Goggles Do Something Unusual



"Den Mother: Now I shall pluck out your eyes! Razputin: Ha! You can't! That is the purpose of the goggles!"

- Psychonauts

The more interesting twin to Goggles Do Nothing, this trope is for eyewear that does something other than what their mundane design purpose is. Eyewear falling under this trope may actually correct vision, or it may not. Such eyewear may protect one from sparks or chemicals. Such eyewear may, as a side-effect be intimidating or just plain frightening, but it certainly will do something useful and unusual besides that.

Among the powers conferred by such unusual eyewear:
 * Cameras that transmit input or output
 * Heads-up displays and/or targeting scope
 * Information transmission
 * Night Vision
 * X-Ray Vision
 * Onboard Weaponry
 * Protection from Laser-Guided Amnesia
 * Seeing dimensional rifts and/or disturbances
 * See through supernatural disguises
 * Rear View Mirrors
 * NOT seeing something the wearer shouldn't be seeing in the first place
 * Fluorescent Footprints of the person(s) being tracked

As a bonus, they often come in Cool Shades variations. Careful, though; they're not always indestructible, and sometimes they're one of a kind.

Compare Shoe Phone and See-Thru Specs. Contrast Goggles Do Nothing. For other headgear doing unusual things, see Hat of Power. Not related to Junior Member Of The Marx Brothers Performs An Amusing Act Not Specified In The Script But Hilarious Anyway.

Advertising

 * A series of Lenscrafters commercials showed people trying on glasses with unusual powers. One man tried on a pair of glasses with X-Ray Vision, allowing him to see through people's clothes (but not their underwear; this is on American TV, after all). Another person's glasses erratically shoots lasers; Hilarity Ensues.

Anime and Manga

 * In Pokémon Heroes, Annie and Oakley have sunglasses that allow them to not only see invisible Pokémon via their body heat, but even distinguish between a human and a Pokémon pretending to be a human. This does cause a bit of Fridge Logic, as Latias is the same size, but nobody bumps into the rest of her body.
 * In Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns, Domino has a pair of binoculars that have night vision, magnification, resolution filters, body heat sensors, AND can tell a normal Pokémon from a clone Pokémon.
 * That's nothing. Team Rocket (the ones we know and love) have binoculars that enable them to hear conversations over a mile away.
 * Another girl that owned a Bagon had stylish goggles that told an opponent's health and fighting morale.
 * The Scouters from Dragonball Z, whose glasses can tell what their opponent's power level is. That is, provided that the readings are not off the charts.
 * Bleach's Lt. Renji Abarai has a stylized visor that doesn't seem to do anything but cover his tattoos and absurdly-styled hairline, but we see from his POV, they check if Ichigo's power is Over Nine Thousand. No idea why a Hot-Blooded officer like Renji would take the time to use something like that... Maybe it was a White Day gift?
 * The databooks explains this as him just really liking goggles. He gets very depressed when they break, because they take a few months of savings to buy each time.
 * Of course, they therefore break every time they're seen.
 * Latooni Subota's (or however we're romanizing it this week) glasses let her see enemies' combat data in Super Robot Wars. They eventually get her to take them off, and at some point Princess Shine gives her a new, transparent pair sans the Scary Shiny Glasses Shrinking Violet impression.
 * Yukino's glasses when she's using the powers of her Mon in Mai-HiME.
 * In the kiddie anime Kiteretsus Encyclopedia (from the people who brought you Doraemon), Kiteretsu's glasses also allow him to read the book in question, a secret trove of Bamboo Technology ancient Japanese inventions.
 * In the OAV of Gatchaman, the bird visors had computer information show on the inside of them.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! GX had some scouter-like glasses with special functions.
 * Sailor Moon once had an eye mask in the manga that allowed her to see the Monster of the Week magic mirror-style. However, it startled her so much when she first used it that she threw away the mask and never used it again, throwing it away each time she transformed. It was only used once more, during the second arc to see what was wrong with people in town (And discover they were Droids). After that they are never seen again.
 * And in the anime and Manga, Sailor Mercury has a summonable (By pressing her Earring) "visor" which acts as a heads-up display for her computer, letting her scan monsters for weaknesses and suchlike and is often used on conjunction with her mini supercomputer. In the manga it was also responseable for an attack similar to the Sharbon Spray move she uses in the anime.
 * In the manga series Until Death Do Us Part, the main character, Mamoru, is blind, but wears a pair of sunglasses that pick up bouncing sound waves and turn them into a crude image that gets transferred directly to his brain.
 * This is partially Truth in Television. There are devices in the real world which take a camera image and project it directly into the brain, albeit only as single-bit low-res images. Still experimental yet.
 * So wait... Star Trek is becoming truth?
 * They don't put the image "directly into the brain", (in the sense that the words conjure up, i.e. a brain implant) - they use a low-res matrix of stimulators on an area of skin - back, stomach and tongue have all been used in studies. It works much better than you'd think.
 * Nope, they really DO connect directly to the brain. Via the optic nerve. The electrode array itself sits on/under the retina in the eye, stimulating the optic nerve directly. There has been talk of implanting the array directly into the visual cortex in cases where the optic nerve is damaged/missing, but as far as I know this version hasn't been clinically trialed yet.
 * The entire premise of Dennou Coil revolves around glasses/goggles that reveal and interact with a computerized space that co-exists with real space.
 * In Detective Conan, Conan's glasses have been given upgrades throughout the series. Initially they contained a screwed-in GPS bug that could be taken out and placed elsewhere while the glasses tracked the device's location with its own minimap. Agasa later replaced the glass with bulletproof glass and the bug was updated with listening functions and its own frequency. The listening device is also designed so it "stimulates the eardrum," thus only the wearer can hear it.
 * You know, that last one sounds awfully familiar...
 * The glasses have been further upgraded to include night vision and a digital zoom function, among other things, though their primary purpose is still Clark Kenting.
 * In Cowboy Bebop, Ed has a pair of goggles that can be plugged into her computer and used as monitor screens.
 * I've seen ads for something very similar....
 * Irvine from Zoids Chaotic Century has an eyepatch that actually has three cameras in it, with different zoom levels. The eye behind it is completely healthy.
 * Unlike previous Goggle Boys, Takato from Digimon Tamers uses his goggles to protect his eyes when entering a digital field.
 * Taichi, from Digimon V-Tamer (predating Tamers), wears his to protect his eyes when flying on his partner's back.
 * Jack Rakan (as well as others) have glasses that protect you from being recognized.
 * Gurren Lagann's Simon has goggles that light up so he can see his way through tunnels he's digging.
 * Bossun's Poppman goggles in Sket Dance supposedly increases his concentration ability to godly levels, but it's more likely because he thinks he can be like his hero Poppman whenever he puts them on.
 * The Sisters from To Aru Majutsu no Index are not as powerful as their elder sister Mikoto, so they can't see electrical currents. They wear special goggles to compensate for this.

