TIPS & TRICKS - Ou comment gruger discretos sans se faire piquer...

 

0-9

1942
Free plane - On certain levels, a red “V” formation of planes will appear straight down from the top. If you kill all 5 of them and it turns into a black & red “POW”, pick it u for a free plane.

At times, a slow plane will come out from either the right or left side. If shot, it will turn into a special object. If you fly over it, you’ll get 5,000 points.

It’s possible to finish the game. A special screen will appear with the message “We give up!” with a special bonus of 10 million points!

Getting a 100% shooting accuracy will net 10,000 points (or so it says on the screen), but you actually get 50,000! If you let the last plane go and get a 99% rating, you’ll get 20,000 points.

1943 (Battle of Midway)
On most every board, holding down combinations of joystick/Button
A/Button B before the board starts will give you a weapon. (On a few
boards this gives you a 'laser' which is a fantastic weapon).

After level one, when the game is adding you bonuses on, if you hold down fire
and a) have the shot gun, your weapon will be made into the most powerful
shot gun with 90 seconds remaining
b) don't have the shot gun, you either will or won't get the same as the
above (we never managed to work out the criteria for getting it before
the arcade got rid of the game).
Also if one player gets the laser and has full energy, player 2 can line his
plane up with the player with the laser (as if to borrow energy) and he will
get the laser as well. This is VERY useful if you are lucky enough to get
the laser before the very last ship (which is hard indeed).

Ammunition trick - A little known trick in the game is to hold down the fire "A" button at the very end of a board immediately after beating the boss. By holding down the button until the plane takes off in the subsequent board, the game gives you a full ammunition load (65 Seconds)! This trick only works every third board or so and it may even change your selected weapon.

Scoring trick - In each "boss level", kill all the enemies except the boss. If you do not kill the boss you will start back at the beginning of the level. This trick works only one time for each "level boss", but in the last level, round 16, if you never kill the boss you will continue to start back at the beginning every time. It is theoretically possible to score an infinite amount of points!

720 Degrees
In the ramp section, levels 8, 9, and 10: holding down the kick and jump buttons simultaneously on the lip of the ramp will boost your air. This trick only works when you're going the correct speed (usually your third or fourth jump), and only once per ramp session per level.

A scoring glitch similar to the one in Paperboy also exists in this game, although currently it’s unknown how to reproduce it.

A

After Burner
100 missiles:
Press Start + Speed on level 3.
Press Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Right on level 9.

Bonus points:
Press Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Left on level 11 for 50,000,000 points.
Press Start + Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Photo Sensor + Up on level 21 for 250,000,000 points.

Programmer messages:
Press Start + Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Photo sensor + Right during demonstration mode.
Press Start + Vulcan Cannon + Missile on levels 1 or 5.
Press Start + Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Left on level 13.
Press Start + Down on level 16.
Press Start on level 19.
Press Start + Vulcan Cannon + Missile + Photo Sensor on level 23.

The game will play itself if it has the credits to continue.

Alcon
Super power-up - When your ship first appears, don’t touch/shoot anything. Let yourself die. When the next ship appears, you will restart with the maximum size ship with Homing Missiles. Also, the longer you manage to stay alive this first time, the larger your cheat bonus will be.

Whenever the player selects "Wing" (for additional pods of the current weapon type), or changes weapon type entirely, there is a grace period of about two seconds during which all enemy shots will pass right through the ship.

Alien Syndrome
Shoot and grab everything as quickly as possible. If you manage to
finish a level before the timer reaches 100 you get a 60K bonus.

Alpine Ski
If your score is low enough, purposely hitting slalom poles on the 2nd round will cause your score to roll-over backwards, to 999,999!

Anti-Aircraft II
There is an undocumented option available that switches the planes into UFO's. Pin 14 of the 003127 IC (a PROM located at grid location K1) is tied to ground, but also has a pull-up resistor. Cutting the ground trace causes address bit A4 to be pulled high, selecting the UFO data. A jumper can be installed to easily switch back and forth between planes and UFO's. The UFO version of the game was probably never released.

A.P.B.
Note that the game never ends. You get through 15 bad guys, and then
a sort of tough hitchhiker board, and then all boards afterwards are
random. There are two villains it isn't worth wasting your time on:
Fake Frank and Sid Sniper. I'll put up a complete strategy list on
this one if there's enough demand.

Dave points out that when you start a new game, you may:
- press Siren button and start to get a level 1-8 warp.
- press Gas and Siren and start to get a level 1-16 warp.

If you hold down the FIRE button while pushing SIREN to start the game, you’ll have the option to warp from any day from 1 to 8. {Ray Walker}

If you are having problems catching up to an A.P.B., simply stop and he/she will drive off the screen and re-appear right behind you in a couple of seconds (this works real well on narrow, crowded roads).

When making the A.P.B. confess, be sure to tap one gun and one siren button. If you tap both gun or siren buttons, they will cancel each other out.

You can arrest common criminals faster if you have the gun by tapping both the siren and gun at the same time (just be sure you are aiming right at them).

According to a booklet that came with the Feb 1988 issue of Computers and Video Games magazine, there’s a bug that can get you a lot of points. It's described as follows, “When you find the train, get in front of it, and let it push you across the screen. It will shove you through a lot of rubbish, and after a while you will get millions of points”. The bug can’t be reproduced either on a real machine or in MAME, as of yet.

Arabian
Pixels are missing from the top of the 5. This is a fault common to the code of the original ROMs on all of the boards (both Sun and Atari).

Arch Rivals
Position yourself behind an opposing player and press the shoot and pass buttons at the same time. Your player will dive forward and pull down the pants of the opposing player. This will make him drop the ball as well as "freeze" for a couple of seconds while he pulls up his pants. Take this time to steal the ball. This is not much of a trick because if you play long enough the game will tell you how to do it.

Arctic Thunder
Pressing the attack button while selecting rider allows you to mix and match the sled and rider of your choice. Pressing Start and Attack on the track select screen will toggle 'no drone' mode and a harder difficulty setting. All three apply for one race only.

Area 51
Kronn Hunter Mode:

At the beginning of the game, shoot the first three STAAR team
members you see with the first three bullets (don't reload or
miss.) If you did this right you'll enter Kronn Hunter mode.

In this mode, you are a mercenary from the Kronn hierarchy sent
to sterilize Area 51 of the Kronn rebels. You will notice that
the grenades, bullets, shotgun shells, and machine gun bullets
have all taken on a Kronn form. You will also gain 20,000 extra
points whenever your score is tallied, and you can shoot STAAR
team members with impunity.

Power-up Room:

After your first progress report in Area 51, where it tells you
your percentage and things like that, you will see a wall lined
with windows. Shoot all the windows across the entire wall and
you will be in the power up room, where you can see aliens
attacking women and power-ups all over the screen.

Secret Area before Final Boss:

Right before you fight the Final Boss when you are outside, you
will go to an area with zombies throwing barrels [NOT GRENADES].
Shoot all the barrels that are not thrown, and you will go to a
secret area filled with power ups.

Secret Rooms: There are many secret rooms that can be entered by shooting combinations of inanimate objects in the game. For example, shooting all the office windows out after going up the ladder in the hangar will take you to "Shake your Buddha", where you can take shots at the stationary heads of the development team and increase your score and streak. Taking out all the windows on the back wall of the hangar will take you to another secret room full of power-ups.

Kron Hunter: Instead of starting out the game normally, avoid shooting the aliens. Instead, shoot the first three members of STAAR that appear on the screen (the guys in blue). Do not worry, after your health gets down to one, the aliens will not hurt you any more. After shooting the third member of STAAR, you will get an info screen talking about Kron Hunters, and you will start the game over as one. The graphics palette will be completely whacked, and when you are done, a Kron Hunter symbol (a green K) will appear next to your high score, rather than a military ranking.

Area 51: Site 4
Some cheats are accessible by shooting certain objects on the screen that are in the background, which will lead you to a different path in the level. Another cheat is to be a perfect shot with your gun with a 100 percent hit ratio, this will bring you into a bonus round.

Arm Wrestling
As soon as the match begins, if your timing is right, pushing "left" will catch the computer player off guard and score an automatic full "power" and generally helps you to beat the computer player faster. Be careful not to foul twice or your game is over!

Armor Attack
Programmer Tim Skelly states the Morse code sounds actually spell out "DONT REGISTER". This was in reference to the U.S. Government's ploy on army conscription at this time in history (1980).

Assault
Finish a level with 0 seconds left and you will get credit for the maximum time on a level. On some levels this can be worth an extra 17,000 points! {Mitch Ross}

Space walk: On level 1, it's possible to drive your tank over the rocky edges of a level into open space! Approach the 2 cannons at the end of level 1. Destroy the left one. Shoot the right one until he is one nuke from exploding: 8 shots or 2 nukes. Face the right canon, and back up. Drive near the right wall. When he's almost at the top of the screen, hit him with a nuke. Immediately drive backwards and turn around the corner to your bottom right. If you've done it right, you'll end the level with a space walk! {Mitch Ross}

When you start a level, the Enemies aren't alive. They only wake up when you drive near them. This "near" distance ranges from half a screen to one and a half screens ahead of you.

When using the lift, you wake up (a lot of) distant enemies. Some of them may start moving away from you, rapidly going beyond this limit. The result is that when you use the lift, you often won't see all of the enemies present on the level. Try playing level one with and without the lift- you'll always get a lower score with the lift. This is because there are fewer enemies left to shoot.

Enemies disappear when a certain distance from you. This is because the CPU isn’t fast enough to render all the enemies at once without having the framerate drop. The same rules also apply to buildings and enemy rubble. When you move far enough away from rubble, it goes away, revealing the clean unharmed ground below. For buildings, this means they rebuild themselves. {Mitch Ross}

On one level (8?), there are small orange tanks hidden in small domes. These domes rebuild, and when shot the rebuilt tanks appear too! {Mitch Ross}

On the higher levels (9 and up) the yellow tanks can be made to appear on command. Approach the edges of a level slowly, and you can make each wave of them appear on queue. It takes practice, but once mastered you can clean up on the points.

On last level, run around outside edge and all enemies (except cannons) will disappear!

The pcb is capable of outputting 3-D stereo sound, but the cabinet only has a single speaker. The test mode hints at other features that were never implemented (3-D shutter glasses, 2-player controls, multi-game linking, and cocktail table mode).

Unused music is hidden in the ROMS, which was later used as the intro music for Assault Plus.

The manual states your grenades are triple the fire power of your tank's standard shots, but they’re actually the same as 4 shots.

Asteroids
2 versions of the game program exist (with each having 2 minor revisions). The original version had some glitches (described below) that were corrected in the later version.

2 in-house versions were made, as practical jokes. One was nicknamed “Turtleroids” where the UFOs were replaced by turtles. The other was a modification to the high score table to replace Own Rubin’s initials (“ORR”) with Ed Logg’s.

3 cabinet variations were produced, one with a white border around the edges (picture #1) and one with “ASTEROIDS” in large red letters on the sides (picture #2). The white border versions are thought to have all been produced in Atari’s Ireland plant. The earliest Asteroids games produced actually used Lunar Lander cabinets (with the graphics intact). In addition, 3 different coin doors were used – the (then-standard) flat coin door, the more common newer style, and one with 3 coin slots.

A special gold cabinet (with different marquee and control panel art) was made to celebrate the 50,000 machine produced (pictures #3). The gold Asteroids appeared in worse shape (but with a different marquee?) in Atari’s final days (pictures #4 and #5). Perhaps there were more than one made?

There are 2 known variations of the monitor glass. Early production machines had the lettering in gold (picture #6). Later machines had all-white lettering.

The reserve ships can stretch across the entire top of the screen (up to 59)!

BUG: Rev. 1 tricks - The original software version (says “Asteroids by Atari” at bottom of screen, instead of “1979 Atari”) had an invulnerability glitch, where you could hide in the upper corners (in the score) and nothing would hit you. Also, you can get your ship to fly backwards- thrust in one direction until reaching full speed, and then quickly turn around 180 degrees and continue thrusting.

BUG: Rev. 1 – the hyperspace button for player 2 won’t make a tone when pressed in test mode.

BUG: Rev. 2a - every time you start a game, the last letter (initial) in the 10th score is erased. This was fixed with Rev 2b.

BUG: When too many asteroids are on the screen (there’s a limit), and a larger one is shot, it will disappear completely!

BUG: If the reserve ships reach 256, the counter may reset, or the game may crash (no one has yet verified what happens).

Asteroids Deluxe
2 versions of the game exist. When the game came out, players complained it was too hard, so an easier set was created (often called the “European” version). Determining which version you are playing can be discerned by noting when the first appearance of a Killer Satellite occurs - in the original version this is near the end of the second wave, in the revised version it will appear near the end of the first wave (and moves much more slowly). The 2nd version allows you to hunt for satellites much like you could hunt UFOs in the original Asteroids. A 3rd version is believed to have been made that didn’t allow for this.

Although the attract screen claims a 1980 copyright, the game was officially introduced in March of 1981.

The front glass on the upright was originally square with the cabinet. This produced a glare on the screen. Atari later released a "glare reduction kit" which retro fit an angled glass into the cabinet that reduced glare. Once applied, the kit enclosed the speaker which resulted in deeper base tones. Another revision did away with the internal mirror altogether and had the monitor facing out like the original Asteroids machine.

The score rolls over at 1 million.

Astro Blaster
This is a list of just a few of the secret ways to get bonus points in the
vertical space shoot-um-up Astor Blaster.

1000 Points for shooting without missing a shot during "Fuel status Marginal"
700 Points for killing everything in the horizontal attack force before they
reach the other side of the screen
600 Points for getting thru an entire sector with out hitting "Critical" on
laser temperature
400 Points for not losing a ship thru an entire sector
400 to 1500 Points for docking perfectly WITHOUT using the direction buttons
??? Points for "scraping" the docking claws duging dock

There are 25 secret bonuses! Only a few are known (listed below):

· You get 1,000 points for shooting w/o missing throughout “Fuel Status Marginal”.

· You get 700 points for demolishing an entire horizontally moving attack force before it reaches the right-hand side of the screen.

· You get 600 points for going through an entire sector w/o hitting “critical” laser temp.

· You get 500 points for not losing a ship through an entire sector.

· Docking with mother ship without moving your ship (dead center is worth 1,000 points; close-to-the-edge dockings are worth 1,500). In addition, you can get from 400 to 1,500 points for docking perfectly w/o using the directional buttons.

Astro Fighter
There is a 10k bonus trick. Normally, if you hit the GS mother ship with your first shot you get 950 points, otherwise you get 300. However, if you miss with you first shot and then destroy it with your 55th shot (counting from the beginning of the level, or when you start with a new ship) you get 10k! There are 4 waves per level - 11 enemies on the 1st, 12 on the 2nd and 3rd, and 15 on the 4th (50 total), so you can miss 3 times (or hit comets) before you reach the mother ship.

Astro Invader
If you press “5” during the attract mode, occasionally part of the Stern Mother Ship will remain on the screen (until a game starts).

Astron Belt
Some of the video footage came from a 1979 Toei space film, some came from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", and some came from the 1980 film "Battle Beyond the Stars." The rest was made specifically for the game.

Atari Football
In some two-player models built in late 1978 and early 1979, there was a bug that would allow the QB to throw a pass after crossing the line of scrimmage, then going back behind it. When the QB crossed scrimmage, all the defending X players would leave their receivers open as they pursued the run, making long completions easy.

Aztarac
Spinning the spinner at a high rate during parts of the attract-mode will result in the programmer's name (Tim Stryker) appearing in approx. three inch letters across the center of the screen.

B

Blood Brother
The game is very similar to "Cabal" ( in fact it's basically exactly
the same except that it has a Western theme instead of WW2 theme )

A "get as many points as you want" kinda cheat :

1) get to the second screen ( preferably without dying on the first screen )
2) shoot the building on the right hand side of the screen and start shooting
the trees in the background on the right. 20,000 points fly out from each
bunch of trees. continue.
3) That is basically it. A few problems occur and here is how to counter them:
a) 5 men run across the back from the left and throw grenades..
just shoot the grenades before they get to you
eventually they come out less often, and will stop altogether
b) the men on the right come out from the edge to shoot you
same as above.. they stop eventually
c) a plane flies over and drops bombs.
same as a). It stops after some time.
d) After a certain amount of time a bird comes out to kill you
let it. Only 2 birds ever come out ( sometimes only 1 )
and then they also stop coming. This is why it pays not to
die on the first screen.
Another hint. on the first screen, the tin can be shot many
times ( immediately ) to give you a free man. If you miss it
then don't bother trying again, you only get one chance.
Also the game can be set to give free men every xx000 points,
if it is you are lucky and will continue to get plenty of men.

