May 28th 2009 By Justin Massoud

Top 10 Most Bizarre Game Power-Ups

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Gamers have a love affair with the power-up. When faced with the overwhelming odds of defeating a fascist regime or surviving a zombie outbreak, acquiring that extra little something -- a pair of shoes that let you run faster or a glowing concoction that grants you the ability to jump 10 feet in the air - can mean the difference between life and the Game Over screen. However, not all power-ups play by the rules. Some are just ... weird.

Thanks to game developers who were on drugs, crazy, or both, here are the top 10 most bizarre game power-ups.

10) Insect Swarm Plasmid -- BioShock
This buggy power-up requires a self-injection of green goo right into your veins, and for what? The ability to shoot a bunch of gnats out of the myriad pustules that painfully erupt on your arm. WTF, and ouch.

9) Happy Onion -- MadWorld
Gore guru Jack loves splattering thugs across the pavement, playing golf with their heads, and slicing them in half with his prosthetic chain-saw arm. It only makes sense that chomping on a raw onion stashed away in a wooden crate would recover his health, right?

More bizarre power-ups, after the jump.

8) Green Herb -- Resident Evil (series)
Taking a green herb miraculously repairs any damage done from a zombie bite. Mix a couple of them and you can walk away from being nearly decapitated. A glowing endorsement for the legalization of marijuana, or just typical Japanese weirdness?

7) Kuribo's Shoe -- Super Mario Bros. 3
Hijack one of these from a goomba and Mario becomes immune to all spiky death traps. The only catch is that you have to crawl inside a big green wind-up shoe. Who knows what that goomba did in there?

6) Reese's Pieces -- E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial
It's no surprise that one of the worst games ever created features one of the worst candies ever created as a power-up. Feed these to E.T. and ... something happens. It's hard to tell because figuring out what's going on at any moment during the game is as difficult as not crying during the movie's finale.

5) Ninja Cat -- Tenchu: Shadow Assassins
Ninjas are undeniably awesome, but using a cat to scout an area and fetch keys is ridiculous. The only thing missing here is a mini-game that lets you take adorable pictures of the furtive feline with hilarious phrases like, "I can has sushee?"

4) Credit Card -- Kid Icarus
Cherub Pit is on a quest to rescue the Goddess of Light, Palutena, from imprisonment at the hands of the evil Medusa. How else is the kid going to buy the necessary items to aid him but charge it? Even more odd: He pays off the stuff by collecting hearts.

3) Mr. Saturn - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
A face with a big schnozz, whiskers, and a single strand of hair adorned with a red ribbon is crazy enough. To up the unusual quotient, he's a completely useless item whose sole purpose is to scare small children ... and fill in a spot in a Top 10 Most Bizarre Game Power-Ups list.

2) Jason Voorhees' Mother's Sweater -- Friday the 13th
Wearing the sweater of Jason's mommy confuses the hockey-masked maniac, making him attack you less. How a dirty sweater being worn by pimply-faced teen camp counselors can dissuade a serial killer from slaughtering them is beyond comprehension. Jason is evil, but he can still see.

1) Bubbles the Chimp -- Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
As if touching children to release them from a neon force field isn't disturbing enough, grabbing Bubbles transforms Michael Jackson into a robot who shoots blue death rays from his arms. Kinda makes the whole having-an-amusement-park-for-a-home thing seem normal in comparison. Or not.