Comic Books

 * Watchmen Nite Owl has a pair of these.
 * Cyclops of the X-Men has a pair of ruby quartz sunglasses that prevent his optic blasts from firing uncontrollably.
 * Sage, on Team Uncanny had Swiss Army shades with multiple functions. Unknown whether they persist as she is now among the Exiles.
 * There's also Cannonball, whose goggles serve to protect his eyes while he flies at jet speed.
 * The Clan of the Cave Bat tend to have multipurpose lenses in their masks.
 * Chase Stein of Runaways swiped some x-ray goggles from his inventor parents.
 * As a gimmick, the 2008 Final Crisis tie-in Superman Beyond 3D came with a set of "Overvoid Viewers" (read: cut-out 3D glasses) to allow the reader to see properly in the space outside The Multiverse (read: see the fancy 3D F/X).
 * The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's Black Dossier did pretty much the same thing with the "Blazing World".
 * The earlier versions of Paperinik (Italian Disney comics where Donald Duck has a superhero identity) often had him use a pair of goggles that lets him see in darkness, at great distances, through the mist his Cool Car can spout to twart pursuers, etc. At one point, Donald expospeaks that they work because they let him see in "infra-pink".
 * Back when Superboy only had Tactile-Telekinesis, he briefly had a pair of sunglasses that doubled as X-ray vision goggles - though they were destroyed shortly after their introduction.
 * They had a heat vision function too.
 * The superheroine Geek Girl gets superpowers from a pair of glasses she won off a pair of nerds in a game of strip poker. They give her all the usual powers, plus an incredible new level of clumsiness.
 * Doctor Mid-Nite's goggles give him Stat-O-Vision. Including, because he's a doctor first and a superhero second, identifying health risks.
 * From Transmetropolitan, Spider Jerusalem's glasses. They look incredibly characteristic, but they also keep taking pictures... even when he has sex and can't remember it.

Fanfiction

 * In the fifteenth chapter of Mary Mary? Quite Contrary!, Matt turns out to have goggles that deflect character derailment from a Raven Way Expy Villain Sue. It was one of the author's wackier fan theories.

Film

 * Doc Brown's rear-view visor in Back To The Future II.
 * Sam Witwicky's map-engraved spectacles in Transformers.
 * Ben Franklin's "Optical Device" in National Treasure. can see invisible ink and create multicolored 3D effects. Yes, that Ben Franklin, from the 1700s. Apparently he invented the world's first 3D glasses too, but decided not to patent that one.
 * The sunglasses worn by J and K and, indeed, all of the Men in Black protect them from the Neuralyzer.
 * The John Carpenter movie They Live! is about a guy who finds a pair of strange sunglasses that allow him to see aliens through their human guises and the subliminal messages that they use to control the human populace, and the movie is about him trying to find the people who made the shades so he can join their fight against the aliens.
 * James Bond in The World Is Not Enough has glasses that allow him to see through clothes. Therefore spotting concealed weapons- and ladies' undergarments.
 * And in A View to a Kill, he had sunglasses that allowed him to see through polarised glass.
 * It's the shades that are polarised - they just cut out reflections and allow him to see what's going on inside.
 * Also, in The Living Daylights he has binocular shades. They look a bit odd, though.
 * Spy Kids 3: Game Over not only has Juni and Carmen wearing teched-up 3-D glasses, but when Gondor Calls for Aid, all the good guys end up with a pair. They're the only things that allow them to see the Toymaster's Humongous Mecha attacking the city.
 * And the first film had those glasses which gave you biographical information about someone just by looking at them.
 * Hellboy II had Krauss bringing in a complex set of lenses designed to see through the glamour of trolls and other supernatural creatures.
 * And, of course, their "spiritual" predecessor, the Paragoggles/Ecto-Visor as featured in Ghostbusters.
 * The goggles that arrived in the big pink box for Buckaroo Banzai allowed him to see the hologram sent from the queen of the black Lectroids.
 * In the 2001 version of 13 Ghosts, the ghost-hunters used special glasses to allow them to see the titular spirits.
 * This was a shout-out the the fact that the original 1960 13 Ghosts used this gimmick on the audience - you wore the special glasses the theatre gave you, and if the ghosts got too scary, you could take them off and see nothing.

Literature

 * The Alcatraz Series has this as a central plot element. The Magic System involves glasses, users of which are known as Occulators. These include tracking glasses, glasses that shoot laser beams, glasses that generate whirlwinds, etc.
 * Harry Potter: Spectrespecs. Luna Lovegood wears them, so they're supposed to do something. In the book, it's not clear if they do, but in the movie Luna uses them to find Harry when he is invisible, so they appear to have some effect.
 * Luna's Spectrespecs may a reference to the 'X-ray specs' you used to be able to mail order out of trade paperbacks. Many gullible people were disappointed.
 * Another Harry Potter example is Mad Eye Moody's eye. It's large, round and electric blue and can see through things.
 * Also, the Omnioculars from the Goblet of Fire. Essentially, they are Binoculars that could actually put real life into slow motion, rewind it, or display what type of Quidditch play is being performed.
 * The Spiderwick Chronicles had a seeing stone. If one looked through it, one could see The Fair Folk who were either invisible or glamoured to look like something else.
 * Getting hobgoblin spit in the eye turned normal eyes Sighted, which made the viewer's own eyes the goggles that do something.
 * Looking through "a stone pierced by water" to see through The Fair Folk's glamour is an old legend.
 * In A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Who gives Meg her glasses, and later on Camazotz Meg uses them to pass through a wall and into a column to rescue her father.
 * In A Diversity Of Dragons, Eppy's helmet lets him see dragons.
 * Inverted in The Demon Headmaster books, where the Headmaster takes off his glasses to hypnotise people.
 * The EV-helmet used in The War Against the Chtorr sci-fi novel "A Matter for Men". Scans the spectrum from beyond ultraviolet to below infrared, then the image is digitized (with colour values assigned) and projected directly onto the retina. Used in conjunction with a frequency-hopping Laser Sight.
 * In John Dies at the End, Amy's Scooby Doo glasses somehow allow her to see the sorts of things that Psycho Serum allows John and Dave to see.
 * Artemis Fowl and Butler are partially spared the effects of being mindwiped by L E P Recon by using specially coated contact lenses.
 * No. The lenses had no effect on the mind-wipe. They rendered the fairies' magic hypnosis useless, preventing them from forcing Artemis to give up his secret plans for getting his memory back.
 * Butler does have a hard hat with lenses cannibalised from Holly and a LEP Retrieval team's helmets, though, with IR, UV, and anti-Shield settings. Holly's helmet has these, as well as heads-up displays with useful information from Foaly patched through, and it also aims automatically for her.
 * Molly Millions (aka Rose Kolodny, Sally Shears etc.) from William Gibson's "Sprawl" novels and short stories has mirror-lenses surgically implanted over her eyes. They're fully sealed, so more like goggles than Cool Shades, and equipped with image-enhancers so she can see in the dark.
 * In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, magicians are given first glasses, then contact lenses, that allow them to see the first three planes, giving them a limited ability to see various supernatural defenses, disguises, etc.
 * In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, the second book in the Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy series, Zaphod Beeblebrox has two pairs of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses: "At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black, thus preventing you from seeing anything that might alarm you."
 * One of the actual inspirations for Cherie Priest to write Boneshaker was the desire to create a Steampunk setting where the omnipresent brass goggles actually served a purpose. It turns out polarized lenses make a certain very, very nasty poison gas visible.
 * In Digital Fortress, the deaf assassin's glasses are actually display for his pager (or some sort of messaging device) which allows him to send and receive messages from his employers (he "types" by tapping pads on his fingers together) wherever he happens to be (a Voice with an Internet Connection for someone who can't actually hear, if you will).
 * In Accelerando by Charles Stross, Manfred's sunglasses contain a vast amount of smart computing power, permanently connected to his thought patterns. When he loses them, it's as if he's lost chunks of his memory, and the guy who finds them and puts them on starts thinking the way he does.
 * At one point in the Incarnations of Immortality series, Gaia lends Lachesis a pince-nez that lets the wearer see through the glamour of Satan.
 * During the David Trilogy of Animorphs, the Animorphs attempt to infiltrate a resort where they know many Yeerks and Human-Controllers are gathering. They fly in as seagulls, but one security guard is wearing sunglasses that can painfully stun any bird from a distance.

Live Action TV
"Jenny: (via earwig in Tony's ear) Keep your eyes on the prize, Tango Eight, and I may even let you keep the money you're making."
 * Power Rangers Time Force—The rangers have glasses to see mutants
 * Power Rangers Jungle Fury—The sunglasses are used as the rangers' morphing device.
 * Geordi LaForge's VISOR in Star Trek the Next Generation. He can detect physiological changes to act as a lie detector, see stuff that's out of phase, tell you how hot something is, and so on. The VISOR also lets him see, when he's blind without it.
 * In Doctor Who, the Doctor spends most of "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" wearing 3D specs since they let him see "void stuff".
 * Similarly, in "The Hungry Earth" he wears sunglasses that provide thermal vision.
 * "The War Games", the (Human Alien) villains' glasses and monocles let them hypnotize humans.
 * The badguys in New Who season 6 all wore monacles. It's finally revealed in The Wedding of River Song that they continually download information about the Silence into your brain so you don't forget them when you're not looking at them.
 * Torchwood has video-recording contact lenses, also with heads-up capability- the HUD images are actually transmitting directly into the retinal cortex.
 * Joe 90's glasses don't help him to see better, but they contain the electrodes that transfer brain pattern recordings into his brain, allowing him to use the skills of whoever's pattern has been downloaded this week.
 * In The Middleman, there are a pair of sunglasses that allow the wearer to see ghosts.
 * In Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Cookie has glasses with a fully-functioning (and Internet-enabled, in a school that isn't likely to be a WiFi hot spot) computer built into them.
 * His pants have a printer in them. That is not innuendo.
 * NCIS. Tony has worn Nerd Glasses with a hidden remote-transmitting video camera in at least three episodes. Most of the time, he has to be reminded to look at faces, not their rears. "Pop Life" has Tony and Kate go undercover in a nightclub to get images of the go-go dancers. One season later in "Under Covers", the glasses return when Tony and Ziva have to go undercover as married assassins. In the same episode, Ziva gets her special order IR-spectrum sunglasses. "Driven" has Tony go on a special mission for Jenny as a guitar player on the street across the street looing into a restraunt.