Hold your finger on the button to keep shooting the trees ( sticky-tape works
well here ) and prepare to get *really* bored. Play the neighboring game
so that you can keep an eye on it.

Have fun !

Some machines ( copies especially ) have really slow firing, and it is
quicker to press the fire button repeatedly. Don't bother playing these
machines, they are really infererior and it'l take you 5 times as long to
get a decent score.

Also...

The scores that you could reach is theoretically infinite, but I haven't had
the spare time to do it for more then about an hour. I reckon that it would
clock over at 100 million, but I've only managed to get 21 million ( or more
precisely 21,450,100 )

Here's how to do it..
Play the first screen
On the second screen, just shoot the object/guys on the right ( the building
and the man in the building ) then start shooting the trees ( standing on the
right of the screen so you won't get shot )
Every now and again some guys will throw grenades at you.. shoot or dodge them
After shooting the trees for a about 10 seconds a 20,000 point bonus will fly
out and land at your feet and you collect it automatically.
Continue..
This is basically the trick.
Points to note : 1) A bird comes out and kills you if you stay on the same
screen for some time. Let it kill you. Only one or two
birds come out, so it pays not to lose a life by mistake.
Thereafter : no more birds.
2) The grenade throwers and planes stop after some time.
3) Games can be set to give you a free man every so many
points, or never.. so find a game that will give you
many spare lives to continue with when you get bored.
4) Killing the last man on the last screen ( easy, just shoot
and don't bother dodging bullets ) gives you 1,000,000
so keep this in mind if trying to clock it & finish it.

Bump 'n' Jump

When the game is displaying the "BUBBLE BOBBLE" screen in attract mode,
try the following sequence of joystick/button commands:

Left, Jump, Left, 1P, Left, Fire, Left, 1P.

It'll say "POWER UP!" at the bottom of the screen. The next game you play,
you'll have all the useful powers (speed, fast bubbles, multiple bubbles).
Then there's the ORIGINAL GAME cheat mode. This one gives you all the
magic doors (even if you die. You will *not* get them if you die on
non-OG mode):

Fire, Jump, Fire, Jump, Fire, Jump, Right, 1P.

Both cheats can be done during the one game. In fact, you don't even
have to use these secret control sequences on the same title screen.

Bryan adds: After getting a high score, enter your initials as
S.E.X. Start the next game as normal. The second item on the first
level will be a pitchfork. Getting this item without bubbling the
bad guys will get you mucho points.

I've finished the game (one quarter for each player), and the one
thing I don't know is how to get the 'true ending,' which I believe is
related to the 'power-up' code...

Here's my Bubble Bobble lore:

1) Make it to level 20 without dying, and a door appears-- it leads
to a 'secret tomb,' a level full of diamonds. There are secret tombs at
levels 20 and 30, also.

2) Make it to level 50 without dying, and a strange, bee-hive-shaped
door appears; enter it and you warp to level 70. DON'T kill the drunks on
level 50, or the door disappears; bubble them and wait! Btw, with two
players, only one of the players must survive unharmed to get the secret
door.

3) Special item: the bell. If taken, a flash and a 'bell' sound
will go off at the beginning of any level that will have some sort of
destructive magic.

A few useful tricks:

*'Paffing' a Skel* : Skel is that nasty white monster that
comes after you when you've taken too long; with two players, two Skels will
appear. If one player is killed by 'his' Skel, then he can collide with his
partner's Skel *WHILE HE IS STILL FLICKERING.* If the player's icon is still
flickering, the other player's Skel will disappear (poof!), with no harm to
the once-slain character.

*The Trick* : At the end of a level, sometimes all of the
bubbles on the screen will inexplicably turn into food (even if there was no
candy cane on that level). If the tens and hundreds digits of either player's
score match when the last monster of a level is popped, then the bubbles will
turn into food! Ex: scores of 10,770 1,350,990 or 576,000 will produce
'the trick.' Usually, my partner and I kill everything in a level, and as
one player moves to pop the last monster, the other player will 'get the trick'
by blowing bubbles against a wall until the score is correct. Notice that
you _do_ get the points for popping the last monster, so if you're by yourself,
you have to work your score so that the tens and hundreds digits will match
_after_ the points for the last monster are added....

*'Blowing yourself through'* : It is possible (though quite
difficult) to bounce on a bubble at the top of the screen and ride it 'through'
the top, so that you emerge at the bottom of the screen.

A Brief List of Interesting Objects:

(note that these are named by consensus of my friends and myself... inventing
one's own names for bubble bobble phenomena is in the spirit of the game!)

'Noah' : Aqua-colored cross; fills the screen with water when touched. Note
that there is a slight delay before the monsters spin--- be warned,
you can die before the monsters do!

'Hineage': Red cross; replaces taker's bubbles with fireballs, and monsters
struck with these fireballs become diamonds. Limited number of shots.
Ends with leve.
(level.)
'The Bomb': Impressive, shiny black bomb with a fuse; instantly kills all
monsters, turns them to diamonds, too.

'The Spectator': Very rare-- a good omen! Red, flame-filled bubble; whoever
pops it gets 100,000 points and 'Hineage' for the next five levels!

'Candy Cane': Colors vary. Causes large, valuable piece of food to fall from
the sky at level's end. Also causes an automatic 'trick.'

'Divine Intervention': Yellow cross; causes three lightning bolts to cross
the screen, killing some or all monsters. Not very reliable.

'The Garter Belt': Looks kinda like a pewter ring; causes stars to rain down
all over the screen, killing all monsters.

'The Clock': Freezes everything but players. Beware--- you can't touch the
monsters while they're frozen!!!

'The Bank': Coffer-shaped; silver bank causes a 50,000-point diamond to
fall at level's end, and a diamond trick; red bank: 80-k ruby,
and a ruby trick. All alliances are off when the bank appears....

'The Killer': A ball-shaped, electrical shape; releases a bouncing, noisy
ball of lightning that kills any monster it touches. Also, not
very reliable, but better than nothing.

'The Skull': A horrible-looking human skull; invokes a red comet that crosses
the screen, turning all the monsters red (and angry, and FAST!)

Misc:
-The head in the first secret tomb is 'Rascal,' aka 'The Grumple Grommit,'
--- this is what the level 100 monster looks like.

Bump 'n' Jump
Don't smash any cars at all on a board, and you'll get 50,000
bonus points.

C

Cabal
The giant chopper that shows up at the end of screen 4 on level one doesn't
give you any points until you destroy it. Shooting the orange bullets
won't knock off any points toward killing the chopper. Only shoot the
orange bullets if they're in your way. Otherwise, spend all your time
shooting the chopper. Don't waste any grenades on the chopper--it doesn't
do as much damage as your gun (and you have unlimited bullets).

The giant submarine that shows up at the then end of screen 4 on level two
can be sunk three times as fast if you shoot at the conning tower (the
top-most part of the sub). It has also been determined that you can get by
the submarine WITHOUT killing it... just avoid it until it submerges three
times and it will destroy itself. Note that you don't get the points for
killing it if it self-destructs.

The semi-truck that shows up at the end of screen 4 on level three will
self-destruct if you destroy the CAB (the blue section in the front of it).
On this screen you actually get the point for it as well. It is easiest to
kill it with machine gun and/or bazooka gun, but in the absence of either
of these, throw grenades at the cab (leading the throw by about four
inches). It is MUCH easier to destroy the cab rather than destroying all
the attack sections that it drops off.

The three CPUs that show up at the end of screen 4 on level four can
actually be destroyed with only 2 grenades (I had to do this once when my
grenade supply got low), but the best strategy is to lob five grenades at
one of the outside CPUs (note that you can only have four grenades per
player in the air at any given time, so space them out a bit), then go for
the CENTER one (with another five grenades). The final CPU can simply be
shot with the standard rifle, and if you're standing on the opposite side
of the screen from it, it won't be able to hit you. Don't waste any more
grenades...

Once you learn how to defeat the final menace (at the end of screen 4 on
level five -- the final level) you can get by it (rather) painlessly. Go
all the way to one side. Use your gun to shoot out the two surrounding
machines that are shooting at you. As soon as they are both gone, lob
three grenades at the center machine. By this time, the two outer machines
that you shot out have regenerated and are firing at you. Shoot them out
again, followed by another volley of three grenades to the center machine.
Repeat until the center machine is gone. This requires 20 to 40 grenades,
so stock up on the last level (5-4). That is what that final level was
for.

Random tips:

Airplanes are worth 10000, choppers 7000, tanks and trucks are 5000, 3000,
and 2000 (I believe--someone may want to verify these last three). Killing
people and motorcycles (and rocks) won't get you many points -- don't
bother unless they get in your way.

A well-places grenade will destroy two choppers.

If you are in a corner and a chopper is firing at you--run farther into the
corner. Even if you're already IN the corner, if it sees you trying to
move toward the corner--you won't die.

If you find yourself trapped by incoming bullets, spin the trackball down
and to one side (but mostly down). This will cause your character to "duck
and roll". If you are rolling--you can't be hit.

Kill the snipers (the guys in gray bullet-proof suits). Half the time
you'll get a grenade for killing him. If you don't, two medics will come
running out to reclaim the body. Shoot these medics as much as possible!
They will drop four grenades. Pick up these grenades as quickly as
possible and shoot the medics again for another four grenades.

On the level one screen with the sliding doors: shoot out the doors
immediately upon starting the level. This will stop the guys from lobbing
grenades at you.

Airplanes are hard to kill. The best method is by using machine gun or
bazooka gun on it. In the absense of a super-gun, you can lead a grenade
ABOVE where it is on the screen. If you don't get it, and the three bombs
are being dropped right on you, it IS possible to stand BETWEEN where two
bombs are coming down. You WON'T die!

One last note: when there's nothing good to shoot on the screen, fire at a
bush. This is the way to get extra gunnery! Sometimes you'll only get
more grenades, but you'll eventually get a super-gun!

California Speed
Additional cars
Press View 1 at the car selection screen to display more cars. Press View 2 to return to the previous selection of cars.

Hidden cars
Set the transmission type to 1, then press Radio in the car selection screen. If done correctly, one car in each row will change into a hidden vehicle.

Drive a golf cart
Press View 2 at the car selection screen to get to the back row of vehicles. Rotate the Steering Wheel to select the car on the left.

Alternate car colors
Press View 3 at the car selection screen.

Mirrored tracks
Hold View 1 + View 2 + View 3 at the track selection screen.

Display release date:
Hold View 1 + View 2 + View 3 + Radio + Start to display the release date of the game.

Drop fruit
Press Accelerate + Start to drop fruit at the cars that are following your car.

Pop a wheelie
Quickly step on the Gas two times to pop a wheelie. This will also give you a short speed boost.

Captain America and the Avengers
Use Iron Man or Vision, use the jumping shooting attack on almost all
bosses...pick up all possible enemies to kill them faster...

Specific strategies:

Whirlwind: hit him with a barrel right off. knock him down like twice
before he starts to spin. make your way to
the lower right hand corner and move up to dodge tossed objects. use
the jumping shooting attack.

Flying stages (not underwater): stay in the approximate middle of the
screen and use both hands to hit either button to shoot more rapidly.
shoot the sentinel in the band around his neck using this method of
shooting and staying in the same place.

Grim reaper: hit him with a barrel first; wait for each of his charges,
jump over it, and hit him with the jump-shoot. when he flies, move
right in front of him, wait for the bomb, jump it and jump-shoot.

Wizard: try to get him on the opposite side of the screen, firing
yellow bursts of energy. fire straight back at him and keep it up. try
to be a bit lower than him.

Mandarin: use the jump-shoot, for the most part. at the beginning,
stand right in front of him, wait for him to shoot fire, jump it and
jump-shoot. (also works for ultron.)

Juggernaut: use firing weapon right before he gets up, works every time.

Ultron: see aforementioned strategy on mandarin; jump-shoot. you
cannot be hit by his lasers-that-are-shot-up-into-the-air if you are in
the air.

Twin robots ("you're trapped!"): hit of them with a thrown weapon at the
start; charge and begin to pummel. the other one will walk right into
the pummeling. try to stay away from the horizontal cracks. when they
fall, move forward and repeat.

Crossbones: jump-shoot with a lot of irregular movement while in the
air. he can hurt you in the air (most other bosses cannot, so you can
do long jumps in the air and fire right at the end of a jump; here you
cannot).

Red skull: (before) pummel him from afar with the shooting weapon, like
you did the wizard.
(after) use a specific retaliation for each of his attacks.
machine guns: stay away and shoot, or go in close and punch.
green laser: avoid it when it shoots, then go around it and punch, or go
in front of it and shoot..
arms fired: jump them.
hurricanes/bombs: a lot of jumping.

Centipede
When you reach your last official extra man before 1,000,000, every time
you score and have less than 6 men, you'll get an extra guy. This is
a real pain, because this advances by 12,000 the amount of points you
will have to get AFTER 1M to get your first guy after that point. :(

Important turning points (based on score):
60K - fleas speed up.
860K - spider goes back to 12-row wipeout. This is a pain...

Note that a very important factor in the game is the rate of feed of
the new centipede segments when one reaches the bottom. You can
manipulate this feed value, to get past the really impossible feed!

First, the feed rate doesn't advance until the first time a cent. seg
actually feeds in. Then it advances on a straight point basis. It
seems to turn over every 300K or so. But the rate of feed increases
much faster when you're scoring while centipede segments are actually
feeding in.

Note that on millipede, feed is even more important, and you have to
be very careful tuning your feed rate according to the level you
expect to reach at the time your feed reaches impossible level.
The 'fast feed' machines are actually easier in this respect (for
the more advanced players).

An easier strategy (considered "cheating" by really good players)
is to build walls in the lower left and/or right to trap the centipede
in then hunt other insects (spiders, scorpions and fleas):

|
| <-- The centipede enters from the top and gets trapped
| @ inside. So do all heads that appear (there's a limit
| @ because they eventually stop coming out). You must
| @ kill off spiders coming from the other side so they
| @ won't wipe out your wall or you'll have to build
| @ it up again.
|
+----------------------------

INTERESTING NOTE: In test mode you can cycle through the different
graphical objects used in the game (the player, a mushroom, a spider,
a scorpion, a flee, and a grasshopper). Grasshopper?! Yep, the game
was to originally have had grasshoppers but they were taken out. You
can still see them in the test however.

Columns
You can reach the maximum score, 99999 points, simply by playing for
a long time. But you can reach it quicker if you pull down most of
the time. Pulling a column all the way down gives you 25 points at
level 1, 125 at level 10. The extra points are added while you're pulling,
so you can pull down a column *most* of the way and you can position just
before it lands to get most of the points.

The magic jewel will be split if part of it sticks up above the top.
The part above the top will fall separately and get rid of more jewels.
This is cute but not useful once you're good at the game.

Commando
Here's a hot way to kill the soldiers without going anywhere near
them. At the end of each area, when the enemy soldiers are pouring
out of the gate from their compound, move your commando to the bottom
of the screen and shoot down. Your shots will come down from the top
of the screen, killing the soldiers as they come out of the gate.

This will let you rack up big points and all the extra men you can

This should work on all commando games that are set on regular factory
difficulty. I dont think there was a chip fix for this.

On the first stage there is a cliff on the right side of the screen. The bad
guys will jump off the end of this cliff and attack you. If you walk until
the bad guys START jumping off and then stop you can stand there and kill them
until you get sick of playing or until you reach the max extra men.

If you plan on playing thru the rest of the game you should stop at the max
amount of extra men. If you just sit there the enemys will get faster and
faster so the rest of the game will be harder.

Cruis'n USA
Bonus Cars:

For access to some secret cars, hold View 2 at the car selection
screen. You'll gain a school bus, an ATV, and a police car.

Bonus Tracks:

To access three tracks that you normally can not race without "Crusin'
the USA", go to the track selection screen and hold the View buttons
shown below.

