Power Trips.

[A Sprite]

In Pac-Man, it was all about the pill - suddenly the rules changed, and you were the predator.

 

In Altered Beast, the player was invited to break the game. Zombies, giant insects, three headed wolves, they all shattered like glass once you stopped wearing pants.

 

Sonic 2 just let you speed through the stages like they weren't even there....

 

Since then, I can't think of any game that was intended to let the players have super powers that everyone in the game wasn't prepared to deal with.

 

Am I forgetting any, or has the "player goes mad with power" school of gamer rewards been abandoned outside of cheat codes and sandbox titles?

[bones]

What about the BFG in Doom? I get on a power trip using that thing

[shadow460]

Lots of games had that kind of thing.

Limit breaks from the Final Fantasy series were an example, and so are the special moves in the first Virtual On (only three mechs had them).

 

Dolphin lets you go mad with power and get the squid. Command & Conquer gives you the atomic bomb, which levels any AI base. Either of the Red Alert titles lets you use the Iron Curtain for invincibility. Trust me, in the hands of an expert, the Iron Curtain is always lethal. And it only takes five minutes to charge. On top of that, cutting the Soviet base's power after the Curtain has been activated will not negate its effects--the units are still invincible for 25 seconds.

 

Many shmups have super weapons. Probably the most notable is Aero Fighters 2, whose super weapons ranged from huge bombs to freezing everything on the screen. I remember the cluster bombs saving my hide many times in Raiden II.

[Mike 01Hawk]

What about the Star powerup in Mario?

 

Or the big mushroom for New Super Mario for the DS