 * In the Mission Impossible episode "Odds On Evil", the team use special contact lenses to enable them to read marked cards.
 * In an episode of Reaper, the Devil gives Sam a pair of glasses that will reveal any demon's true nature - with an immediate and sincere warning that Sam really does not want to use those glasses on the Devil himself.
 * The Hyper-Reality Probe (a wireless ROV) in seaQuest DSV is controlled by an operator wearing a pair of futuristic VR goggles, which allow her to see the surrounding environment in 3D.
 * The Imagination Movers -- "Scott's got his goggles that help him see far!"
 * The title character of Chuck once gets an "update" to his brain's Magical Database through a pair of sunglasses.
 * As we soon learn, said sunglasses also have the ability to remove the database from one's head, or even insert it onto an unsuspecting person.

Manhwa

 * Witch Hunter's Ryu Hwan has a rather stylish pair that allows him to track sources of mana.

Tabletop RPG

 * In Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, a lot of sunglasses have HUD or targeting imagery displayed on the lenses. (or even on the cybernetic eye itself).
 * Dungeons and Dragons has mostly magical contact lenses (Eyes of Charming, Eyes of Minute Seeing, etc), but sometimes glasses are encountered as well.
 * Fourth Edition has the "Reading Spectacles," a pair of glasses that allow the user to understand any written language
 * In Dragonlance, the "Glasses of Arcanist" allow the wearer to read and understand arcane text, something that is normally an extremely difficult and time intensive process for anyone but the wizard who wrote the text.
 * Spelljammer has "goggles of darkness"—goggles enchanted with continual darkness spells for cases when simple black glass is not nearly enough.
 * Beholders have access to magic lenses that supercharge their eye rays. While technically single lenses, they'd count as goggles for a species with eleven separate eyes.
 * In Eberron, Cannith Goggles give a bonus to checks involving the creation of magic items if you are a member of House Cannith.
 * Hyperspectral Goggles from GURPS: Ultra-Tech show you the entire electromagnetic spectrum and have a zoom function. High-Tech has anti-laser goggles to protect against weapons meant to blind the target.
 * In the oWoD game Mage: The Ascension, the Mad Scientist faction of the Traditions often used "ether goggles" as a primary focus for their magic.
 * And on the other side of the fence, the Men In Black wore Sinister Shades with a variety of unexpected uses.

Video Games

 * Ada Wong in Resident Evil owns a pair of nifty shades which double as a flash/smoke screen device.
 * Hoho, wow. Crysis 2. The characters wear the super-powered Nanosuit, and it comes with the most sophisticated Visor ever. Get this: When you activate Visor, the Nanosuit releases tiny (infinitesimal) semi-organic squid monsters into your eyeballs to latch on to your rods and cones. They shoot electricity-looking beams to stimulate the light receptors that send information to the brain, and they make you see things like health and ammunition capacity, as well as the super-useful ability to mark enemies and locations of strategic importance. Forget not-being-able-to-see because your screen is cracked (But there is the small downside of you being totally freaked out if this was actually explained in the user's manual).
 * Mega Man Star Force: The lead character has a pair of glasses that lets him see electromagnetic waves
 * Godot's mask in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations; its main purpose is to aid his vision, but also ensures that.
 * Ema Skye's goggle/glasses enable her to see blood that has been wiped away, like a luminol testing kit.
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has the Solid Eye, which has as a HUD, a radar, infrared/nightvision mode and zooming function.
 * More mundanely, the Solid Eye also serves as a corrective lens for Snake's farsighted vision.
 * You can also watch baseball games on it.
 * Blue Dragon: The Nothing Glasses allow the wearer to see nothings.
 * In the First-Person Shooter game System Shock 2, the player starts the game as a normal civilian with no HUD information, but after the prologue-as-character-customization sequence, he's been provided with a military cyber-interface that shows the game's intricate HUD to the player through the pair of goggles he wears. In fact, the Fan Nickname for the player-character has become Goggles, for the distinctive eyewear of the player-avatar model.
 * In World of Warcraft, characters who take up the Engineering profession can make goggles as their Epic Helm, with schematics that cater to every class and play style (ie, healing goggles can be made in all 4 armor classes). Their components and looks are about the same across the board, and yet the goggles for warriors and paladins are somehow considered plate armor.
 * An interesting new variation was introduced in Brewfest 2007; when donned they render every other humanoid character, PC or NPC, into a female orc. Often wearing interesting leather garments. There is also a "male-gnome" version. "Beer Goggles" is the name of the buff the character gets while wearing them.
 * In Wrath of the Lich King an updated master engineer only version has been made, They are called X-Ray Specs and allow the player to see all characters without clothing on (bar underwear), It's scary.
 * In the old platform game Secret Agent, several levels involve goggles which allow you to "see invisible platforms". In practice, what they really do is to make some Floating Platforms materialize.
 * In Tsukihime, the protagonist's special glasses actually prevent him from seeing something supernatural: The black lines of death that lie across everything, and which can be used to destroy anything. If he were forced to look at that his whole life, he might have gone insane.
 * The Ace Attorney series has Ema Skye turn up sporting some pretty cool-looking red-tinted shades that she'll pull down whenever she wants to say something smart. They're actually UV goggles used in conjunction with Luminol. They turn up again in Ace Attorney Investigations, too. They're also used in conjunction with a footprint identification spray.
 * An interesting case with Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. When ascending a tower to confront his evil future self, the Professor finds a strange pair of goggles that allow him to see a puzzle lock in the door. Wierd, but they still don't qualify...yet. As it turns out, the goggles are actually a.
 * The Cavefish gang in Full Throttle wear special goggles to shield their sensitive, cave-dwelling eyes from sunlight, making them effectively blind. To make navigation possible, however, the goggles also pick up yellow dots in the road, along with some distinct landmarks and large buildings. They can also reveal the entrance to the Cavefish hideout, and the player needs to steal a pair of such goggles to find it.
 * Samus' HMD (helmet-mounted display) in the Metroid Prime series allows you to switch between several visor views, including but not limited to: visible spectrum (Combat), infrared (Thermal), backscatter X-ray (X-Ray), dark energy (Dark), and ultrasound (Echo). Another specialized visor mode (Command) allows her to remote-control her ship to bomb, hoist or land on whatever she's looking at.
 * Not to mention the Scan Visor, which allows her to analyze just about anything in the game, and, presumably, allows her to hack computers just by looking at them.
 * Cid's goggles in Final Fantasy IV allow him to analyze the statistics and current condition of whatever monsters your party is currently fighting.
 * Goggles in Final Fantasy VI don't allow any special visual tricks, but do protect against blind status.
 * But since Evasion and Accuracy are bugged in the original release (meaning that the Blind status has no actual effect), these Goggles Do Nothing.
 * If blinded, Strago was unable to learn Blue Magic, so the Goggles did do something. (Although a Ribbon did the same thing, but with more status effects.) The accuracy bug was fixed in the Game Boy Advance edition of the game, so the goggles are useful in that version of the game as well.
 * A monster called Peeping Eye in the Castlevania games Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia drops either a soul (AOS/DOS) or an item (POR/OOE) that allows you to see breakable walls.
 * Doubly notable is the fact that the Eye of Decay (the aforementioned item in POR and OOE) looks almost identical to the Scouters in Dragonball Z.
 * OOE also features the R. Eye of Devil and L. Eye of God, which respectively cause the gameplay to slow down (giving you much more time to react to attacks, and decreasing the rate at which the timer increases in Boss Rush) and display a monster's remaining HP when you hit it instead of the damage it took.
 * Dr. Robotnik's goggles give a heads-up display and link to his information database. Makes sense as he's a Mad Scientist and a roboticist. The clip in question is here, about 8:40 in. Turn down your speaker volume.
 * There's also an earlier occurrence of goggles being useful. In Sonic Adventure 2: Battle both Knuckles and Rouge can get a goggle-like item which allows them to see invisible objects (although granted, Knuckles' one is a pair of sunglasses, and Rouge's is more like an eyepiece).
 * In Pokecapn's Let's Play of Sonic Unleashed, several of the early videos mention some chili Kung Fu Jesus is making for dinner later. As KFJ attempts to sort out the issue of onion fumes, we get this memorable line: "Hey guys, check out my swank onion-proof goggles."