Code Track

1+2 US 101 becomes Golden Gate Park
1+3 Beverly Hills becomes Indiana
2+3 Grand Canyon becomes San Francisco

New Car:

Go to the car select screen. Put the wheel at the first car. Hold View
1, turn the wheel all the way to the right, all the way to the left, all
the way to the right, all the way to the left, all the way to the right,
and all the way to the left. Press the gas. The red Ferrari will turn
greenish-blue. It is faster and more stable than a regular Ferrari.

Super Car:

At the car selection screen hold the red view button and turn the
steering wheel all the way to the left then all the way to right so it
is on the selection of the Ferrari. Then when select it and push the
start button rapidly until it becomes a grayish color. This is the
fastest and most stable car in the game.

Turbo Boost:

While driving, pump the gas twice and you will do a wheelie get a brief
turbo boost.

Crystal Castles
There's a 'continue option' warp on the first board. It won't take you any
higher than level 8, though.

(Contributor: an unknown person)
The first warp is behind the palace on the upper-right hand corner of the
first board. Go there then jump. It'll take you to level 3.

The second warp: get the hat, run to an elevator, and at the back corner
of the hidden ramp, jump before the hat expires. The warp always gives you
four lives (not including the one you're on) and takes you to level 5.

The third warp is on the third screen of Level 5, titled "Crossroads." It
is extremely easy to trigger; just move to the very upper left corner and
jump. You will be transported to the first screen of Level 7, again with
four lives to spare.

According to this person, there are no other warps.

Jump more than 128 times on the front corner of the first screen,
where Bentley starts, to get a surprise on the next screen - don't
warp though! (He notes that this is hearsay.)

A Trick : Jump 100 times or more in the front corner of the
first maze. (It's best to trap the balls inside the maze somewhere.)
It doesn't matter how many lives it takes you to jump this number of
times. (It usually takes two full lives of constant jumping.) Clear
the maze of gems and the name "ATARI" will appear in a banner
across the screen at the beginning of level two. This is not heresay
and the number is not 128.

D

Darius
Progression of the bubbles:
Weapons (red): Bullets --> Lasers --> Wave
Shields (blue): Green --> Silver --> Gold
Bombs (green): Single --> Dual --> Quad

Miscellaneous bubbles:
Points (grey): Points
Extra-ship: Bomb certain key spots on the terrain.

Power levels:
There are 8 power levels (0-7) within each armament category. Your
weapons, shields, and bombs improve as you go from 0-7:
Weapons: The shots move faster and therefore recharge more quickly.
Bullets increase in number and waves increase in height, thus
destroying more enemies at once. Waves, once fired, will go
through anything until leaving the screen to the right.
Shields: They just recharge, but the better classes of shields absorb
more hits. Gold shields will also protect your ship from collisions
with objects as well as shots, but on certain screens that have
lots of little squeezeways, gold shields can actually kill you by
richocheting your ship back and forth until you die.
Bombs: They get 'smarter' in seeking out targets.

How to complete the game:
Completing the game is easiest with triple bullets.
Explore the different paths this way, and when you're ready for a
challenge, try to get wave.
Lasers are not weapons so much as a handicap you have to endure while
building to wave.

Recommended paths:
Easy: A-C-E-H-M-R-X
Favorite: A-C-F-J-O-T-Z
Maxing (all categories): A-B-D-G-L-Q-W
Maxing (shields): A-C-F-{K-P}-S-Z (not sure about K-P)

Easy route with moderate end creature: Down all the ay then up on the
last level to finish with Great Thing (Zone Z).
Slightly harder route with easy end creature: Down/up or up/down all
the way to finish with Octopus (Zone X).

Hints for killing the bosses:
B/C: Electric Fan
Use twin bombs to trim away the little drones that come at you, and
aim at the mouth where the laser fire comes from.
The key is that those four ships that come out of him and chase you
will vanish if they go off the bottom of the screen. So stay low
and not too far back. When the ships come out after you, scoot
forward along the bottom of the screen and they will swoop off
the screen and die. Repeat as needed.

G/H/I/J: Fatty Glutton
Generally, stay as far back as possible and try to blow up the tiny
fish coming out of his mouth. This buys time to maneuver through
the spread of bombs that he releases. Just move forward towards
him and when he shoots the fish, pull back away from him.
Don't try and get out of his line of fire and bomb either above or
below him. If you do, the mines will begin to fire backwards.
He can be crushed with triple bullets, but he is extremely difficult
with lasers, and collecting red bubbles to get to wave is almost
impossible.
With triple bullets, you can afford to sit forward against him
since your shots reliably detonate the fish he shoots at you, and
you rack up damage against him. Just get right in front of him
and just keep firing. He'll hit you once with the fish and then
die.
With lasers, the optimal weapons path, if done perfectly, gives you
maxed lasers against him. You have to keep up a steady stream of
lasers that're timed to detonate the fish as far out as possible.
To do this, start a pulsatile pattern of lasers by tapping the
fire button intermittently, then holding it down when you have a
laser firing at regular intervals.
But since lasers are pretty weak against him, you simply have to
survive for a couple of agonizing minutes with fish detonating in
your face. But when you do get past him, the first red bubbles
on the next screen give you wave 0 and from then on you embark on
an orgy of destruction. Using lasers is not hard at all if you
know the pattern.

Z: Great Thing
Not bad with a good weapon

Endings:
Your ship lands on a planet and Proco and/or Tiat stand outside, with
a sunset in the background.
The guy playing the Darius game.

Music
From the Darius Soundtrack--Taito Game Music Volume 2
Performed by Zuntata, the Taito Sound Team
Manufactured by G.M.O. Records in Stereo
Cassette: ALC-22912, 2,200 Yen
CD: Alfa 28XA-166, ???? Yen

Side A (Original Side):
1. Captain Neo--Boss Scene 1
2. Inorganic Beat--Boss Scene 2
3. Cosmic Airway--Boss Scene 3
4. Main Theme-Chaos--Boss Scene 4
5. The Sea--Boss Scene 5
6. Boss Scene 6--Boss Scene 7--Boss Clear--Credits--Requiem

Side B (Arrange Side):
1. Main Theme-Chaos
2. Cosmic Airway
3. Inorganic Beat
4. Captain Neo
5. The Sea

Daytona USA
Extra Time:
On the beginner track there is a slot machine on the top of the stone
arch. To play the slot machine, press Start to stop the movement of
the wheels. If you get a 777 you'll gain extra time.

Fast Start:
In the transmission selection screen hold the "Start" button down, you
will notice that it says "Real Players Only". Keep holding the "Start"
button down, until the transmission selection time runs out (You have
to choose manual.) From my knowledge this only works on the beginner
track. Continue holding the start button down through the whole first
lap. If you notice you reach 210 mph just before the Jackpot machine.
This will give you at least 2 car lengths lead over other racers that
don't do the cheat (if you do it right and don't bump any other cars).
This will give you time to get away from the rest of the field and keep
on truckin'.

No Computer Opponents:
Hold the start button at the transmission select screen. The words REAL
RACERS ONLY will appear across the screen. All of the racers must hold
down the START button until they choose the desired transmission for
the code to work. When the race starts you will notice that there are
no computer racers. If you are playing by yourself pushing the start
button will enable you to race in a time trial mode.

Play Slots:
At the beginner stage, when you see the overhead slot machine, press
start to play it while driving.

Daytona USA 2
Mirror Mode:
On the circuit select screen, hold down Start and choose a track.
Choose car and transmission as normal. You should now have Mirror
Mode.

Defender
When you get your last official guy before 1,000,000, every time you
score, you'll get an extra man.

The trick we used was to win 100+ ships between 990,000 and
1,000,000, thus fooling the game based on where score rolls over
rather than where ships roll over. The version where you win 100+
ships has been tested, the version where you win 256+ ships never was
because:

a. For every point scored in Defender from 990,000 to 999,975
you will win one extra ship and smart bomb.
b. If you suicide on something, including a shot but not including
hyperspace (because dying from hyperspace awards no points),
you will lose one ship, but also gain one (net effect on ships
is zero) plus one smart bomb.
c. For winning n ships in Defender from 990,000 to 999,975, including
suicides, you will have to wait n x 10,000 points after passing
1M before the game's accounting balances and it awards ships properly
at 10,000 point intervals again.

TESTED (VERIFIED TO WORK):
d. The score returns to zero every 1 million, meaning that if you
had won 100 ships the machine would have to wait 1 million points
to begin awarding ships again. However, since 1 million is
equivalent to zero it awards them immediately at 1,010,000.

UNTESTED (PROBABLY WORKS):
d. Being an 8-bit game, 255 ships is the maximum recognized. 256
ships/smart bombs is treated as zero. If you win exactly 256
ships during this period the machine will think you have won
none and thus begin awarding ships immediately at 1,010,000.

In either case, you get to keep your surplus ships and bombs and can
have super long turns where you bomb 2 to 3 times per wave to get out
of dangerous situations.

Defender Tricks :

1. There are reverse lines for swarmers and mutants.
If this line is between you and the type of enemy
in question, they will travel the opposite direction
around the planet to get you. (I.e. they won't cross
this line to get to you.) If a mutant, say, is following
you and you cross the mutant reverse line (to the left
of the Big Mountain) it will suddenly reverse direction
and go around the other way. The same is true for the
swarmer reverse line (located approximately where your
ship starts each wave). This doesn't affect swarmers
that you are following behind. If you're on one side of
the line and a pod is on the other and you shoot it
open the swarmers will fly away from you and you can
get in behind them immediately. The best use of these
lines is where there are lots of swarmers and/or
mutants that you don't want to hassle with. You stay
near the line in question and go back and forth over
it to keep the enemy in question on the other side
of the planet. Especially useful in space and waves
that get really hairy.

2. You can freeze a Defender machine by picking up
all ten humans (on any wave, but Wave 1 is your
greatest chance at success), stopping all forward
motion of your ship, quieting the screen down
(i.e. having no enemies moving around on it) and
setting all the humans straight down quickly. This
seems to work better were the terrain is very close
to the bottom of the screen. Every thing will freeze,
but you can still move your ship up and down. Thrusting
will break the spell, so to speak. If you do pick a spot
with shallow terrain, some humans will go thru the
bottom of the screen and appear suspended in mid-air
near the top. This trick is good during marathon games
when you've reached Wave 256 and need a breather.

Dig Dug
Get either a Pooka or Fygar right on your tail, then pump him up but
not so much that he explodes. Do this right near a rock--be warned
that this is rather tricky. The idea is to loosen the rock when the
enemy is almost fully inflated, get out of the way, then do a quick
reverse and finish off the enemy at exactly the same time as he is
crushed by the rock (avoiding the rock yourself, of course). This will
confuse the game and all enemies on the current level will disappear
leaving you to aimlessly dig tunnels through the dirt. You will not
progress to the next level until you drop another rock.

[This is most definitely a bug.]

If you run over a fruit and blow up a enemy at the same time or just a little
after you will get the same score for both the fruit and the enemy. The best
way to do this is to shoot the enemy thru the fruit and start walking toward
the fruit as you are hitting pump. If you time it right you will get up to
8000 (for the pineapple) each time.

This game does NOT give extra man after 900,000. The score will flip over at
1,000,000. It is very easy to get a score of 999,990 by eating dirt for ten
points per section.

At level 256 the game will start over at level 1 and get easy again. But you
will never get another extra man.

Donkey Kong
This may be a bug or it may just be a special part of the game. If you finish
ANY round with the last three numbers in the time left are at 300, it will give
you an extra 100,000 points. Just sit there until the timer is at the right
number then finish.

When climbing a ladder (up or down), push in the desired direction, briefly. Then let the stick center and move again. You will move twice as fast the second time.
On the "elevator" screen, climb all the way to the top and approach Donkey Kong. Stop at the second ladder (the one closest to D.K.). Climb the ladder if it will let you, otherwise jump. You will see D.K.'s face turn brown.

To automatically warp to stage two, on stage one walk up to first ladder. Climb the ladder halfway, then climb back down. Now walk two steps back, then push ahead and jump at the same time. This should allow Mario to fall right through the bottom of the screen and end up at stage two.

Donkey Kong Jr.
This will let you play forever. Start the game with both players. Play your f
first player just like normal. Then when you die and you are on the second
player you will have to move DK Jr. all the way to the right at far as you can
go. You will be hanging off the ledge almost all the way. Then you have to
wait for one of the traps to go down the rope that is above you and to the
right. When the trap drops off the rope you have to time a jump to the
right so you will hit the trap and the water at the same time. If you do it
right you will start the number one guy with out loosing a man. And if you can
get the move down you can play forever. Just repeat every time you loose
with the first guy. There is a side effect to doing this, you will get to
put your high score/name in as many times as you did the trick right. So if
you did it 4 times you will get to put your name up 4 times. Kinda cool huh?
Its hard to find a DK Jr. to play but its a cool trick none the less.

Double Dragon
"Ghost player":
Notice that player one gets all the points for certain weapons.
Notably the barrel, which is important because it is reusable. Should
player one die off, while player two is still alive, player one
continues to get points for the barrel. If this gets him over the
extra-man mark, he gets a ghost player, which is limited in the kinds of
things he can do.

Infinite points:
Level One, one player grabs the whip when it comes out. The other
player relieves the enemy who walks out with a bat of that bat. But he
does *not* kill said enemy. Continue moving on until you're at the end
of stage one. At this point the player WITHOUT the whip grabs the now
batless enemy. The other player finishes the stage. Note that when the
boss man is dead, the clock stops running down. Then the player
tortures the batless one with the whip. 200 points per pop, and the
enemy will NEVER die. Switch to non-whip attack to kill him, and resume
normal play.

Dragon's Lair II
You can forget to pick up one of the secret treasures on the 5th level
(Beethoven level), and when you finish the 6th level, it will tell you
that you must go back and get the treasures you missed before you can
continue your quest. So you just keep forgetting to get one of the treasures
each time you repeat the screen, and it will jack your score up, just be sure you don't get killed, it will make you repeat the 6th level again (a bitch of a level).

E

F

Fatal Fury
Moves List for Fatal Fury (All characters assumed to be facing Right) :

Joe Higashi :
Fatal Blow #1 - Dragon Punch [A repeatedly]

Fatal Blow #2 - Rocket Kick [Down/Left, Up/Right and B]

Fatal Blow #3 - Cyclone Punch [Down, Down/Right, Right and A]

Fatal Blow #4 - Flame Kick [Down, Down/Right, Right, Up/Right and B]

Terry Bogard :
Fatal Blow #1 - Screwdriver [Down, Up and A]

Fatal Blow #2 - Flash Kick [Down/Left, Up/Right and B]

Fatal Blow #3 - Napalm Punch [Down, Down/Right, Right and A]

Fatal Blow #4 - Lightning Fist [Down, Down/Left, Left and A]

Andy Bogard :
Fatal Blow #1 - Windmill Punch [Down, Up and A]

Fatal Blow #2 - Acrobat Kick [Down/Left, Up/Right and B]

Fatal Blow #3 - Force Wave [Down, Down/Right, Right and A]

Fatal Blow #4 - Elbow Smash [Left, Right, A]

Forgotten Realms
If you are playing 2 player, when you get to the boss in the boat-like
contraption which has gravity wells, guns, falling pointy things, if both of
you are on the right wall (which blocks you from the boss), one person can
shove the other thru the wall so that you can't be attacked by any of the
things on the other side (named above).

There are several sections where one can go either up or down depending
upon which barrier is shot first (top or bottom). If you shoot the bottom
one both times, that is the path with more points, though it can be harder.
On one of these, there is a section where there are a lot of pudding-like
slime things. Anyways, right before you leave that little maze and go out
into the open to meet the boss, you can duck thru the wall and there is
another store which you can buy lots of stuff from. You might have to move
back and forth a little before you trigger the store to pop up (you can't
see it, you just have to run into it). It is inside the bottom wall.

On the other path on which you can go down (the 2nd one), lots of guns which
when pointed towards each other form a beam. You can shoot these little
guns and each one that blows up becomes the biggest coin (zenny).

On the final level (going vertically), you occasionally run into gun
emplacements where there are alcoves directly across on the other side. If
you enter these alcoves and shoot, big coins will appear.

You can also shoot on some of the ledges that appear (hit the corner next
to the wall) and stuff like power-ups and armor will appear.

