Every continue starts with 6 orbs, so if you're about to lose on the x0 life, start firing them off(when you're down to the green ones, it's a very close range attack). You find more as your character moves along otherwise, but they have to jump to reach them. Items your character can pick up by walking over them include gas canisters to restore a bar of health(5 total), and "power metal" gloves to temporarily turn into an invincible armored vehicle. A great visual, if you can get your character in close enough, against humanoid enemies, is slicing them in half vertically. Sometimes one of the weapons that can be picked up is one of their arms. Others include barrels or jeeps that your character can throw.