 * Vyse's goggle (singular; it looks like an eyepatch) in Skies of Arcadia grants him the power to zoom in on distant objects like a telescope, which we see him use twice in cutscenes and is referenced a third time in dialogue. Also, in the Gamecube's Updated Rerelease you obtain a special lens that allows you to see invisible "Moonfish" while in first-person mode; collecting these gives you items and, eventually, an entire subplot.
 * Master Chief has a helmet-mounted display in all of the Halo games, which displays his health, shield and ammunition status, as well as a targeting reticle. The sniper rifle also adds night vision capability to the display.
 * In Far Cry, it's actually a set of binoculars, but they not only incorporate a shotgun mike to pick up conversations, but they also isolate the frequency of the Transmitter Device on the mooks so that you can track them on the Player Radar.
 * The Scary Shiny Glasses in Persona 4 allow the wearer to see through the fog on the Midnight Channel.
 * In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, your rival gives you a pair of Go-Goggles after beating Flannery, the fourth Gym Leader. They protect your eyes from the sandstorm that previously had blocked you from entering the desert area of the Hoenn region, Route 111.
 * Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is full of goggles with strange effects. There's goggles for revealing hidden objects, showing the location of all items and enemies on the floor, preventing sleep-related status effects, raising accuracy, raising the chances of a critical hit... That's not even counting the ones with negative effects.
 * Pokémon XD: GaleOfDarkness replaces Rui (the mystical girl from Colosseum) with a eyepiece that allows you to see Shadow Pokémon.
 * Don't forget the main Pokémon games' BlackGlasses item, which boosts the power of Dark-type attacks.
 * There are also new items, such as the Wise Glasses (boosts the power of special moves) and the Choice Specs (which boosts a Pokémon's Special Attack by 50% at the cost of the holder being limited to the first move selected, and kind of look like the sort of accessory only your grandmother or fashionably defunct tourist would wear).
 * Those strange, completely opaque blinders that Rider in Fate/stay night wears? They're not just to make her mysterious and cool. They both hide her identity and keep from from uncontrollably turning everyone around her into stone.
 * Sam Fisher's goggles in Splinter Cell can display night, thermal, x-ray, and electromagnetic visions, plus control the sticky cameras launched from his gun.
 * In Conviction, he steals an upgrade and gets sonar goggles, which allow him to see through walls and specifically identify threats. They also get horribly, horribly garbled the more you move, meaning that you have to stay still for them to work properly (which makes sense, given the nature of sonar).
 * Lenses in Nethack protect you from being blinded by certain attacks, increase the effectiveness of your searching, and decrease the chance of failure and time needed to study a spellbook. Monks can get a special, unique set of lenses called the Eyes of the Overworld which can be invoked to give you "enlightenment" (insight into the various effects applicable to your character) and provide the wearer with X-ray vision, immunity to blindness, and immunity to certain enemy attacks. They also confer resistance to magic just by being carried around in the inventory.
 * Jade's glasses in Tales of the Abyss have no vision correction. He did something with his eyes to make them powerful catalysts for magic, which in turn made them unstable. The glasses act as a Power Limiter, keeping the magical energy from destroying whatever Jade happens to be near. The only time he takes them off is for the final battle.
 * Mass Effect has an example that borders on Fridge Brilliance. Garrus is always seen wearing a holographic monocle that covers his left eye, but it's never commented on. In the second game, you can buy a nearly identical headset that is designed for human use. Equipping this headset causes you to inflict an additional 10% of weapon damage on enemies every time you fire a headshot. Garrus is a renowned sniper, both as a C-Sec officer and vigilante. Who knew?
 * According to the Shadow Broker's dossier, it also provides a variety of spectrographic enhancements, alternate vision modes, lets him monitor his teammates' status, keeps track of everyone's relative kill ratios, and plays music.
 * In the Fallout 3 expansion Point Lookout, there is a quest that requires the player to equip a special pair of glasses in order to see the symbols on four pillars, which, when activated in the proper order, open a secret bunker. Without the glasses, the pillars cannot be interacted with.
 * In Flashback, the main character builds a monocular that allows him to see the molecular density of objects. It allows him to unveil an alien infiltration.
 * Very important in Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey. The Visors not only allow you to scout the proximity of demons, find hidden doors, scan hidden enemies, look for items and even sense far off sources of energy. A kind of lampshade hanging because without it, you literally CAN'T SEE SHIT in the world because the visor lets you interpret the world.
 * Adrian Shephard's gas mask includes night vision and his heads-up display.
 * In Project Origin, Beckett wears a set of high-durability glasses that also connect to small computers and sensors in his gear that monitor his health, armor, ammunition, and display squad member names, status, and communications. The same glasses can also be used to read technical data recovered from disks or PDAs, feature a mounted light, and after he receives the activation treatment, Armacham apparently upgraded the glasses to display his reflex meter.
 * Also, the Point Man's head-up display shows the same thing, and he is also wearing a similar set of eyeglasses/goggles. In addition, all of the Armacham soldiers (both security guards and black ops units) wear sunglasses that provide a similar function (including the unarmored commandos in the first mission of Origin, who have one eye covered) and all Replica troops save the unmasked ones in Origin wear vision-enhancing goggles or helmets. Really, everyone in the FEAR games except the Delta troopers and F.E.A.R. agents packs some kind of vision enhancement.
 * In Secret Agent Barbie, one of Barbie’s gadgets is her Pink Vision Goggles, which help her to see coded messages within her environment.
 * In Heavy Rain, FBI agent Norman Jayden has the ARI (Augmented Reality Interface) that shows a virtual environment that helps the wearer solve mysteries. It also doubles as a recording device, allowing him to log all his thoughts and information, can project a simulated reality that can make his closet office seem much more spacious and relaxing, and
 * The facebook game, Garden Of Time, has a goggle cursor that allows he player to search for hard to find items by making any item currently on your search list glow wherever it's placed.