Forgotten Worlds
In Forgotten Worlds there is a field of zap laser pods (they rotate and shoot
electric beams between each other) laid out in a grid pattern. If you
blast the heck out of these the will each yield one of the big zenny coins
which is great for jacking your score up to about 5 million
when you finish. Note that you really have to pound them and the casual
players are usually worried about staying alive...thus, many people don't know
about them.

There's a lot of other stuff in this game like secret shops, armor, etc.

Frogger
Quirks in the game
- When the game is playing in demo mode, you can control the frog. When the
frog reaches water lane #4, you can control the frog's movements until you
move either up or down.

- If you jump into your home at the same time the crocodile is leaving your
home, you will be credited with making to your home but you will still lose
a frog in the process.

- You can dangle your frog from the left side of the turtles but not the right
side.

- Your side to side movements in water lane #5 may be slow and sluggish.

- The purple frog will sometimes be invisible. The only time you know its
there is when you jump on it. It will then ride on your back to your home.

G

Galaga
No enemy lasers
Annihilate every one of the ships except for the two in the lower left corner of the formation. Keep out of the way as the two remaining ships dive and fire. Continue this for approximately fifteen minutes, until they dive, but no longer shoot their lasers. Allow them to continue diving for several cycles, then destroy them. All enemies for the remainder of the game will not shoot at you.

--- Another way of looking at this is: ---

Try this on the first or second level (before you get your first free
ship). Kill off all but the two rightmost (or leftmost) blue bees.
Make sure that they are as far over on the screen as possible when they
start diving, that'll make this trick go a lot faster. (You can expect
to wait from 10 to 20 minutes for something to happen)

Then just wait. Dodge their shots. Eventually, you will notice the
maximum number of shots on the screen dwindling to 3, then 2, then 1.
Then 0 (but let them go by 6 times to make sure). You can kill them at
any point to get a much easier game (maximum of 0-3 shots at a time).

Level 255: After this level some machines wrap around to level 0. Then
you're stuck there forever until you turn the machine off. This places
an effective maximum of 3.6 million on your score on such machines.

Galaga '88
Getting an easy bonus
Remain idle during the Galactic Dancing bonus round to get 10,000 to 25,000 points.

Galaxian
Shoot one of the yellow (topmost) ships when it first comes
down. It causes everyone to stop firing for a few moments.

Gaplus (Galaga 3)
At the start of the first round push straight up untill you stop. DON'T shoot!
Just sit there and let all the bugs form. Right after the last row of bugs
get into formation a star will shoot from the top left side of the screen to
the bottom right. If you time this right you can get up to 5 shots on it.
After about 10 hits on the star (it will come out at random times during the
game) it will transform your ship into a new ship that can shoot 3 shots on
the screen ( 3 shots verticaly in a row ) instead of just 2.

Gauntlet
On any board, stay idle until you lose around 200 health. At around that
time, all the walls on the board will turn into exits. This isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's because in multiplayer mode, it's possible to get trapped. The exits would be the only way to get out. This trick doesn't work on some older Gauntlet machines.

The best character to play, in the *long* run, is the elf. His magic is just
as good as the wizard's and his fight ability as good as Thor's. His ability
to shoot through cracks in addition to all this (when he has the power potions)
makes him the best (his speed factor makes him attractive for my playing style.
I like to get through the levels quickly. The faster I get through em, the
faster I get points...). The Valkyrie is the worst, although some people regard
this as a challenge...

To manipulate the point value of Death, shoot him. Death's point value
takes the following progression: 1000-2000-1000-4000-1000-6000-1000-8000,
and then back to start. His value keeps from the previous game.

You can kill Death painlessly by teleporting on top of him.

Level 8 is the level that the previous game ended on. If you got a really
good sequence of boards in a game and you want to repeat them, turn the machine off and on again after you've entered your high score.

Playing Gauntlet as the Warrior is very different; potions are almost useless.

This tip allows you to strictly limit your health losses on *any* level to no more than about 200 health. It involves stalling the *walls*!

If you remain motionless (or basically aimless) and stall off about 30
health, all the doors will open. Everybody knows this, and the game even
tells you about it. The game doesn't tell you that if you stall off
about 200 health, all the walls will turn into exits!

The game designers had to include this because there are some levels
which require you to pick up a key before you exit. If you are already
filled up with keys, and the doors are all gone, then it would be
*impossible* for you to exit, and you would starve to death.

What they didn't anticipate, is that certain levels of the game which
are really difficult, which would require you to take massive health
losses to finish, become very simple if all the walls are exits.
Or they can be effectively skipped altogether.

Because the game has Monty-Hall levels with lots of food on them,
you can use this cheat to only play levels which are a wash or increase
your health dramatically, and cut your losses to 200 on all the
really pain in the butt levels.

All you need to live forever as the Warrior is extra shot power!
That way, you can kill everything in exactly one shot. This allows you
to do precision firing and gives you a level of control over your
shots that no other character can achieve.

Playing the warrior for 12 hours straight with all the extra power potions
is an incredible adrenaline rush, because you end up sprinting through
the levels gobbling up food and fighting everything in your path.

Gauntlet II
The 200 tick trick is now the 900 tick trick. The game doesn't seem to have an ending, just like Gauntlet I. Some have claimed it isn't 900 but some other number. It seems this number can be adjusted by the operator.

In this game there are 'secret rooms'. To get to a secret room, perform
a secret trick on a level. Some of the secret tricks are:
* Teleporting into the exit
* Pushing a movable wall into the exit
* Keeping all the super shots
* Not using invulnerability (this is almost always a good idea anyway)
* Not touching a fake exit
* Teleporting on top of Death and/or acid blobs
* Not taking ANYTHING (the tick trick comes in handy here)

The hints it gives to the secret room don't necessarily apply to your current
level, just as on Gauntlet I. The secret trick usually doesn't work, but it
is always same for any given board. You're allowed one secret trick for every
15 levels or so.

You can kill the acid blobs! Just drop 2 potions in quick succession.
This works regardless of your magic ability. It also puts the dragon
back to sleep momentarily. [You can also kill them with a teleporter.
If there's a teleporter handy, that is. -Ryan]

The ? foods are NOT random. Grab a ? food on health mod 20 == 7.
You'll get 200 health.

A couple of strategy notes: Reflective shots make the dragon easier.
Invulnerability makes him very easy :) And remember that when generators
aren't on the screen, they don't generate monsters.

Once you get to the thief/mugger levels you can wait for the thief to appear
and shoot him. He will appear in the same space you start the level on, shoot
him and his money bag will appear. Do Not pick up the money bag, it will
cover his entrance onto the board, and therefore he may not appear until
his entrance space is clear. This this is a good tactic because of the amount of time wasted to do this. Only use this on long boards.

You may also stop the thief/mugger by pushing a movable block across your
own path. The thief/mugger will follow your own trail - footstep for footstep!
therefore you can run, find a movable block and circle around and cover your
own trail by pushing the block to cover your trail. Note: if you re-cross
your own trail, the thief/mugger will take the shortest route to catch you.

On another note: If you are playing two+ player you can kill almost all
dragons with one player diverting his attention, or using an indirect attack.
For example: you can find shootable walls or just stand in the right spot
askew from the dragon. he will try to flame instead of fire-ball. if done
correctly you will be standing a wall away from him. Then your partner can
go around and shoot flame head while the dragon is flaming away.

On Gauntlet II (to avoid being starved),

After reaching your peak in health, find a level where you have many, MANY
level 3 ghost generators behind a wall. Proceed to (by sitting there and
shooting ghosts through what was the wall (but became exits) to increase
your score to at least 2.5 mil. [The only way this is done is to insert
quarters into the other three players so you can get the 6x multiplier, then
kill off the other characters]. When you leave the level, food will be
plentiful again, and, if you play correctly, you will have enough food to play
through the next starvation stage without taking advantage of this trick.

Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
There is a place in the cave scene (the short scene right after you kill
the two big ogres), where you can get 100K before the time runs out and
you can repeat this every life, getting 3 lives for 2 deaths (until the
game stops giving extra lives at 980K). The spot is on the upper level
to the right of the rock and just to the left of the second ladder.
Move the joystick back and forth rapidly at the spot and fire each time
you change directions. This causes a zombie to appear at the edge of
the screen with each pivot you make and each shot you fire will kill a
zombie. You can get 100K+ from this if you're fast enough!

It is well known that if you duck and shoot a tombstone 15 times, an
angel appears and fires a bolt that turns you into a frog. Interesting
bug: if you fire this bolt *just* as your time is about to run out,
you'll turn into a frog INSTEAD of being killed by time over. It wraps
around to negative time or something and you have virtually unlimited
time. Stand two rock-lengths away from the rock, and
fire the 15th shot at time 0:02. If you're just slightly late, the
bolt will still 'reincarnate' you but your character will appear
distorted and you will be stuck in a ducked position). Use this trick
in combination with the above cave trick, and you're pretty much set.

Golden Axe
If possible go to a different level of ground than your opponent.
If you are lower you can cut up his legs and he can't hit you. If
you are higher he will jump after you and you can hit him in mid-jump.
(He won't attack until he's on your level).

General strategy:
Make things fall off ledges. Best with skeletons on eagle's head
on last level.

Two Player health restore:
If a player's health is at zero (no life bar visible) when
the bonus level/intermission ends, s/he will begin the next level
at full health (three life bars). So if you CAREFULLY hack one another,
you can restore your health. You should allow the other character
to recover after each swipe, otherwise you may throw or kick and actually
kill the other player.

Gunsmoke
When you're on level two, make sure you have a horse when you kill
Roy Knife. Once he is dead, walk over his corpse and your horse will
be killed. Roy raises from the dead as a sort of indestructible
zombie. You can shoot him as much as you like, but he won't die.
In this way you can play until you get tired of it. [Not sure whether
this is a feature to be exploited or a bug to be avoided.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

H

Hard Drivin'
You can go onto the test track (circle) and veer off to the left and
come back on near the end.

Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders
Hidden Music Track:

When you select your bike, press and hold the foot brake. Select
your transmission with the start button. Hold both of these until
the race begins. Now scroll through the music and a new track
called "Jingle Bells" will be there.

Heavy Barrel
A somewhat obscure game, Heavy Barrel uses the same controls as Ikari
Warriors, but is a better game IMHO due to the availability of different
weapons, not just augmented versions of weapons.

The objective is to wipe out a military complex filled with soldiers and
lethal military equipment. The available weapons are the standard machine
gun, the heavy machine gun, the fan gun, the flamethrower, and the Heavy
Barrel. Grenade weapons include standard grenades, red grenades, and
ball and chains.

The Heavy Barrel is a super weapon that you obtain after getting six special
pieces that glow yellow when you unlock boxes with keys. It has unlimited
ammunition, unlike other guns, but it has a time limit. It destroys everything
you hit with it...

Throughout the game there are only enough pieces to get the gun three times,
but if you do this you will have to face a very tough section without it.
The final machine is nearly impossible to destroy without the Heavy Barrel,
so you ought to save parts until you have five, then get the last box that
contains a special part.

At the start, you will parachute in. Massacre a bunch of guys until you
encounter a man with a tripod machine gun. Kill him, then get the heavy
machine gun weapon. Use this to wipe out the small tank next to the bridge.

Four boxes to the left of the bridge will be there. A heavy barrel part
is in the second box from the right. Pick up the flamethrower, and start
whaling on the guards and flying packs that come from across the bridge.
After they're dead, a chopper will fly in and attempt to kill you. Throw
grenades at it, don't waste the flamethrower. Presuming you have sufficient
dodge skill, you can kill the chopper before it overwhelms you with bullets.

Across the bridge, a huge number of guys will attack you. Here is where the
flamethrower is useful--it takes out a lot of guys at once. Next to the
pyramid machine gun are three boxes--kill the gun, then open up the leftmost
box. That reveals a red grenade icon. Pick that up, and start grenading
your way to the gate.

At the gate, grenade everyone to death (you have 70 grenades to start with!)
and keep pushing forward.

General strategies for dealing with tough parts:

At three points in the game you will be on a moving platform. In anticipation
of these difficult points you should have red grenades and fan guns or a
flamethrower. If guys jump on the platform you ought to grenade them, since
the gun should always be saved for blowing away heavy machinery. The first
platform is a series of cannons which can be destroyed with a single grenade,
then a series of guards which can be destroyed if you throw a red grenade
to the exact center of the screen. At the end is a machine with large grabbers
that extend towards you. Stay on the left of the platform, and start flaming
it and hurling grenades simultaneously. The machine rarely grabs on the left,
so with luck you should be able to destroy it without a loss.
The second platform passes by a million cannons and it is imperative that you destroy as many as possible as soon as possible,
since they FOLLOW the platform and shoot large cannonballs at you. Here
is where dodging is useful, since it's hard to keep the number of cannonballs
on the screen below 20.
The third platform consists of a series of flying guards that seem ok, until
TWO of the mechanical grabber things show up! Fortunately one attacks first,
on the right, so you should stay on the left and disable it ASAP, then switch
right and disable the other.

There is, at some point in the game, a narrow bridge which is the killing zone
for two helicopters. You should have good weapons, and run up while facing
backwards. Hopefully you can flame a copter to death, after which you
can dodge the other until you kill it. If you die, pick up the fan gun sitting
on the bridge, and use it.

At another point you will be confronted with two conveyor belts (which you
cannot ride) going in opposite directions. Due to the obstructions in the
middle you ought to use the Heavy Barrel here to blow everyone away, and
run through like crazy.

At another point you will have to run a gauntlet of cannons and grenade-
throwing guards. To deal with this, DON'T use the HB, since you will
not be able to get enough parts to kill the last guy. You should get a
flamethrower, and fire left even before the enemies show up on the screen.
They will die, and you can walk left to get more weapons as they show up.

Another large machine spits out glowing needles that split into three parts
and angle downwards. You should dodge left and right methodically while
tossing grenades and firing. Don't look at the machine! Just keep doing
that while looking at the needles and dodging. Lives are much more important
than keeping a hoard of weapons.

At one point you will meet three Predator-like creatures. You can destroy
these three using machine gun or simple grenades, though they look tough!
Only one or two fire slow shots at a time, so you can dodge them. Keep
pumping bullets into them until one explodes.

The final gauntlet is hell. Enemy guards throw red grenades right and left,
copters keep charging you, and more Predators show up. You should keep
moving forward, never getting stuck in position, since if you press on
you ought to be able to get the grenade throwers before they let off one
throw. Keep your ammo well stocked by picking up new guns, even if you
still have 20 shots left. Red grenades are essential here--the ball and
chain is too slow to deal with so many guys.

You are near the end when you drive off the laughing guy...pick up the next
box on the left, get the Heavy Barrel, walk north, and finish the game.

A few obvious reminders--you can only carry four keys, so if you have four
and more are lying around, open up boxes. They can contain extra lives,
shields, red grenades, weapons, a cloud gun (which is virtually useless),
and HB parts. Learning where the HB parts are is pretty important too.
But most essential is learning when to conserve your ammo and when to cut
loose with everything you have.

Top Score--essentially meaningless, since at the end you have about 400k
points and you get 1 million for killing the last guy.

House of the Dead II
Bonus Room
If you manage to get through the entire game without killing any civilians or letting the zombies kill any civilians, you will be rewarded with a bonus room, just before the last boss. The room contains life-ups and bonus points.

Alternate Endings
There is three possible endings to the game, but it all depends on your score at the end of the game.
For the Normal ending, your score has to be under 80,000 and the last number cannot be a zero.
For the Bad ending, your score has to be under 80,000 with the last number being a zero.
For the Good ending, your score has to be over 80,000 and the last number being anything.

Quick Reload
Any fan of arcade shooters will know that it's time consuming to reload by shooting the gun away from the screen, and annoying losing your target. For a quick and painless reload, simply put your fingers in front of the nozzle and squeeze one off - then you can get back to killing whatever it was you were killing without interruption.

Boss Tactics
1. Judgement: Aim for the purple bat.
2. Heroplant: Aim for his heart,in the middle.

3. Tower: Aim for the heads that are charging up or turning yellow.

4. Strenghten: Aim for his head.

5. Magician: Aim for his left or right leg. He is faster, quicker and harder than the magician in House of the Dead part 1, so be careful!

6. Emperor: Aim for the pink ball of his body. His life goes down little by little.

No Reloading On Final Boss
If you shoot your gun away from the screen 5 times right before fighting the final boss, you won't have to reload.

