Hit points, health bars, life hearts, percentages, crimson omens; health, as a game mechanism, is a prominent feature in the majority of video games. That’s hardly surprising when you consider that most games involve conflict and competition. Health is a device that helps determine whether characters, and players by proxy, are winning or losing. It is not limited to appearing solely in shooting and fighting games, however. Elite Beat Agents employs the superbly named Elite-O-Meter, Trauma Center games involve keeping a patient’s heart rate above zero, and even a certain blue spikeball uses rings that he collects as a protective shield. Don’t ask how, he just bloody well does. Health is pretty much everywhere and it’s something that we as gamers take for granted.

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