield and repair to prevent the player's car from getting wrecked. Some power-ups can be fired backwards to destroy opponents behind the player. •
Clash of Clans: The Grand Warden's Eternal Tome ability makes all surrounding friendly units with a certain range to be invulnerable to damage from defense towers for several seconds. •
Splatoon series: The Armor power-up coats the player in one layer of armor and prevents enemy attacks from "splatting" the player. If the player takes enough damage that would otherwise splat them, a layer of armor breaks while the player is restored to full health and given a short period of invulnerability. Unlike most defensive power-ups, the player can have multiple layers of armor at once.
Evasive Some power-ups consist of items which help the player avoid or escape enemies or enemy weapons. This category includes "speed boosts" and other power-ups which affect time, which can be temporary, permanent, or cumulative, and "invisibility" power-ups which help the player avoid enemies. •
Rainbow Islands: The shoe power-up, which makes the player character move more quickly. •
R-Type: The 'S' icon, which increases the player's speed every time one is collected. •
Unreal Tournament,
Quake I & II: The Invisibility power-up, which turns the player into an indistinct
wireframe or shadow. Similarly, radiation suits serve to deflect certain types of weapons as well. •
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: The Dash
materia allows
Zack Fair to move at double speed to help avoid enemy attacks. •
Jak and Daxter: The Blue Eco, which enables Jak to run faster and jump higher. It is also used to activate the ancient Precursor machinery found throughout the world, opening doors and activating floating platforms. Due to this, Blue Eco can also be considered an Access ability. •
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Power Sneakers/Speed Shoes item in this series temporarily increases the speed, accelerations and jump height of the player character. •
Super Metroid: The Speed Booster is a permanent power-up that gives
Samus Aran the ability to run incredibly fast, destroying any enemy in her path. She can also perform a technique with the Speed Booster called the "Shinespark", which allows her to do an invincible charge in 6 possible directions, at the cost of draining health. •
Astro Bot: The Time-Stopper is a power-up that allows Astro Bot to slow down time for approximately five seconds, before it has to recharge. This lets him evade enemy attacks, as well as traversing platforms that move too fast for him to normally cross.
Access abilities Some power-ups help the player enter new or previously inaccessible areas, or "
warp" to another level. Access abilities, depending on the game, can be required to progress normally or be entirely optional. •
Mario: The warp whistle, which allows players to first go to a warp zone, then advance to another world of a higher value, and the hammer, which allows players to take shortcuts on the overworld game map. Mario can also acquire a Raccoon Leaf which allows him to fly, sometimes to hidden areas. There is also the Mini Mushroom, which shrinks Mario to a smaller size and allows players to enter small
pipes. •
Mega Man series: The Rush power-ups allow the player to attain power-ups not possible by any other means. The most common are Rush Jet, Rush Coil, Rush Marine, and Rush Search. Also notable are some of the capsule upgrades in the
X spin-off series. •
Metroid series: Various weapons (such as the Ice Beam and the Power Bomb) are permanent power-ups that give Samus Aran additional offensive capability and access to various doors.
Health Health-restorative power-ups typically consist of items which restore lost
health (most typically in medical kits, food, or as energy), or items which increase health capacity and
1-ups (which give an extra chance to continue playing after losing, commonly called a 'life'). •
Mario: The
Super Mushrooms and
1-up Mushrooms give Mario the ability to take an extra hit and extra lives (respectively). • ''
Bonk's Revenge'': Fake power-up containers that actually release an enemy. •
Sonic 3/
Sonic & Knuckles/
Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Item Monitors that bear
Eggman/Robotnik on them will cause Sonic to be hurt if he opens them. •
Metroid Fusion: Some Energy or Missile Tanks are actually enemies in disguise, and usually lead to a room with the real power-up. •
Rise of the Triad: Items like the Shrooms and Elasto reduces the player control.
Selection bar Instead of having players collect a power-up that is instantly activated, the players may be allowed to select which power-ups they want to use. This is commonly implemented through a 'selection bar' which contains a number of power-up effects. To access the bar, the player must collect power-up items; the more they collect, the further along the bar they can access. The more powerful power-ups are traditionally placed further along the bar, so that more effort is required to obtain them. The selection bar was first used in
Konami's 1985 game,
Gradius. but permanent rather than temporary. The concept of permanent power-ups dates back to the early
NES action RPGs,
Deadly Towers (1986) and
Rygar (1987), which blurred the line between the power-ups used in
action-adventures and the experience points used in
console RPGs. An early video game that used perks, and named it as such, was the 1997 computer RPG game
Fallout. Perks have been used in various other video games in recent times, including
first-person shooters such as
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,
Modern Warfare 2, and
Killing Floor, as well as
action games like
Metal Gear Online. ==References==