Score Display
Insert your credit(s). Before the demo starts rolling (on the title screen), pull the triggers of the guns in the following order: L,L,R,R,R,L,R and press START. Now your score will be displayed in the top corner, so you can see if you are going to get the good ending, or if you're just kicking your friend's butt.

Increase Life Stock
To increase the number of lives a player will have, rapidly push the start button while inserting coins.
Note: This trick also works during the game!

Grenade Launcher
On the first level hit all enemies in the HEAD and when you reach the 1st Boss you will pick up a grenade launcher .

I

I, Robot
Background:
In _I, Robot_, one must jump on each red block (without getting
zapped by the Big Eye, running into an obstacle, etc) and then
attempt to leave that wave (by moving/jumping to the doorway under
the Big Eye) before the timer elapsed. Bonus points were awarded
based on time remaining.

The "Feature":
*Some* machines would allow you to reset the bonus timer as it was
ticking down. The timer would reset to 9999 and continue to rack
up points. This could be repeated many, many times, thus allowing
the player to virtually choose his own score.

Activating the "Feature":
While the bonus timer is ticking down, press the left "vantage" button
(one of two buttons which let you raise/lower your vantage point) and
release it. If your machine has the reset "feature", the timer will
reset to 9999 and continue ticking down.

Hold Start 1 + Start 2 as you enter the level 1 transporter to be able to select levels 2 through 10 as a destination.

Initial D
Cheat: Bunta Car
The Cheat to get the Subaru Impreza WRX type R is UP, UP, UP, UP, UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, BRAKE, VIEW CHANGE This only works in version 3 of the game.

Unlock GCV8
On the menu with the manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, etc.), move the gear shifter UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN then hold BRAKE and press VIEW CHANGE. An engine rev sound will confirm the code.

Select Subaru and the GCV8 is now a selectable car. The GCV8 cannot be tuned, and can only be unlocked in version 2 of the game.

No Lights Cheat
Hold START for two seconds on any night race, and you can race in the dark.

Select Music Cheat
Select either Time Attack or Story Modes. Press VIEW CHANGE at the stage select menu to cycle the songs played.

Toggle Challenges
Press START while in a race to choose between accepting or declining a challenge. This is only available in version 2 of the game.

Hint: Arcade Boost
Ever wonder how someone you race can catch up so quickly when they're so far behind? It's a boost command. If you're racing someone (for linked machines only - this doesn't apply to races against the AI) hold the BRAKE down when the game is loading. This will make the racing experience a little more realistic.

Hint: Shifter Boost
This usually works with the Lancer EVO car. When you start a race, shift to the right twice as the countdown runs out and the car usually (but not always) starts quickly. The version this works on is unknown.

J

Joust
"The pterodactyl trick". Classic trick. Doesn't work on upgraded Joust
machines, or on Joust II. Trick the last jouster on the stage to fly to
the lava and get trapped by the lava troll. Then wait in the center of
the middle platform. When a pterodactyl comes out, it'll fly right into
your lance. The next part takes a fair amount of practice: when the
pterodactyl has hit you, your character will be knocked back. Jiggle
the joystick so that your mount is back in the middle of the ledge
again. Keep doing this. Eventually there'll be a steady stream of
pterodactyls, and you'll be killing 'em about 2 per second, for 1000
points each. When you make a mistake and get killed, the trapped
jouster will escape.

On the last board in which this works, the jouster will not escape.

To check if you machine has the right ROM (the OLD rom) for this trick, on the
RHS of the screen are two platforms like this:
_____________
\___________/____________
\__________/

Come in from the right, and land on the lower platform so that your legs
can't come down; you'll bounce along the platform. On old ROM machines, you
will then fall down through the gap between the platforms; on the new ROM,
you'll bounce off.

You can screw up Joust by killing a Pterodactyl right inside the screen
border as it moves from right to left. (very hard to do. plus it's worthless,
but it is of interest as it sometimes shows internal info on the screen if
done at the right vertical height from top. different locations apparently
cause different screw-ups.)

The key to handling Shadow Lords is learning how to time
their bounces at the top of the screen. Also, a good spot to be
at the beginning of a wave is immediately to the left or right of
a ledge and above. Shadow Lords will then appear and fly right
up into you.

Joust II
In two-player mode, make sure one player is standing where the bonus box
appears (preferable as a Pegasus, this covers more area), when the
other grabs a gold egg. This'll give you both an extra life. Most helpful.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

K

Killer Instinct
Turbo mode:
You can perform this action in single player and two player mode only. Pick a fighter, then hold Right on joystick one and two and press Quick Punch + Middle Punch + Fierce Punch. Hold those buttons until the pre-fight match screen is displayed. Release the buttons after the second "swoosh" sound. Note: The faster speed is only effective for one match.

Fight as Eyedol:
Pick Riptor as a character, then hold Left and press Quick Punch + Quick Kick. When the versus screen appears, quickly hold Right and press Medium Punch + Fierce Punch + Fierce Kick. The name "Eyedol" will be spoken if you have entered the code correctly.

Small players:
This requires ROM versions 1.4 and earlier. Select a stage with a platform and select Fulgore as a character. Push your opponent to the edge of the platform, execute a combo, and end it with the teleport (Back, Down, Down/Back + Fierce Kick). Press Start to reduce your opponent's size.

Random fighter:
Hold Up and press Start at the character selection screen.

Alternate costumes:
Highlight a fighter, then press Up or Down at the character selection screen.

Hint: Combo Breaker after they hit the ground:
With TJ Combo, use the Roll move (press Back briefly, then Forward and Medium Punch) making sure to hold Forward after the move. Then press Back and Medium Kick after the first punch makes contact. If done correctly, it will be two. After the second hit, before your opponent hits the ground, do a juggle by pressing Back, Forward, Fierce Punch for a three hit combo. Sometimes your opponent will do a Combo Breaker after they get up. This works best under the harder difficulty settings, when you press Down and Start to get easy breakers turned on.

Krull
Hunting strategy by hiding in cave when battling the "Big Guy" and hunting
his shots.

L

M

Magic Sword
On level 49, bring the enemy as far to the left in the level as it's
possible to go. Then kill him. While you're immune (for about 5
seconds after it dies), jump into the spikes to your left and open the
far left chest. There's a jewel inside, worth 1 million pts.

Bert adds: The best way to get it is to kill the chimera (nasty dragon
thingy) on the left side of the level and walk safely through the spikes
while the screen vibrates.

An extra 1M points is available on blue level 30: there is a wizard
there who levitates rocks. Jump and sword him once, then when he causes
the rocks to appear use magic (both buttons) to turn the rocks into 8K
gold pieces. You can do this until time runs out.

Level 47, pick up the double-point necklace, then use magic to destroy
the wizard that keeps appearing (but wait till the instant the skulls
around him materialize). They'll all turn into 8K GP's, doubled by your
necklace. If you don't get hit by any of the dogs or red ghosts you can
break even on this, since a food fairy appears just about every time you
repeat this twice.

There are three stages one needs to take to finish the game on one
quarter.:

1. FOOD: The duration of your game depends on your vitality and
your vitality depends on how much food you can get and
there are several tricks to accomplish this.

a.) Magic Scroll. Definitely the most important item
in the game you could have. Unfortunately you can
have it for only 2 levels per find. As stated before
it allows better probability of food being dropped
from monsters. The scroll is hard to find at the
low levels(1-20+) so you have to depend on surviving
for a while. The absolute BEST time in the game to
have the scroll is level 33. The level
with the swarms of Jellyfish. With average luck and
prayers you can get 2 or 3 lobsters, and about 4 or 5
smaller food values like mushrooms and tomatoes.
You can get 3 FULL vitality levels (not bars)
just from those jellyfish alone! The tough part is
acquiring this very lifesaver(Scroll). The only way,
besides hoping the ninja on that level has one(100-1),
is to acquire one from the previous level, #32.
To do this you have to hope and PRAY one of the
Samurai gives you one when you kill them. This will
not always work. There is however, an alternative
way of getting a scroll. Ryan Vurlicer spoke of an
alternative path that is more rewarding and more
difficult. It is on level 32 of the ALTERNATIVE path
that one can be GUARANTEED a magic scroll. The hard
part then is keeping it to when you need it for the
jellyfish. All those stupid skeletons dropping
crystal balls can be a pain.

b.) Alternative paths. Take those RED levels!!! Sure
they're more harder, but oh, that food at the later
levels as well as the points are REALLY nice down
the stretch.

c.) Earlier Levels. Master those levels! Find every
nook and cranie where food can be found. Don't
get hit! Build you Vitality! By level 28, I've
managed to get 7 FULL vitality levels(not bars).

2. COMPANION CHOICE:

Of the 8 different companions to chose from I will list them
in the order of which is most valuable for survival.

1.) Lizard Man. Best in the game by far. His shot speed along
with power makes him ESSENTIAL for certain
Bossmonsters.
2.) Thief. His bombs are great but knowing where those
randomly placed trapped chests are is a
definite boon. Build him from the VERY start.
3.) Knight. Supposedly the best in the game. His shot
speed is lacking and the opportunity to increase
his levels is awkward and not well placed
except at level 48 when he is guaranteed level
8.
4.) The others. Not worth taking EVER unless you want variety
or a challenge. Try winning with the priest
from ground zero. It's a bitch!

3. POINT MAXIMIZATION:

Only through learning the previous 2 steps can this one ever
be contemplated. Whenever you find a necklace, grab it! Milk the
2 levels you have it of ALL it's points! Through the use of
this, and learning where all the Blue Gems(flames) are you can
get scores over 5,000,000. If you include the Diamond, 6 Mil.

MIND-BLOWING SCORES FROM HELL: Level 47. That's all there is
to it. As long as you have a good amount of vitality(3+) you
can grab the necklace and WRECK HAVOC on points. The biggest
thing to note is that a necklace is available on this level.
Grab it and go back to the platform at the beginning of the
level and wait for those wierd things with the floating skulls
around them to appear. Give a blast of Magic (hit both buttons).
All the skulls turn into 8000 pt coins(16000 if you have the
necklace). Repeat until time is running out or you are almost
dead. The next level has SOOOO much food you can still easily
finish the game. Using this method you should be able to get scores
over 8 MILLION! With my personal high being 8,850,000 points.
This is WITHOUT knowing about the 1 mil. diamond
and a couple other gems Mr. Vurlicer pointed out.

Major Havoc
Build up unlimited turns (for the very patient) by replaying level 13
(turning on/off the reactor and exiting) over and over again to win turns off
points.

There are four warps, which you enter using the paddle and fire button.
Red: 23. Yellow: 46. Green: 824. Aqua: 315.

There is no planet at the "end" of the game, or even an end to the game.

More than one warp may work for the green warp.

The last four levels repeat over and over forever... so much for the planet at the end of the game.

Marble Madness
1) On the second level (The Intermediate Race) each player starts out on a
platform and has to roll down a ramp into a maze. If you jump off the platform
at the correct angle, you can land on the surface between the mazes and roll
directly to the maze exit. Start at the center line of the side of the platform
opposite the ramp, and aim for the right edge of the place where the platform
and ramp meet. Reverse this for the right player.

______ /\
start \/\/\
/\/\/\
/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/ _____
\/\/\/\ jump
\/\/ \
\/\
\

2) In the ultimate level near the end there is a maze-like area where you
go up a ramp and have to negotiate several turns and go down a ramp. The
walls of the up-ramp are short, and you can jump off the ramp and around the
maze by going up the ramp, then back down and hard left.

Mat Mania
First do the usual things in the game, a few punches and body slams
until you can get a pile driver on your opponent. Once you get that first
pile driver simply pick up your opponent and throw him into the ropes.
Allow him to just ram into you (you will both go down). Now just pick
him up and give him another pile driver and then throw him again into
the ropes and allow him to ram into you. Just keep alternating between
pile-drivers and throwing into the ropes and ramming you until you feel
like pinning him. Pretty much, after you get that first pile-driver
the match is yours.

Mercs
At the end of stage 1, a large plane rises in front of the player.
If you stand .25 to .5 inches up from the bottom of the cliff, and
line up so your bullets will hit just to the right of the plane's
center, it cannot hit you with its cannon. This takes practice.

Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga: Class of '81
Play Galaga for free
During the Galaga demonstration, wait until the Galaga Commander uses the tractor beam. Before it sucks up the ship, press fire and kill it. You now have total control and can play the sample level. However, finish quick or an error screen will come up. The game will function normally though.

Play the original Pac-Man
On the game select screen press, Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left. You should here a dinging sound.

N

NARC
While coming out of any door, move the joystick left. RIGHT after your
character appears, move the joystick up. If you do everything correctly,
your cop will be "stuck" to the wall, and will be able to walk on the
wall to the next stage.

To get ridiculous numbers of points and, thusly, free men, you need to
get to the end of the game, or at least where Mr. Big is. Once you've
killed him (the little one *and* the big one), and you get to enter
the treasure vault, just collect all the big gold blocks, and just wait.
Don't do anything, just wait. After a while, the machine will send a
pack of those annoying dogs after you. Let them kill you. You'll be
sent back a stage in the game. And you have to fight your way back
to the next 'bonus' exit door... once you do, mega-points and mega-men.

Note the automatic teller machines present in a few places. March your
character up to the machine and push into it; it should start spitting
out money (evidence). Not HUGELY useful, but it's still kind of neat.

An easy way to get free lives is on the first level. Right after you
leave the subway, keep your joystick pointed up. If you do this, you will
"stick" to the wall and nobody can touch you, though you can arrest tons
of people (50 is the max). You can do this in other levels, though it
does not seem to be as useful. One problem occurs right when you get
out of the subway. There is a barrel which obstructs your path in/on the
wall. You can just rocket it away if there are people behind the barrel
(in respect to you). You can stay on the wall all the way to the passkey
spot and into the door.

NFL Blitz
To enter a code, press each button the number of times shown. After
entering the code press the joystick in the direction indicated.
More than one code can be activated per game.

CODE WHITE BLUE RED DIRECTION

Show field goal % 0 0 1 Down
No computer help 0 1 2 Down
Fog on 0 3 0 Down
Unbeatable drones 3 1 4 Down
No random fumbles 4 2 3 Down (See note below.)
Big heads 2 0 0 Right
Invisible QB's 3 4 2 Left
Super blitzers 0 4 5 Up
Ground fog on 2 3 2 Down
Big football 0 5 0 Right
Team big players 1 4 1 Right
Step out of bounds 2 1 1 Left
Tiny players 3 1 0 Right
Infinite Turbo 5 1 4 Up
Powered-up Team 2 3 3 Up
Show More Field 0 2 1 Right
Powered-up FG's 1 2 3 Left
No First Downs 2 1 0 Up

Extra Blocker on Defense:

Hike the ball with all three buttons.

No Random Fumbles:

At the Match-Up screen, press TURBO four times, JUMP twice, PASS
three times, then press DOWN.

Note: There has been a lot of controversy regarding this code. Here
is the scoop. This code will only eliminate "random" fumbles (when
you're running down the field and get hit.) If you do any kind of
spin move or jump or anything you may still fumble.

Onside Kick:

After scoring, hold all three buttons.

Secret Characters:

Enter the name and PIN nunber as stated to recieve the corresponding
character. You should hear the announcer say, "Lights out Baby!" if
you did it right.

Note: These codes are for version 1.21 and will not work in earlier
versions of the game.

MARK TURMELL
Name -Turmell
Pin - 0322

SAL DIVITA
Name - Sal
Pin - 0201

JASON SKILES
Name - Jason
Pin - 3141

JENNIFER HEDRICK
Name - Jenifr
Pin - 3333

DAN THOMPSON
Name - Daniel
Pin - 0604

JEFF JOHNSON
Name - Japple
Pin - 6660

JOHN ROOT
Name - Root
Pin - 6000

LUIS MANGUBAT
Name - Luis
Pin - 3333

MIKE LYNCH
Name - Mike
Pin - 3333

JIM GENTILE
Name - Gentil
Pin - 1111

DAN FORDEN
Name - Forden
Pin - 1111

???
Name - Van
Pin - 1234

HEADLESS GUY
Name - Carltn
Pin - 1111

SKULL
Name - Skull
Pin - 1111

BRAIN
Name - Brain
Pin - 1111

DEMON (Shinok from Mortal Kombat)
Name - Shinok
Pin - 8337

RAIDEN (from Mortal Kombat)
Name - Raiden
Pin - 3691

Secret Plays:

While selecting your plays, press UP four times fast and your cursor
will disappear.