Webcomics

 * In El Goonish Shive, Tedd's glasses have a variety of functions, and they also make him look less girly.
 * Apparently, Bob (of Bob and George) has a visor that lets him see invisible holograms. "Hello, Megaman."
 * Kevyn of Schlock Mercenary has glasses that let him see outside the normal visible spectrum, discussed in this comic, as well as the ability to record and play back events. Theo's are not quite as cool, but with designer frames.
 * Some goggles also serve as Friend or Foe identifiers.
 * And some are opaque and full of surgical gel.
 * Shadehawk's Cool Shades in Antihero for Hire. Light amplificating shades.
 * This is, however, a case where the Cool Shades can become a Weaksauce Weakness. His glasses are useful because he's typically out all night, and needs them to, well, see. In one case, though, he was being heroic in the daytime, and, well... he probably wished the Goggles Do Nothing.
 * Smoke's glasses in WTF Comics let him see in the dark and see things rendered magically invisible.
 * In The KAMics Obbie S. Myth's glasses allow him to see electrical & magical ability as well as compensate for a missing eye, Ms. Terial's goggles allow her to see in the dark & see far away.
 * In Last Res0rt, Daisy's glasses include a heads-up display that, among other things, negates her (social) symptoms of Autism.
 * Mostly they negate her hypersensitivity to light and sound, also they have functionality similar to an iPhone.
 * In Erfworld, everyone has stats and everyone can naturally see everyone else's stats by looking at them—except Parson, who cannot see stats and has no stats anyone else can see. Partway through the series, though, he obtains a pair of old-fashioned 3-D glasses that allow him to see unit stats.
 * In Backyard Skateboarding, Dmitri's goggles stop him from hurting his eyes when he falls.
 * In the latest MS Paint Adventures story Homestuck, John combined his glasses with his dad's PDA to create a set of glasses, which would (somehow...?) allow him to communicate with his friends via Pesterchum without having to interrupt anything else he was doing.
 * Dave did the same with his Cool Shades and an iPhone, making the iShades.
 * Then Jade tops them both with the Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles, which allow her to view anywhere in Incipisphere space (thematically, as she's the Witch of Space.)
 * Bob the Angry Flower: Monster Glasses.
 * Bob and George Seeing the invisible
 * In Dominic Deegan, Barnet has a pair of goggles that let her see invisible spell wards.
 * Dangerously Chloe has "death goggles" that allow to see (and hear, apparently) non-corporeals - such as the spirits of freshly deceased folk. As in, "You're all naked and floaty" These are big, flat and shaped in the word "BOO" (holes in O-s go over the user's eyes).

Web Original

 * In Shadow of the Templar, Jeremy Archer has a nifty pair of goggles that have a lot of technology suited for a thief.
 * Whateley Universe example: Phase has a pair of Cool Shades which do nothing but handle the 'Jericho' problem. Jericho is a 'blind' inventor who deliberately wears clothing combinations so horrible that people tend to throw up in his vicinity. Phase's shades convert all colors to black, white, and gray, so she can talk to Jericho without heaving.
 * The Spoony Experiment: Dr. Insano's Science Googles can produce Death Rays, give him telescopic vision, X-Ray Vision, hypno vision, night vision and flash bang protection, contains a terabyte of MP3s, can be used as a zillion mega-pixel camera, a garage door opener

Western Animation

 * The Jetsons had an episode that had a whole slew of them. One let the wearer see the future. One had past-vision. One had x-ray vision and one had far future vision, seeing the other people as old people.
 * Rex started out with a pair of normal goggles (used when flying/riding various builds), but they got an upgrade in season 3 from mundane to multi-purpose.

Real Life

 * With the right app, Google Glass will recognize faces for the wearer.