Arcade Tips and Tricks:

This section is dedicated to tips, tricks, strategies, walk-thru guides and Easter Eggs for arcade games. Click a letter to jump to the games that start with that letter or scroll down to see more information about a particular game.

  0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 

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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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 2^nd 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 2^nd version allows you to hunt for satellites much like you could hunt UFOs in the original Asteroids.  A 3^rd 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 55^th 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 2^nd and 3rd, and 15 on the 4^th (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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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.

(Contributor : Seth Scott)

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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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

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.

(Contributor: Allen Perry)

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.

(Contributor: Mario Moeller)
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.)

(Contributor : Tad Perry)

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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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.

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).

Click here to go back to the top menu.

E

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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

- 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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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.
 

Getting an easy bonus

Remain idle during the Galactic Dancing bonus round to get 10,000 to 25,000 points.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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

Click here to go back to the top menu.

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.