NFL Blitz '99
Bonus Characters:

Enter these codes at the Name Entry screen. (Note: These codes only
work on version 1.21.)

Raiden-RAIDEN 3691
Shinnok-SHINOK 8337
Skull-SKULL 1111
Demon-THUG 1111
Headless-CARLTN 1111
Mark Turmell-TURMEL 0322
John Root-ROOT 6000
Sal Divita-SAL 0201
Jason Skiles-Jason 3141

Cheat Codes:

Enter all of these codes at the Match-Up screen.

Extra Options- 3-3-3-left
Power-Up Blockers - 3-1-2-left
Power-Up Speed - 4-0-4-left
Power-Up Teammates - 2-3-3-up
Huge Heads - 0-4-0-up
Infinite Turbo - 5-1-4-up
Super Field Goals - 1-2-3-left
Super Blitzing - 0-4-5-up
Show Field Goal % - 0-0-1-down
Fast Passes - 2-5-0-left
Team big heads - 2-0-3-right
Turbo Running - 0 - 3 - 2 left

Ninja Gaiden
On the first stage, there is a popcorn stand (or whatever you want
to call it...) at the end of the walking stage, right before you get onto
the bars which you have to cross to get to the sumo wrestler at the end.
This is somewhat difficult for beginners, because the bars are kind of
tough. However, there is a leap of faith you can take to avoid the bars
entirely. Do not destroy the popcorn machine. Kill all the enemies, then
hop on top of it. Pull down until you are on the lower half of it (this is
just to insure that the people on the bars can't hit you). Now, walk
forward until the machine takes control (there is a point at which, if you
let go of the joystick, you continue walking forward. this is what you are
trying to do). Note that you don't fall when you walk off the popcorn
machine. Neat, huh? Do NOT jump at this point. A vertical jump is
suicide. Normal forward jumps might be safe, but no guarantees.
When you finally float within range of the final level, you can get off
by jumping straight up, or by moving down on the screen until you 'fall
off' of the popcorn machine.

O

Out Run
The fastest route for finishing the game is Right (Devil's Canyon), Left
(Snowy Alps), Right (Wheatfield), Right (Autobahn).

P

Pac-Man
How to Win at Pac-Man
Click here to read or download an Adobe copy of How to Win at Pac-Man by Consumer Guide ©. Also includes tips for Ms. Pac-Man, Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man Pinball and Atari Pac-Man.

How to Play a Perfect Game of Pac-Man
Check out this great web site for instructions, maps and videos showing how to play a perfect game of Pac-Man. This is a great site!

Idle trick
Need a breather? Just park yourself in the spot immediately up and to the
right of where you start, and make sure that no monsters are "looking"
at you when you do it. The monsters will run all over the maze, but
they'll never find you. Go to the bathroom in peace.

Paperboy
In the race at the end of the day, the end of it has a stadium with an
audience, and a lawn with a fence on it. There's a bit of grass on the
right side of the fence. If you steer your bike onto the grass, the
bike will *not* stop! It keeps going. Do it once more, then finish the
normal way. Your score will get really high.

You can score millions by going through the training course without hitting anything (with papers) and then riding through the area between the finish line and the fence. This doesn't award the points right away. You still have
to go on through the parking lot (which then messes up the whole
screen (lots of added shapes, and color blocks not really
corresponding to anything)). Then if you keep going (bike
moving very slow toward right side of screen) the game will
loop you back to the training course again. This is where you
get 1 million points (or enough to make the high score run into
the standing number (i.e. 1-10). The training course is the same
but this time the screen is really messed up. Only the main
obstacles are shown (i.e. any moving objects), but the background
is totally screwed. If you are on easy way, it is relatively
simple to make it through (again not throwing papers), but it is touch to get the timing down. Anyhow on easy way, it stopped and counted up
bonus points. It then boosts your score another 1 or 10 million
(I can't remember).

Phoenix
During the game three birds will attack all in a line. Let those birds fly all
the way to the bottom they will start to fly back up. As they are flying up
shoot all three in a row real quick (2 or 3 seconds) and you will get
200,000 points instead of 200.

Pitfighter
If you are playing Ty (the kickboxer), you can hit your joystick twice
so that you cartwheel to the other side of your adversary and hit your punch
button a couple of times doing your elbow to their kidney or stomach shot.
When he hops up/back stunned, if you do your special kick, he will end up
frozen. You can then pretty much just beat away at him and he won't do
anything.

Punch-Out!!
Here's the system for getting by everyone in one round of punch-out...

Warning: This system works on 9 out of ten Punch-Out machines, there are some where the first level is unusually hard and the latter couple of techniques don't work.

Glass Joe: So easy that you'd have to be trying not to win. But to
be 100% sure.. Keep guard up till his eyes glow for a big punch, dodge, and
hammer him with rights and lefts to the face. Repeat till down.

Piston Hurricane: Concentrate blows, especially lefts, to the abdomen.
When he backs up and charges in, hit him with a blow to the stomach as
soon as he charges into you, he'll go down for the count after the 2nd or
third time.

Bald Bull: Fairly simple: Right, dodge, left left. Right, dodge
left left. Look out for his upper cuts though (get out of the way! duh)
and upon his bull-charge you have two options. A hit to the stomach
when he is right under you puts him down for the count, but if
your reflexes aren't optimum, you are better off at dodging and continuing
the fight. Right to the face (or 2 lefts), dodge, right.
NO BODY BLOWS TO BALD BULL except on the bull charge.

Kid Quick: Soooo easy: Right, dodge, right right dodge right right
dodge right right dodge right right dodge right right. (these all being
blows to the head). VERY EASY as long as you don't lose your rhythm. If
ya do get messed up you can usually recover with a a dodge and starting
again. No blows to the stomach. This is basically what you'll be
doing against Mr. Sandman.

Pizza Pasta: Basically you're waiting for him to screw up. Use
the kid quick system till he backs off (with the Come on! Come on!)
and DODGE his hook. Then pummel him with rights and lefts to the head(
ONLY the head), and he won't be fighting back. Repeat till he's dead.
If he pins you up against the ropes with shots to the stomach at
some point, just get your guard down there and sneak in some lefts and
you should break free.

Mr. Sandman, the champion: Kid Quick system exactly. Every now and
then however he fires a very quick left or right to the head. When
he hits you with one, dodge the opposite way of the hit quickly or
you'll be going down.

Q

Qix
1. Without drawing anything except a small block to get by a spark(?),
go to the top middle of the playfield at the very beginning of the game:

+----------------------+
| ^-- here |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+----------------------+

2. Before the sparx come back, draw a rectangle going down:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |____| |
| |

3. And another across:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | |
| | | |
| +---| |---+ |
| | |____| | |
| +---------------+ |

4. Wait in the following location for the sparx to return:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| wait here ---^| | |
| | | |
| +---| |---+ |
| | |____| | |
| +---------------+ |

5. When the sparx come to intersect again at the top of the
screen close off the whole structure while the sparx are inside
travelling thru the T-shaped structure just layed:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | +---| |---+ | |
| | | |____| | <----Sparx will |
| | +---------------+ |circle this |
| | | area |
| -----------------------------------| |

NOTES:

1. You have to pull off the wall in the last step to let one of
the two sparx move under you and enter the T-shaped structure.
2. Scale is insignificant. It's the shape of the structures that
matters most. (An upside-down "T" inside a box, with the box
closed up while sparx are on the "T".)

The sparx will now continue circling the top of the surrounded T and
cannot escape. New sparx, when generated, will be trapped immediately.
You can now concentrate on trapping the Qix and learn the type of
patience you always wished you'd had. Regardless of your strategy for
trapping the Qix you should always start off a game the way described
here unless you're into death.

R

Race Drivin'
Whenever possible use the outside-in strategy. Start on the outside of a
turn then cut inside, making sure that you keep giving the vehicle gas. If
you don't you may spin out and loose control (Depending on the car type).
This strategy is hard to use in the qualifying laps because of the oncoming
traffic, but if timed correctly you can pass the oncoming traffic on their
right side. When coming out of the turn take care in how you straighten the
wheels (Slowly) or you can spin out as well.

It helps to take into consideration where a car is encountered because
after running a track several times, and you get closer to the "maximum"
speed for a stretch of road the car scenarios stay the same. For example:
the first turn after the start on the original speed track (The one with a
house on it and the very long right turn) should not have a car coming in
the way of an outside-in tactic but a truck should be on the way. And if the
speed of the car stays around 120 all the way around the track there should
be a car at the turn.

Most turns from the original speed track can be taken (While using the
previous hint) at about 120 mph.

On the super stunt track on the road up the hill and then a left turn, a
driver may drive off the road to the left (Cutting the turn) and to an
exaggerated outside-in maneuver.

The differences in the cars are as follows:
Speedster: Excellent acceleration, and top speed is around 140mph, but
handling is very loose and it tends to spin out on turns if pushed too far.
Roadster: Slightly faster acceleration than the Speedster, top speed is only around 120mph, but handling is tight and takes turns
much easier.
Original: Same as Speedster.
Original Automatic: Same as Speedster but with slightly slower acceleration.
Note: Handling manifests itself in the sensitivity of the steering wheel to
move.

By the way on the original speed track, after you drive under the last
overpass there is a road that goes off to the left. If you follow it goes
to a "kinda" test track that is in a tight circle around a little circular
structure. There is no application for this road but it is just weird that it
is there.

Super Stunt Track
(tested using the Roadster)

0. Never use the brakes; just shift down (if necessary :-)

1. Coming up the first hill, you have to slow down so that you don't
fly into the barn and so you can make the sharp left-hand turn.
If you're slick, you can take the hill at around 110-120mph.. just
before you get to the top, throw it from 4th into 1st, and turn the
wheel to the left. If executed properly, you will land doing a
4-wheel skid SIDEWAYS, which will both slow you to the proper speed
and leave you right on the track facing the right direction, and
in the right gear. Saves about 5 seconds--but mostly, it's fun to
wow the onlookers :-)

2. If you're ever going to die (off a cliff, coming off a banked turn
too hard, etc.) you can occasionally press Abort while you're in the
air before you crash because the machine thinks it's in OFF ROAD mode
even though the car is in the air. If you get to Abort before it hits
the ground, you don't have to wait for the crash and burn, saving time.

This is especially effective if you are coming through the tunnel with
only a couple seconds left--you can fly off the banked turn, make the
finish line (i.e. get more time), and then Abort before you crash..
which will put you back at the Start line ready to run some more. If
you don't hit Abort, it's over.

Raiden
The most powerful weapon in the game are the stars which come from
one player shooting another (must be in 2P mode... you can play two
players at once if you like). Have one player grab the reds and the
other grab the blues. The blue player should sit right behind the
red player when it comes to taking out the final challenge at the end
of each level.

The stars are about 5X as potent as the most powerful blue.
The best combo is red with missiles and blue with the homing missiles.

Return of the Jedi
A tip is to reach level 8, enter the death star and destroy the
reactor. On the way out, ram one of the supports to destroy the
Millennium Falcon and the machine puts you back at the beginning of
level 8. Keep doing this with your remaining lives. Finish the
game on your last life to get the 100K bonus.

Roadblasters
If you crash your car into one of the turrets at the side of the road,
you'll get 8-10x the current value of a turret. When your score
multiplier is up to 10, this is 16-20,000 points! Keep your score
multiplier high and always crash into at least two of these babies every
board, and finishing the game (or doing very well at it) is not tough.
[Note: After a while it gets hard to crash into two turrets every board and
still finish the board on time.]

Tip for strategies on level 49 and 50: Since level 50 is the last
level, and the game gives you a complete recharge at the end of 49,
accuracy doesn't count any more. Just keep firing as fast as possible.

When the game ends you get 1 million bonus points, and you're given a
code. It encodes your initials and the number of quarters you put in.
The game will probably tell you to send in your code for a free T-shirt, but
this is bogus. The game is sufficiently old by now that Atari doesn't
honor this offer any more.

Run into a "live" roadside tower (e.g. one that you haven't shot). It will run
up your score like 20k points.

Robocop
The following cheat for RoboCop, you can earn (theoretically) infinite scores.
There exists a level in the game (the Junkyard) where there is an
elevator. It's just after you get the Cobra gun.
Anyway, you get on the elevator and ride to the top. When the elevator
reaches the top, DON'T MOVE! Your score will suddenly start to increase, and
will continue to do so until you step off the elevator.

Here are some cheats/strategies.

Level 1: The motorbike which damages you before you draw your gun can
be beaten by jumping just before it comes on the screen. A
shop window has a small menu type poster in it, jump around
about there. When you land, punch the bike (it flashes
green and doesn't damage you). Punch it when it returns
to kill it. Needs to be pixel perfect !
When fighting the ED209, time your jumps to when it fires at
you (hence jumping over its shots). When it moves to the
left third of the screen, stand close to it. The weapons
arm will now point at a steeper angle (more into the ground).
Now move away slightly and jump away when ED209 fires, it's shots
will go into the ground and not trap you at the left edge of
the screen.

Level 2: To get extra health shoot the fat guy using a girl as a
(+later) shield. He moves forward to shoot at you, shoot him then.

General: Bad guys come onto the screen when you pass a certain pixel.
Move back and kill them off. Don't charge through the game.
Learn the bad guy patterns (they are the same from game to
game).

Target practice: Getting all of the targets (100% hit) gives *extra*
capacity for your energy bar.
(Bug: Missing one target sometimes still gives 100%, but
don't rely on it!)

Level 3: Go over the top of the car crushers, and pick up the baby food.
Try and save the Cobra assault cannon for the end of the level,
it makes it really easy ! If you shoot just under the cab
of the final enemy, you can kill the guy throwing grenades at
you.

Level 4: Shoot the metal crushers with the Cobra cannon, or punch the
fire button like crazy if you get trapped. The final bad guy
is a crane which swings a steel ball on an extendable chain.
*Don't shoot the wooden box* Stand on it and shoot the cab
of the crane. Also try to save the Cobra cannon - by punching
bad guys instead of shooting them - and use it on the crane.

Level 5: Don't charge through this level, especially on the conveyor
belt. Mind the first guy armed with a flame thrower - you
can shoot him before he shoots at you.
The military ED209 at the end of the level can be beaten by
crouching under the OCP logo when it charges. Jump and shoot
the weapon arm when it retreats.

Level 6: Need to move through this level fairly quickly (time is a
little tight). The walking coffee tables can be shot from the
level below, and careful diagonal shooting can destroy laser
emplacements one level up. Concentrate on laser turrets which
are diagonally away from you - their fire is hardest to dodge.
The last baby food on the level gives *all* your energy back.
Try and keep the laser shots until the end of the level. When
you reach the top level, move as far to the right as possible
and shoot the military ED209 as much as possible before it
wakes up. There is a fairly safe(ish) position just at the
end of the military ED209's forward walk (like the end of
level 5, but no OCP marker). Kill the military ED209 first.
Tactics for the other ED209 are similar to level 1.

Level 7: Use diagonal shooting to destroy laser turrets one level up.
(see also level 6 comment).
The baby food stored in the box gives all your energy back.
When you reach the single lift which goes up multiple floors,
the best way to avoid being trapped on it by laser fire is to
*jump* onto the next level just before the lift reaches it.
Timing between the laser shots is critical.
When this lift reaches the top, stop just short of the floor
(you should be able to see/hear the light curtains and laser
turrets) and then go back down as far as you can. The laser
turrets and curtains sometimes disappear.
The final ED209 can be destroyed by standing at the far left of
the screen and jumping up and down. Missiles launched at you
can be destroyed by shooting or punching. When the ED209 gets
too close, use the tactic of level one.
When ED209 is destroyed, kill Dick Jones (in the same way
as a gunman holding a hostage is killed). The president
is not killed by your gun shots (!)

Game difficulty varies, some bad guys take one shot to kill while
a different machine will require 2 shots to kill the same guy. The
former machine has really easy 'Friday the 13th' Jason 'Chainsaw massacre'
'Donovan' bad guys to kill, on the latter machine these guys are *mean*.
Shoot at them while they are in the air. If they do hack at you don't
give them a second chance, move away and make 'em eat lead !

