History Main / ExactTimeToFailure

* Many early games, such as ''SuperMarioBrothers'', ''{{Castlevania}}'', and ''FinalFight'' have timers on each level. When the timer expires, your character will typically drop dead for no reason. These timers are often there because the games were designed around arcade games, which have timers to keep the quarter-munching at a fast clip.

* One issue of ''GlobalFrequency'' involved a decapitated head, a psychic, and a yelling superior informing the psychic that the person who the head had been attached to had died two minutes ago, and she ''knew'' that brain waves last for only a few minutes after death.

* In ''{{Freespace 2}}'', the last mission has a countdown until a star system is destroyed by a supernova. [[spoiler:But you die about 10 seconds ''before'' time runs out, which is frustrating.]]

* The DeadRising series. It's more seen as TimeManagementGame, though in the [[DeadRising2 second]] game the player character is set up as the guy who started the outbreak, so if the player fails to complete the game, he's arrested. [[spoiler: if the player does complete the cases until the military arrives, the clock still ticking down, only now, the whole city will be fire-bombed if the player doesn't complete the lasting cases and escape by then.]]

* Used in ''TheMatrixReloaded''. According to The Keymaker, in order to get access to the door Neo must go through without triggering "the bomb", his support crews must destroy a power plant ''and'' sabotage a backup substation within 314 seconds of each other for no adequately explored reason. [[spoiler:Due to a machine attack, the backup substation crew dies moments before they can sabotage the substation - meaning Trinity must break her promise not to enter the Matrix to sabotage it instead in less than five minutes. Despite having to drive a motorcycle off a roof, fight off a squad of security guards, and go from ground level to the sixty-fifth floor, she completes the task in time.]] During the run, Link calls out "Two minutes left." and "One minute!" within ten seconds of screentime.

* Double subverted near the end of ''TheManhattanProject'' - the homemade atomic bomb is accidentally armed and its display is turned on. It starts counting at 999 hours, so at first no one's worried about disarming it in time...until Paul realizes his timing mechanism isn't perfect and will speed up the clock as it goes on. The double subversion comes into play when he and Dr. Mathewson eventually remember that the degredation will result in exponential growth, so they can calculate how long it will take the timer to reach zero.

* And its parent show, ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', played around with it a couple times. The gate itself has a 38 minutes limit for how long it can stay open, and whenever it stays on for longer, it's because of outside interference and usually means that the base is screwed. On one occasion, this time limit is counted down to, and passes, with the gate staying online. As the characters start talking about how they have to alert the proper people that the world's about to end, the gate shuts down on its own.

** Final Fantasy VII loved this trope and has timed escapes pop up every so often. You're even subjected to one shortly after starting a new game!

* ''{{Final Fantasy IX}}'': Relatively early on in Disc 2, when Zidane and co. arrive back in Alexandria to save Garnet/Dagger, you have exactly 30 minutes until Brahne arrives at the dock, and she intends to have Garnet beheaded. As soon as the 30 minutes is up, it's a game over.
* ''{{Final Fantasy XIII}}'': All Eidolon battles are this; the Doom spell is cast on your leader as soon as the battle begins, manifesting as a big red clock over their head, which counts down the seconds they have left. Later boss battles are also hidden timed missions; after 20 minutes, they will get bored and cast Doom, leaving you with 3 minutes or so to defeat them.

* In ''FinalFantasyVI'', [[EnsembleDarkhorse everyone's favorite]] [[GoldfishPoopGang purple octopus]] Ultros is trying to drop a four-ton weight on a character (bear with me). He says "N'ghaaa! This is heavier than I thought! It'll take me five minutes to drop it!" Yes, this means that you have exactly five minutes to stop him.

* In ''SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'', Sonic and company are racing to stop Eggmanland's main reactor from going critical. They're given a couple of hours and despite the troubles getting there, as well as a fight with Dark Eggman, Sonic's able to pull the switch with one second left to spare. [[spoiler:Of course, it's actually a trap to gain Sonic's life data to get Hypre Metal Sonic functioning.]]

* In ''Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricanger'' and its American counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', the heroes' mecha has a mode which sheds its armor for increased speed, but it can only stay that way for 60 seconds lest its internal components are damaged.

* In ''NinpuuSentaiHurricanger'' and its American counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', the heroes' mecha has a mode which sheds its armor for increased speed, but it can only stay that way for 60 seconds lest its internal components are damaged.

** The quote from Webcomic/DinosaurComics at the top of this page refers to an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. The ship is being subjected to severe radiation. The computer reports the exact time, down to the second, when the accumulated dosage will become lethal. The implication is that this time is meant to be uniform for all crew members. But even if it were, say, the time when radiation would be lethal to the lowest common denominator (the LittlestCancerPatient, for example), it's still a long stretch to believe that any time before that, the damage would be perfectly fine to recover from, but the instant you hit that deadline, it becomes lethal with no hope of recovery. And presumably any damage before that point could be cured with a complete recovery, otherwise Dr. Crusher ''et al'' would be working a lot faster before those radiation burns, mutations, and sterility become downright miserable.

* {{Garo}}: Makai Knights have 99.9 seconds of enhanced armor time [[spoiler: before it goes berserk and drives the wearer violently feral. Bad news: when the main character hits the mark for the first time in the series, he slaughters the enemy that he is dueling, while said enemy's mother is watching. Good news: the mother is evil.]]

** Justified, in that this movie takes place [[SarcasmMode in the future.]]!

* ''MassEffect'' has a few of these in both games. Some missions, assignments and tasks must be completed within certain time limits. Otherwise, the ship crashes, or the missiles launch, or the [[spoiler:tech specialist gets fried]], or the colony explodes, or the [[spoiler:asteroid wipes out the colony]], or something else bad happens that will really [[GameOver ruin Shepard's day]].

* In another biological variant, a [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] {{Batman}} story featured Hugo Strange. Strange had invented a serum that turned a normal person into a giant Monster Man, strong enough to rip out a support for an elevated train, [[spoiler:which one of them actually did]]. Strange injected Batman with this serum, saying it takes 18 hours to work. [[spoiler:And then a Monster Man punched Batman, leaving him knocked out for 17 hours and 45 minutes. He cures himself, obviously.]]

---> "Shockwave impact in three, two, one. *pause* More or less."
** Spoofed in an episode where the holographic Doctor is daydreaming that he's the captain of Voyager. The computer voiced by Majel Barret is saying lines like "Warning: Warp core breach a lot sooner than you think." and "Warning: Last chance to be a hero, Doctor. Get going!"

Naturally, there will be [[InstantCooldown no lasting]] [[MagicAntidote consequences]] if the failure is stopped in time, even if there's just a millisecond left. Sometimes, the timer is polite enough to wait for the dramatic scene to finish, in which case it's a MagicCountdown. In VideoGames, these are very handy for setting up {{Timed Mission}}s. Related to LudicrousPrecision. See also RaceAgainstTheClock.

* Humorously averted in ''{{Bastion}}'', combined with the UnreliableNarrator. While waiting for a slowly rising cage to release a shard, the narrator starts in near the end: