Oxygen Meter: Difference between revisions

** Complete with [[Video Games/Nightmare Fuel|the dreaded countdown music]].

*** To be fair though, it did take 2-3 real world seconds for each tick of the countdown, and most underwater sections had those mysteriously convenient sources of Sonic-sized (presumably so you could also get your torso inside and equalize pressure) breathable-air bubbles about every 30 seconds of distance... just far enough for a skilled player to collect all the rings and powerups and catch a breath from them.

*** The underwater Knuckles level "Aquatic Mine", which can be quite dangerous until you find the infinite oxygen item.

** It is all rather selective, too - on some levels, Sonic displays exquisite [[Super Drowning Skills]], dying if he so much as touches the rippling water at the very bottom of the game world (if you're lucky, he may only lose rings, and bounce back onto land). On others, water is a relatively benign substance, merely reducing your running speed and jump height (swimming is out of the question), and in ''some'' cases (where it takes up a significant portion or even all of the level) requiring you to find air to breathe. Worse, there are even some places where the two are mixed; go too deep on, say, the ([[Game Gear]], Sonic 1) Jungle zone or the Aquatic boss fight, and you'll instantly pop your clogs. Maybe Hedgehogs are really sensitive to pressure?

* ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' uses a couple of variations on this; while most of the games use a standard oxygen meter, ''[[Tomb Raider]]: Chronicles'' used a special diving suit on one level that had confusing ([[Guide Dang It|since they never told you]]) additional mechanics: the suit had near infinite air, but as you bumped into walls and rocks Lara audibly becomes stressed and begins breathing heavily, at which point you begin to lose oxygen quickly, meaning you had to avoid hitting things. ''[[Tomb Raider]] 3'' also has an underwater propulsion vehicle that makes you move faster, but it's argubly less useful than just swimming as it decreases your general mobility and must be got off of to use switches and other items. Water in arctic levels also had a hypothermia bar that went down faster than the oxygen bar, but functioned much the same way. In ''Legend'' and ''Anniversary'', oddly, Lara is much slower underwater and has a much shorter air meter. ''Underworld'' changes things up again, with Lara going back to being almost as fast as in the original games, and having such a long oxygen bar it borders on [[Super Not-Drowning Skills]] (that is in the rare instances where she swims without scuba gear, where it is that trope).

** Decrease in health also functions differently depending on the game. Prior to ''[[Tomb Raider]] Legend'', health usually decreases at a fixed steady rate. During and after ''Legend'', the decrease in health rate is usually a slash of a quarter of the health bar every two seconds, or an eighth, depending on the difficulty level setting.

* ''[[Turok (series)|Turok]]'' has a fairly unremarkable one, although you'd kind of expect a muscled-up warrior like him to be able to hold his breath a bit longer.

* ''[[Cave Story]]'' has an oxygen meter which appears when the protagonist is underwater, although one might wonder why, since he's a robot. Players trying for the [[Multiple Endings|secret ending]] will eventually discover while saving Curly that surface robots are programmed to shut down if their systems get flooded with water, but this leads one to ask how carrying an oxygen tank enables one to survive underwater indefinitely.

* Swimming underwater in ''[[Gothic]]'' adds an oxygen meter in addition to the player's health and mana meters. When the Nameless Hero runs out of oxygen, the health starts draining instead, until he runs out of health and drowns. Notable because surfacing will make the meter invisible again, but will ''not'' instantly refill it--the player must stay on the surface for at least a few seconds, or will find on diving again that the meter isn't completely full.

* ''[[The New Zealand Story]]'' did this, with the added implication that it may have actually been water in Tiki's lungs--swimming up to the surface would naturally allow your oxygen level to (slowly) replenish itself, but the process could be accelerated by spitting water. Pretty deadly water it was, too, as it could kill most enemies.

* The ''[[Thief]]'' games have an oxygen meter that looks like a line of bubbles across the bottom of the screen. If you knock someone unconscious and dump him in water, he will die in about the same span of time you would (so don't dump unconscious guards in swimming pools if you're running a no-kill mission).

** Averted in ''Thief: Deadly Shadows'', where Garrett has learnt [[Super Drowning Skills]]

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 5'', there is a water dungeon which you have to guide your current Navi through. While they are underwater they are perfectly fine until they run out of "cyber-air" (really?), at which point their HP starts dropping rapidly until you either hit a cyber-air pocket or exit the water. Oh, [[Fake Difficulty|and there's random encounters the whole way, including while you're attempting to fight the currents that push you back and drain your air, and while you're trying to avoid the whirlpools that drain your air.]] There's also three areas of this, each one progressively more frustrating. This is one instance Capcom cut something out of the English release for a good reason--in the Japanese version, there were four areas.

* When travelling on the ocean floor to Tane-Tane Island in ''[[Mother 3]]'', the way you refuel your characters' collective oxygen bar is... interesting, to say the least. The amount of time you're able to survive without the aide of these machines is fairly realistic compared to most examples, though--around 30 seconds to a minute (with battles excluded).

* Non-underwater example: the ''[[Mr. Driller]]'' series has an Oxygen meter that slowly depletes as you play, with the oxygen loss accelerating once you make it deeper underground. To stay alive, you need to pick up air capsules scattered throughout the mine.

* ''[[Jungle Hunt|Jungle King / Jungle Hunt]]'' uses this during the swimming levels.

* ''[[Alpha Prime]]'' uses an [[Oxygen Meter]] on the asteroid's surface, refillable through the use of oxygen dispensers, or simply by walking back into an airlock.

* In ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'', this becomes visible once you enter a vacuum. As it depletes, Isaac begins to choke and gasp, which is just wonderful for your concentration. Thankfully your time limit can be extended with upgrades to your RIG and restored with air canisters.

* There's an optional underwater dungeon in ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' that gives you a timer. The boss is a [[Puzzle Boss]], just to make things more "fun". (It's Gogo the Mimic. How do you win? {{spoiler|Do nothing. He's testing to see if you can be a good mimic - so mimic him mimicking you doing nothing.}} The faster you catch on, the more time you have to get out.)

* A Variation, from ''Metro2033'': Your wristwatch tells you how much time you have left on your gas mask before you need to switch filter canisters. Spend too long in areas with toxic atmosphere and you die. And you need to take off your gas mask as soon as it's safe to breathe, or it might get damaged the next time you get attacked in melee.

** And since there's no HUD, you have to check your wristwatch constantly to see how much time you have before you have to change filters. And just because you're required to wear the gas mask doesn't mean it can't be damaged either, making any surface expedition a tense journey to avoid any serious conflict.

* In ''[[Jabless Adventure]]'', your oxygen counts down from 100. It happens so quickly that you really can't accomplish ''anything'' underwater prior to receiving the SCUBA gear (which allows you to stay underwater indefinitely).

* While you don't get a visible oxygen meter in [[Team Fortress 2]], stay underwater long enough and your character will make drowning-type noises and take damage, eventually drowning. As with the ''Half-Life'' series above, health lost from drowning is restored by coming up for air.