Robotron

Robotron Name Trick
Fire up while moving right and press Player 1 button,
Fire down while moving up and press Player 2 button,
Move down while firing up.

Trick must be done during game play. The designer's
names will appear and stay on the screen until the
right joystick is released from the up position.
Your game is over(!) once you've done this trick.

Get points and extra men
This will get you lots of points and extra men but at a VERY slow pace. This
is good if you are going for that 200 million game and want to let someone
hold the game for you while you take a break or a nap. On any 5th stage
(the ones with the brain guys ) shoot everything but 1 or 2 brains.
Try and get them to follow you to the top right side of the screen. While
touching the right side of the screen move all the way to the bottom. Keep
shooting up. The Brains can't move all the way to the right so you can't
hit them but there snake shot will move to the right and you will hit that.
The brains will just sit there and walk right not down. So you can stay
there for ever and shoot the snake shots. But you only get 25 points per shot. This is also good if you want to get a 9,999,975 score, if you
are close just get to that screen and reach the top. Watch out for the
stray shot that goes to the left, you may have to move left quick to kill it.

Rolling Thunder
Okay, here's a couple from Rolling Thunder (Namco, brought to U.S. by Atari).
First of all, something that some people don't know is the fact that you
can visit the ammo rooms MORE THAN ONCE! The trick is, after having stocked
up on your bullets from a particular room (say it was a MachineGunBullets
room...) to go forward past the door approximately the distance of two
jumps, then turn back, visit the room again, and find more ammo... This
is especially useful on levels 2 and 7, where, when combined with another
trick which will be detailed after this one, one is able to get MG Bullets
up to the 900s (I think it resets to zero at 1000). Anyway, there's this
section near the beginning of levels 2 and 7 where there're two platforms
next to each other, above you, the first of which has a MG Bullets door.
Having killed everyone up to that point, kill the guards on the platforms,
fill up with bullets, then (you just exited the MG ammo door on the left
side of the left platform) walk right, and the jump (while walking) such
that you fall through the gap between the two platforms (while still
drifting to the right), then either walk or jump one more jump-distance
to the right, walk back left, jump up onto the right platform, jump from
there onto the left platform, get more MG bullets, and repeat about 7 or 8
times (or less, if you're not quite sure you can do the rest of the level
with such limited remaining time). The thing with the jump down through
the platform-gap is that since you're drifting to the right as you're
falling, it's quicker than jumping straight down from the platform, then
walking to the right. But getting a whole buncha MG bullets is really
useful, especially on level 7, what with the seriously time-limited level
8 being next, and the fact that level 10 is so much easier with the MG ammo.
There's a trick to levels 5 and 10 also, but let me first finish up with
2 and 7.

The other trick on levels 2 and 7 is on the second half of the level (i.e.
past the stacked boxes, and the gap), and has to do with the stairs. If
the stairs always bothered you as being really slow to traverse, you can,
via a programming glitch, skip most of them! What you do is go down the
first set of stairs until you're on the left side of the screen (I think
after the boxes and the gap you just have to go down a flight to the right
edge, then down some more to the left edge). And then, stand on top of
the landing that's just before you reach the floor. Inch towards the left
edge of it until you're standing on the left edge. And then, walk left,
falling off the landing, then as soon as your feet leave the landing, go
right. You'll fall right through the floor (skipping the stairs), landing
on the same landing one floor down. Repeat until you reach the bottom.
With practice, it'll come really smoothly and instinctively. Once you
get this down really well, time how long it takes you to get from the
platform MG ammo room at the beginning of the level to the end of the
level using this majorly-time-saving trick, so you can figure out when
you should stop getting more ammo so you can safely finish the rest of
the level on time. One note about this particular trick is that on
level 7, the first (I think) landing, you probably don't want to do the
trick on, because one of those white guys (that take four shots to kill)
will appear almost on top of you when you land, if you do. But otherwise,
it works exactly the same.

The explanation of the above glitch has to do with the two-level screen that is used, in which there is a front screen, and a back screen, and when you're on the stairway or the landing, you're on the back level, and it seems that directly under the left edge of the left landing, the back level floor hasn't been defined, and so you just fall through...

And lastly, the most impressive glitch in Rolling Thunder, and the one that never ceases to cause people to say: "What??? How did you DO that???" In levels 5 and 10, once you get to a certain point in the level (around halfway through), you come up against two boxes stacked on top of each other (i.e. you can't jump over it), and a platform above you (on which you jump and continue to the right). At this point, jump up onto the platform, then position yourself at the very right edge of the railing on the platform (you can only jump up/down where railing is present) which should correspond to the very left edge of the boxes, then
jump down, which will put you at the very left edge of the boxes, then,
making sure not to move the joystick to the left, walk towards the right,
hit the jump button, and watch yourself get sorta caught between the
botton and top boxes, then jump right again, clearing the top box and
landing on the ground. Now comes the neat part. Don't fire at anyone,
and don't panic, but simply go to the right and watch yourself WALK THROUGH
EVERYBODY! Neat, huh? You can simply walk past everyone until you get
to the last guy (the guy in the cloak). Then, if you have properly
stocked up on MG bullets earlier on this (or another) level, simply hold
down the fire button and watch him collapse an inch in front of your face.

The explanation for this one is pretty similar to that of the stairs trick.
It's just that when on the platform, you're on the back level, and when you
jump down, you land in a spot where the front level hasn't been defined.
So you're still on the back level. Once you hurdle the boxes, you're still on
the back level, and since everything past that point is on the front level,
you can simply walk past/through everybody. That you're actually in the
back level is pretty obvious when you walk past the screen in the computer
room... One last not about using this is that on level 10, in that last
area before the final arena, there's the "stairs-like" hurdles, and on
each of these steps, one of those annoying white guys will appear. The
thing you have to be careful of is that if you're in too much of a hurry,
they will follow you into the arena (where you're suddenly on the front
level again), where they can/will hurt you, or keep you busy enough that
the guy in the cloak will. So make sure you have a little extra time to
let those guys disappear off the screen (after you've made all of them
appear) before going after the guy in the cloak in the arena.

The reason the ammo trick works is because the game is divided into invisible "sections". Once you cross a section boundary the game forgets everything from the previous section.

Rygar
- A little after half way through stage thirteen (13) there is a hidden bonus
which can only be gotten WITHOUT the extra which fires straight up. You MUST
have the standard semi-circular attack.

When in the right spot, jump on the backs of enemies for extra height and fire
upwards (semi-circular arc), nothing will seem to happen although it will make
a sound like you are hitting something. After about 20 hits, a FLAG will drop
which is worth 1,000,000 points...

- This is just a flaw with the graphics. When standing beside a rock, crouch
and move away from it, the player will "hide" himself inside the rock and will
be unreachable by most enemies for a short time.

- This is not a cheat, but many people don't realize it... Shooting the Question
mark repeatedly will turn it into a shield. The trick is to recognize it
before you pick it up, stop, crouch and shoot.

S

San Francisco Rush
Building Trick:

In the intermediate course, play untill you come to a sharp corner
with a building corner with glass. After completing the turn you will
see a black truck with the words "Magic" or something. Go under the
truck, there is a ramp under the truck, (go about 90 mph) then you
will be on a building. Speed up and make a left turn. there will be a
check point there. Go though. Good luck staying inside the cones!

Change Wheel Resistance:

To change your wheel resistance, press Music and View 3 at the car
select screen.

Extra Cars:

At the Car Select screen, press and hold View #1 to gain access to
four new cars. (A Bus, Dodge Viper, Punch Buggy, and a new Extreme
Car.)

No Drones:

To turn the drones off, press Music and View 2 at the car select screen.

Playing Tips:

When you go through the 3rd checkpoint on the advanced course, you come
to a fork in the road. Turn left and go up the hill. At the top of the
hill, turn left and jump onto the bridge between the ground and the
bridge you are currently on. Go straight on this bridge and you will
come to a loop that reads "San Francisco Rush."

Every time you run over those words as you go around the loop, you get
to advance farther in the race when you finally crash. Make sure you
keep trying until you crash. When you do crash you get to advance far in
the race, depending on how many times you ran over the words.

There are a lot of side streets on most of the tracks which are short
cuts, try not to crash!!!!

If you are running out of time and your near the finish line press the
abort button for a boost to the finish. Also use the abort button while
your in a crash or going in reverse to get you back on the track!!

San Francisco Rush The Rock: Alcatraz Edition
At the car selection press MUSIC & VIEW 2 and this will increase or
decrease the feedback each time you press them.

Backwards Tracks:

While selecting a track to race on, press VIEW #1 to run the race in
reverse.

Extreme Car:

To choose the Extreme car without passing the game, move your steering
wheel to it, then press ABORT. You can also change the car by pushing
the VIEW buttons before you push ABORT.

No Drones:

At the vehicle selection screen, hold the MUSIC button, and press VIEW
#1.

Sinistar
Extra lives:
Fly up to a fully built Sinistar. Allow him to eat you while a UFO is around during the animation and get shot before being eaten. Your remaining lives will be appear as "-1", then drop to 255 when the game resumes.

Get down to 0 extra men. Fire a killing shot at the Sinistar and die
just before he does. You'll get 255 men.

Slap Fight
To have your ship upgraded to the best possible, just die without firing
or moving at the beginning. This costs you a life, but might be fun.

Mario adds that the ship moves a little on the slow side when the cheat
is executed, so you'll need to pick up some speedups as quickly as
possible.

If you do don't fire a shot, but DO move your ship at the beginning of the game,
and survive as long as the first pool (experienced players should know what I
mean), then when you die you will begin just before the first 'boss' ship with
full homings and speed...

Smash TV
Don't try to conserve ammo. Your shots should be efficient and kill
as much as possible, and you won't have time to think about conserving
shots (esp. in the latter stages). The pattern of moves you should
follow at the end of each board to reach the easiest boards is:

Level 1: right, up; and then you have no choices.
Level 2: up, right; and then again, no choices.
Level 3: right, right, down; and then you have no choices.

Following these moves should enable you to get through the entire game
on one quarter in one-player mode.

Tips on big guys:

Mutoid man: Stay *above* him. The best hiding place is at the upper
corners of the board. Then nothing can get you, except Mr. Shrapnel.
Best weapons are Shrieker grenades, then spread fire.
Scarface: There are two attack types you use against this guy. The
first is when you have grenades/shrieker grenades and are invulnerable.
Then you blast away at his face. Be sure to get all areas of his face.
The second is when you have spread/missiles/double. Then you travel
around him in circles and knock out his perimeter shielding. If you
don't get all his perimeter shielding he CANNOT die. This is why most
people find him so hard.
Then he is converted to a skull. When you have grenades/shriekers,
be sure to get ALL areas of the face! Otherwise attack the top of his
head, and in general keep him away from you.
Cobra: You should fire at all areas of the cobra body. Don't move
above the cobra heads, cause you will die. Best weapon: spread fire.
Game show host: Same as mutoid man but moves really fast. Play
cautiously. Note that you can stay at the upper-right-hand corner of the
screen forever, picking up unlimited points on Mr. Shrapnel. This is slow,
however.

The game is known to adjust its difficulty by the daily high score list.
If the high scores are too high, making the game too hard, just turn the
machine off and on again.

Now, the pleasure dome. This is hearsay, so don't get upset if this
doesn't work. Sometimes, instead of saying "COLLECT POWERUPS!" on
the second board, it'll say something else. When that happens, it means
you can get to the pleasure dome that game. When you get to key room #1
(after the cobras) you can go down after the board is completed. Tough
rooms follow. In the pleasure dome, you collect girls instead of gifts.
It isn't possible to get to the pleasure dome on some machines. If it
isn't on yours, ask your operator to ask Williams for a (free) ROM upgrade.

This applies to Rom Version 8 and up. You can tell what version by the message in room #3 ("Collect TEN keys" instead of "Collect keys").

When playing with 2 people, if one player finishes the level near
an exit, the other will "walk through the wall" to the next room.
Can be useful on some levels.

You can cheat the enemy men by running through them backwards (to
do this, you have to be firing). This works especially well when
you have extra speed.

There aren't any "cheats" in the true sense of the word in Smash TV.
Smash TV has a warp that happens occasionally when it has an error, and
will put you forward or backwards. Haven't been able to reproduce this.

Here's a list of fun things to do:
When fighting Mutoid Man or the Host, get a shield and stand behind the
boss. If he backs up far enough, he will push you back out the wall area
he came in. You can not be hit there, and if you position yourself right,
you can fire from that position. This isn't really a cheat since you need
special weapons to kill the boss. You can leave the area by simply moving
down.

If you have the saw blades and are moving right next to the exit and so
is the other person, the saw blades will not have time to disappear and
will be carried to the next wave. It's nice to see those saw blades cut
up the camera men. Also, you can sometimes get another saw blade set for
the other player because the software doesn't realize that you still have
that set you should have lost. Dueling saw blades!
After killing a boss monster, if player one stands next to the exit and
player two stands to the left of some mines, player two will be dragged
across the mines at no extra charge. FEARLESS MINE WALKER! This can
also work on any wave ending, but you get more time to position player
one and two on the end of a level.

Space Duel
When in non-linked mode, it is possible to get a full shield during
the bonus round. The way is to run the shield down to nothing (speaker
makes no shield sound), then bounce off white walls for > 5 times with
the shield button down. Suddenly the shield will be at full strength
again. Anyone who has played in this non-linked mode knows the edge
that a full shield gives.

Space Dungeon
When you reach 990,000, every time you shoot an enemy you get a free
man. Be careful, your free men get knocked to 0 after 255.

If you pass level 99, you get to level 0 and it says "You're a hero
on level zero."

A boring score-grabbing cheat: Lock yourself in a room by closing
all the doors. The thief will appear. (To close a door, go through
it then back immediately, may take more than once). Warning: this
is a sure, but very slow, way to build points.

Splatterhouse
On the stage with the worms shooting out of the corpses, you can move the
character all the way to the right edge of the screen, and chop away. Just
make sure whether the worms are leaping at your head, and down towards your
legs.

On the stage with the animated painting (after taking out the flying knives),
run right *at* the painting, and keep nailing it as it rebounds off the wall
back at you.

For the stage where you go outside, and eventually fight the huge green dude
with chainsaw arms, the trick is to carry both rifles with you. Get the
first one, and when you find the second one, pick it up, which drops the
first rifle a small distance before you. Move forward, drop the rifle,
and pick up the fallen one. If you keep doing this, you can then bring both
rifles to the end of the stage, and blow away the hooded chainsaw man.

Against the Alien-like creatures whose heads attacked you after severing
them, an easy way to kill them was to sever the head, and stand and wait
for the head to attack you. If you moved, the head would have the angle
to hit you. This also goes for the skeletal dogs that leaped at you after
the first time you hit them. For the blobular "baby" monster (also on
the stage with the dogs) just keep hitting it and moving forward to hit
it again.

On the stage where you fight your mirror doubles, here's a sequence that
worked really well for taking out my doubles. Jump at them and attack, then immediately attack downwards then middle.

A general strategy for this game: you really need patience to win! Don't just run through the game all gung-ho, take your time!

Hint for the dude at the end of stage 5. You walk into the room, and it looks
like you've found your girlfriend at last. Unfortunately, after a bit, she
turns into a monster with fingers that flick out blades and recoil (a bit like
Wolverine, perhaps). The range is long, 1/3 to 1/2 the screen, so you've got
to be away from him and watch for them.

Anyway, he attacks in 3 rounds of 6. i.e. you hit him 6 times, it pauses for
a bit, and then he goes for the next lot. For the first two, he always jumps
towards you, then uses his fingers. So you get positioned, and when he's
coming down, you punch him out of the air. But he might be closer, so be
careful. You can also just walk under him, and try it from the other side of
the screen. But you may cop some knifes in the back.

But it's better to face _away_ from him, and closer to the centre (just out of
finger range). You can still punch him, but he'll end up on the other side of
the screen, and you can get into position while he's recovering -- no danger
from the fingers.

On the third set of 6, he changes his tactics. He'll do short jumps along the
floor, using his fingers in between. He'll can kill you quite easily this way.
If you attempt to get in close and duke it out you may get him, but he's more likely to kill you. The right technique is to slide attack him before he gets to you. This does some major damage to him, and you can hit him one or two more times before he gets you back. Now you can duke it out, or perhaps you can get away. And then he dies (yay!) and turns back into your girlfriend. Take a moment to mourn, then down into level 6.

