Happy Monday, folks, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread!

It is destiny for the gaze of man and art to turn to the skies. Superman. The RE/MAX Blimp. Creedence Clearwater Revival as it is flyin’ ‘cross the land and tryin’ to get a hand. Earth is domineering and harsh; it symbolizes the things that make us mortal, flawed, and doomed. Why else is it so tied to hells and underworlds? To have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings, to fly is to have achieved transcendence: power over the laws of nature.

Perhaps this tantalizing vision of flight is why so many video games incorporate it. Just look at the Super Mario series. Super Mario Bros. 3 introduces the Raccoon and Tanooki Suits, powers that let Mario soar across levels. Super Mario World replaces them with the Cape, now capable of letting the plumber bounce and dive and soar with a far greater diversity of movement options. Super Mario 64 puts this idea into 3D with the Wing Cap, a strange physics device that was nonetheless so important that it’s in the last cutscene. Super Mario Sunshine offers unimaginable vertical movement with the Rocket Nozzle, required for the final battle with Bowser. Super Mario Galaxy held off its Red Star until the postgame, where it has little functional utility but a grandiose piece of music instead. Super Mario 3D Land introduced the Propeller Box, which was silly, ungainly, and quite effective at escaping danger. Super Mario Odyssey spun a plethora of flying mechanics off into distinct Capture targets, from the Parabones to the Glydon to the Bullet Bill. Bland as they are, the New Super Mario Bros. sub-series added to this with the Propeller and Squirrel Suits, both of which took different foundational ideas of the Cape and laser focused in on them. In fact, this didn’t even start on a Nintendo console; it started on Nippon’s NEC PC-8801 with Super Mario Bros. Special‘s swimming-mimicking Wing Power-Up. You know, the system Snatcher was on.

Shigeru Miyamoto has, in various interviews, talked about his love of flying in games. His favorite Mario character is Lakitu, for instance. I’ve long assumed that a lot of these were made partially at his request or insistence. But also, it feels right, you know? Mario, Mr. Video Game, the avatar of gaming as movement, should yearn for the skies like the rest of us. Because video games are full of flying. Helicopters whose horrible controls bedevil our GTA heroes. Planes dropping shadows onto real life mountain ranges in Flight Simulator and downing baddies in Ace Combat. Superheroes who fly above and through their digital metropoles. Drones used to spy on corporate fascists in Watch Dogs. And gliders that help heroes like Link and drivers like Princess Daisy elegantly descend, because you have to land some time, right? Flying is important to gaming. It is a fantasy to indulge, a skill of movement to test, a way to get as much as possible from that third dimension of space.

Here is today’s prompt: what are your favorite moments, mechanics, levels, power-ups, boss fights, anything related to flying in video games? Consider this your aerial canvas. And as always, what did you play this weekend?