It would be interesting to have a system where the player gets ''special power'' for playing well. Kind of like Max Payne''s bullet time, but it would allow them to do more damage with their hand to hand attacks. Ie. In a Kung-Fu game, the player can pick up items of scenery to attack the ninjas, but if they have more power on their meter, their attacks will be upgraded.. ie. if they hit the enemy with the tennis racket with a full meter, the enemy will be flung backwards. But on a low meter it will do less damage and they may even be able to block it.

Fighting games have been doing this for a while in the most basic form you are talking about.

In Street Fighter 3 series Ryu can throw a fireball and have it do a set damage, but if he throws the fireball with 2 punches at the same time it will deplete some of his super meter and throw a more powerful fireball.

In Capcom Vs. SNK2 there is a groove - K Groove, once you build up your meter all your attacks do more damage.

You have to be careful how you going about implementing something like this though. In the examples from above, they are 1 on 1 competitive games and they have costs to being able to perform these. You have to be very careful rewarding the rich by making them richer. If you are talking about a 1 player beat ''em up sorta like Final Fight or Devil May Cry, then you won''t have to balance it at all.

Derek

I''m playing Vagrant Story now, and it features the opposite of what you describe. There''s a "RISK" meter (a poor name), and as you fight it goes up.

When it''s low or empty, your character is totally calm and detached, like a zen monk. His attacks are accurate and powerful, and his emotions are void. If you do a lot of complex combos and fancy counterattacks, he''ll get more and more excited, and lose his cool. The risk meter increases, and hits are weaker and sloppier.

The tradeoff is that emotional functions, like magic, become more powerful as the risk meter fills. So when you''re flipping out, you probably won''t do much damage with your flailing sword, but you can summon up one hell of an energy wave.