Star Wars
If on the tie-fighter dogfight stage, Darth Vader's ship is shot more
than 30 times the player is given 27 extra shields. If you're really lucky you'll get 255 extra shields, but this is quite rare.

On the Death Star run, use the force to increase scores tremendously. Don't start shooting until the message "USE THE FORCE" disappears. This means dodging everything the Empire throws at you. You get a bonus for doing this. 5000 on the first level, which increases to as high as 100000 on the higher levels.

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade
Bug: If you let the game play itself on the Endor (Return of the Jeci) mission, meaining you don't shoot anything, the game will come to a stalemate. There are a pair of Stormtroopers that stand above a log at the midpoint of the first part of the mission. If you do not shoot them, the game will not progress any farther. You can continue as many times as you like, and the game will never proceed any further without shooting the two Stormtroopers.

In the first level, when you have to shoot all the ties, hit the event button and wait for a second. For each tie that the wingmen take out, you will get about 2000 points!
Also in the first level, in the trench, when Darth Vader and two ties swoop down, you can shoot them with torpedos! You have unlimited, so don't worry about failing.

In Hoth, when Luke says "Attack Pattern Delta, go NOW!" Repeatedly press the event button. There will be a red triangle around its head. Shoot, and you will kill it! Press the event button whenever Luke says "Attack pattern Delta"

On Endor, when you are on foot, sometimes the event button will flash for a second when you are in front of a single troop. Repeatedly hit the event button, and don't shoot the trooper. An Ewok will fall on his head, giving a kill, and 3000 points!

On The battle with Darth Vader, if you kill him, hit the event button, and you will hear the Emperor say "So be it....Jedi"

On the final level, when the Tie Bombers are flying in, take out the last one, and IMMEDIATELY press the event button before the shuttle comes. The A-Wings will hit the shuttle, and give many points for each hit!

Stargate
An undocumented feature. You need to have killed everything off
in the wave except for one lander. There must be at least one humanoid
on the ground. Wait for the lander to pick up the humanoid. Shoot
the lander and catch the humanoid *just* before it hits the ground.
The screen will flash like mad and you will be awarded 2000, presumably
for catching the humanoid and depositing it on the ground in the tiny
interval before the wave ends.

If you go in to the warp gate and press reverse and warp at the same time you will make the screen mess up. It will look like you are going super fast
from left to right. Kinda like a cardiograph at high speed. This will kill the game that you are playing so you may want to tell the arcade attendant that it screwed up on you and maybe he will give you your money back.

Street Fighter
To get to Ryu vs. Ryu
Start a fresh game on the left side (1P). Select any character other
than Ryu. Play the game until you reach Ryu. Lose. Join in the game
on the other side and hit 2P BEFORE the timer runs out. Select Ryu
and enjoy fighting Ryu.

For a special ending screen, beat every character in 2 rounds, on
one quarter. It shows the production team for SF II.

Strike Force
To reach the ultimate bad guy without having to go through the entire
enemy starship, you just play the LEFT player, and get yourself killed
at the far LEFT end of the starship (the very beginning). When you
reincarnate, you'll be at the far RIGHT end of the board, past the wall
(or IN the wall if you weren't far enough left). The boss will not
appear until you move to the left past where he should be (though things
will start firing at you immediately).

Kill the boss, get your free credit, start again.

Strategy tip: Kill dreadnaughts with one time warp and one cluster bomb.
You always get the time warp back, plus other goodies.

Score hogging tip: Clear out all the planets but one, fly around from
starbase to starbase waiting for dreadnaughts to appear. Pick 'em off
using above method. This gets boring after a while, of course...

Super Mario Bros.
At the end of any world X-4 you can get a bonus for time = 0. Complete
the level with exactly 0 seconds left, it'll give you points for 1000.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
To play as the ever-elusive Akuma, make sure the machine is on the
Free-Select speed setting. Choose your speed, highlight Ryu, and count
to five. Move to T. Hawk and count to five, then select Guile and
count to five again. Move to Cammy, count to five, then choose Ryu,
count to ten, and simultaneously press all three Punch Buttons and
Start. In the box, Ryu's face will be replaced by Akuma's silhouette.

T

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In the sewer level, if you align your foot very close to the edge
of the step without falling down, you can be invincible. You can
still hit them with whatever type of attack you want, but they can't
hit you.

You can theoretically get unlimited points. Use the yellow guy's
boomerang. Lead one yellow guy in such a way that he gets stuck
at an object (fire hydrant or barrel) between you and him, aligned
horizontally. He will try to move toward you, but he won't be able
to move since the object is near him. Get close enough to him so that
he starts throwing boomerangs. You can kill each one for (wow!) 1
point.

In the sewer level, stand just below the ledge in the middle of the
screen. Then jump straight up. You will land just on the edge of
the upper level. Nothing can hurt you for the rest of that level,
but you can kill anything that comes close enough to you. (You
can't move up or down though, or you'll have to repeat this trick).

In the sewer level, you can keep from getting hit by walking right
along the edge of the brick floor. This prevents enemies from
attacking you from multiple directions. You still need to nail
enemies directly in front of you or behind you. This is easy with
Donatello.

Killing most bosses consist of 3 strategies. They all consist of
moving vertically towards the bosses. [In fact, that is the usual
strategy for most games in this genre, since the bosses generally
don't have any vertical attack forms.

1: Move vertically upwards, hit the boss, and move vertically downwards.
Repeat until dead. Works well on Bebop.
2: Wait for the boss to move vertically down towards you, wait for him,
hit him, and move vertically upwards. Repeat until he's dead. Works
best on Rocksteady. Best results occur when you hit and run at the
same time.
3: Wait for the boss to move vertically towards you. Jump over him,
move through him and attack as you do this, keep moving. Repeat.
Works well on the big robots.

Tempest
Tempest only has a couple of interesting aspects about it. One thing is
definitely a trick while the other is more a bug due to some erroneous coding
on the original PROM's. This second problem was corrected with the second
release (Rev 2) of Tempest.

- On the end-to-end configuration, sit at one of the edges. When an enemy
approaches, rapidly fire. Usually, you will pick off that enemy without
even having to move.

- This next trick involves scoring things just right. The score will be in
the form of XXYYZZ at the top of the screen:

- The XX portion must be greater then 16.

- The YY portion must be greater then 29 but less then 60.

- The ZZ portions number corresponds to a specific code listed below:

00: Freeze screen

01: Access bookkeeping totals

05: Allows playing during attract mode (after this code is activated,
you can set the last two digits to 46 which gives a random colored
level or the two digits 48 which gives you 255 extra lives)

06, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18: 40 Free credits

14 and 15: Credit sound without actual credit

41: Switch last 2 digits of score

42: Increase score quickly

46: Demonstration mode (Start at any level up to 81)

50 and 51: Player moves by itself

60: Objects drift down

66: Objects drift right

67: Objects jump

68 and 69: Objects drift up

The reason for these codes is because the original programmer needed ways into his game. Unfortunately, when he tweaked a couple parts of his game, it caused some of the code to yield the above results.

This doesn't work on all Tempest machines. (However, if you find a Tempest
machine that has high scores in excess of 900K, this is a good sign).
Get a score in the form of XXYYZZ, where XX > 16, 29 < YY < 60, and ZZ
is a code. Some codes are:
01 - Test mode.
06, 11, 12 - 40 free games.
46 - Start at any level you like (up to level 81).
In the test mode, you can zero the high score table; and examine the game parameters, but not modify them :( to the best of my knowledge. Any info to the
contrary would be appreciated.

Steve Jacobs adds a smallish bug: when the fuseballs are at the top,
and in the center of the panel, you can sometimes move through them
if you spin the dial very quickly. (This works best on the boards that
have 'ends', as opposed to the circular, triangular, etc. boards) This
is a desperation play for use towards the end, when you've used both your
zaps and the fuseballs are after you.

The fuseballs move up and down only on the lines between the panels.

Terminator 2
As soon as John gets in the truck, start shooting the tires. If you
do this you'll make it to Skynet on your first try.

Tiger Road
On the left-hand side of the top level of the room with the buzz-saw
robots, if you jump and press attack at the top of the arc it will open
the door to a secret treasure room to your left. The same holds true
in the room with the spear-throwers and the steel bars across some of
the hallways. Both of these rooms are in the fourth area and you have
to be pretty darn good to be there. [Well, that's why this cheat is
in the beginner's section... it's a high-effort, low-payoff cheat.

Toobin'
Picking up a six-pack gives you unlimited cans, until you lose your
life. A beach ball speeds you and your cans up.

Since the six-pack gives unlimited cans, you can take advantage of it by
placing your character in a little crevice right next to a bad guy on shore
and fire away. You're able to shoot very fast since you're very close. It is
a very good way to rack up points and extra lives.
Other tips: Always try to go through the gates you encounter in the river
without touching the poles. This'll increase your score multiplier (up to
5X).
Also, be sure to shoot as many twigs and other obstacles as you can (get the
six-pack for this), because there are hidden letters and extra lives in them.
Catch the letters for extra points given at the end of the level.

To be able to turn *fast* alternately press buttons on the corners, e.g.
1 2
3 4
Use 1-4-1, or 2-3-2, this'll greatly improve your playing.

Pick up letters whenever possible, and make sure your multiplier is high
at the end of the board, for maximum points.

A small thing is that if whenever you see mines, if you can get to the left
side of it and turn so that you face it, you can shoot as many times as you
like in rapid succession (hitting the mine rapidly), you can continue to
cause explosions going up to the right wall. Most of the time, a prize of
some sort will result along that path. Sometimes patches, sometimes beach
balls, etc.

Track and Field
First, the triple-flapping technique. It's the fastest method I've
ever seen for pounding the buttons. I would hit each button (left and
right) with the middle three fingers on each hand, one hand at a time.
The sequence is 4, 3, 2 (2 is the pointing finger), on each button.
[Note that this technique also works on any other speed-intensive
button pressing game. Try using this on the fire button on Sinistar
sometime, for instance.]

Event 1 (100-m dash):

Nothing to say, except use the triple-flapping technique. Oh, and
the gun going off happened at exactly 3.3 seconds after the 'READY'
flag. A tie (in 2P game) gets you 1000 points.

Event 2 (Long jump):

Note that hitting the line at all gives you a speed boost of 50,
hitting it in the exact center gives you a speed boost of 100.

Event 3 (Javelin throw):

42 degrees is the best angle.

A secret trick in this event is to throw the javelin upwards at 90
degree angle. You'll hit a bird for 1000 points.

Event 4 (110m meter hurdles):

You'd be best off getting a friend to hit the jump button for you.
A tie gets you 1000 points, just as in the 100m dash.

A cheat in the two-player mode, on older machines: have one person
win the race normally. The other player should take his time. After
40 seconds, the clock stops running down. Use a watch to ensure a
100+ second finish time. The + is how many seconds you get credited
for.

Event 5 (Hammer throw):

Perfect throw will have 1500 speed, 45 degree angle. 99.99 meter
throw most of the time. The best way to get good
speed is not to listen, but to watch the bar at the bottom.

Event 6 (High jump):

Note that hitting the buttons, even after you have jumped, really helps.
Be sure to tap the jump button to ease yourself over the top, not hold
the button down.

Use the background stuff to judge distance; when you get to a certain
point then jump.

If you foul the first two jumps and nail the third, you get a 1000-pt.
bonus.

You can also let time roll over in the 100 meters to get awesome records just as with the hurdles.

Trog
Watch the corner of the screen opposite from where you start. At the
beginning of each wave except #1, one of your eggs will sparkle for a
second. Get this egg last, and without dying. If you do, a pit with white
squares in it will open up somewhere on the board. Fall down this pit
rather than going home, and you will warp ahead 3 levels and get a bonus of
300,000 pts. (well, actually, everyone gets the bonus pts.)

Felix Lee says: Every player has his own warp egg. Only one player
has to get the egg last without dying to activate the warp. On the
levels with the striped eggs, the color of the sparkle distinguishes
the warp eggs.

The warp will take you forward 3 or 2 levels, often 3, but sometimes
2. It's deterministic; island X will always warp to island Y, so it's
possible to figure an optimal warp path.

Tron
For the Tanks - hide behind corners and use them for cover when you shoot.
Also, use the transporter in the center as cover. You can
shoot clear through the transporter and out the other side
and zap the computer. Don't use the transporter except for
a desperation tactic. It will more than likely dump you right
in the computer's gunsight(s).

For the Spiders - Fire in a constant spread and just hose 'em down from side
to side. Gradually move in a constant arc up to the entrance.
Stay just outside the entrance and hose the spiders above and
below until time runs out. Enjoy the music.

For the MCP Cone - Move up so you're just underneath the rotating cone and on
the right side. Shoot the blocks nearest to you. This gives
you another shot more quickly than shooting blocks farther
away. When you get a gap, move up and fire away due left.
Above all, don't hang around and get caught : if the going
gets tough, move on up and into the cone. Don't forget to
twirl the knob as you rise. (You'll see if you do it)

For the Light Cycles - Use a question mark type shape for the first board. The
Computer will run right into it. For the harder boards,
try to trap them either near the center tracks or against
the wall. This is, by far, the hardest thing to do.

In the Lightcycle stage, the cycles have a fixed behavior pattern for each stage; and so, like Pac-Man, it is possible to find a pattern of your own which will defeat the cycles every time on that level. In the Tanks stage, if no part of your tank is touching the white line running through the center of each corridor, the enemy tanks' fire cannot hit you. If you are careful, you can move halfway into the central "transporter diamond", just far enough to get off the white line, then pick the enemy tanks off at will. Note: the tanks can still ram you, though.

The first few boards are unique, but the events of the game
eventually repeat, two with one order and the other two with another.
The Light Cycles and Tanks have order 6, the Grid Bugs and Cones order 5. For the Light Cycles you can develop patterns, for the Tanks you can do the same (the basis for all of my patterns involved immediately going up, to the right, and hiding halfway in and out of the teleporter). The Grid Bugs and Cones also have
somewhat looser patterns, and for some of these boards you have to
spin the controller *before* the board actually starts in order to
have the gun positioned properly to shoot a bug/cone section and
move (otherwise it is instant death).

U

V

Vendetta
By the way, to freeze Vendetta (to get your money back since the stupid
game froze again [nice when you're having a bad game]), simply hit
Joe O. (forgot the last name) with a pail. Joe O. is the midlevel boss
monster for level 2. This nocks him right out of the game and he goes
floating by every 20 seconds or so. Saving the pail for Missing Link
is fun too. Instead of sticking on his head like the other guys, it
sticks inthe middle of his chest. It's very funny.

W

Wizard of Wor
ObBug: Give Wizard of Wor a good kick in the coin slot after you hit the
Wizard (while the screen flashes). When it comes back up, it'll be in
reverse video (white background) until you hit the Wizard again.

X

Xevious
First special:
in the first cross screen river after three tanks that don't move.
it's usually in the lower part of the river on the far left or far
right. it's position moves around so you need to bomb the whole river.

Hint on second mothership:
just before the escort you are swarmed by ships and 1 anti air craft
gun, there are 4 missiles silos in a small clearing. They are laid
out in a diagonal going up from left to right. If you leave them alone
you will have an easier time getting to the second mother ship.

Hit the second mother ship as it is coming down!! don't let it start
moving with you!

Xevious Name Trick

Xevious includes a hidden name trick. The display
can be brought up by bombing at the extreme
right of the screen at the very beginning of
the game before any enemies have appeared.
The exact spot is marked by a slightly larger
than normal dark shadow in the trees. Even
if you don't know the exact spot you can usually
get it out by bombing all over the place over
there on the right side. You also score 1000 points
for pulling this off.

Xybots
On the first level, don't collect any money for totally massive bonus points
at the end. And lots of cash.

You can shoot around a wall to your right by putting your gun around the
corner. You can shoot them but they cannot shoot you.

Y

Z

Zookeeper
An obscure trick in an obscure game. On the coconut boards, when you jump
onto the top ledge, you get some points. Jump off the ledge then onto it
again; you'll get twice as many points. And again, for four times as many.
The bonus keeps doubling until 300K per land. The best board to try this
on is the board where the ledges are invisible. It's kind of hard to jump
on then off, but so few coconuts are thrown that you have lots of room for
error.