Pro Tip of the Day

Super Mario World is chock full of these bonus rooms. Like this one that has rows and rows of ?-Blocks.

If you can hit them in the correct order (which is random), a 1-Up will pop out, but if you hit them in the wrong order

You get nothin'.

That's why it's recommended to enter these rooms with a Cape.

If you can manage to hit the bottom-left corner of the blocks, you'll be correct every time!

Which will allow you to get a few free 1-Ups for your troubles

And timing is key. If you hit the side of the blocks, it might not work (but, since it's pretty much random anyway, it might).

Good luck!

In Tetris, you occasionally will have to maneuver pieces so that they fit in spaces where it doesn't initially look like they're going to fit.

Like this T-piece, for example.

It would totally fit in that hole on the left column if some of those pieces weren't in the way.

But if you let it get partway in

And then rotate it at the last second, it slides into place

Which is easier to show in animated .gif form

This is a pretty useful maneuver, since it lets you slip those T-pieces in places where they wouldn't normally go.

Been playing the Super NES port of Mortal Kombat 3 and been getting bored with it? (And at this point the game's life, who wouldn't be?)

Well, then, let's tweak a few options, shall we?

First, go to the 'Start' Screen

And press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, A, B, A on Controller 1. Done right, a new menu option will appear, Kool Stuff

With several things to tweak.

Not enough?

Well, then go back to the 'Start' screen and press Select, A, B, Right, Left, Down, Down, Up, Up on Controller 1.

Another option will appear, Kooler Stuff

With lots more options to flip

Still not enough?

Okay, go back to the 'Start' Screen and press X, B, A, Y, Up, Left, Down, Right, Down on Controller 1 to get the final menu choice, Scott's Stuff

Which has yet more options for you to play with

Now things will start getting interesting, so go nuts flipping those options!

Thanks, reader EASY, for suggesting today's tip!

If you've never played Rival Turf!, it's kind of like Final Fight, you run around various cities across the country beating up wave after wave of identical twins.

And just like lots of other games, if you end up running out of lives and continues, you have to start over. But if your score is high enough, you get to enter your name in the High Score Table. If you pretend for a moment that your name is 'CHRCONF'

And then hit 'EX', you'll be taken to a secret screen

Where you get to change the names of all the characters in the game. There aren't any restrictions that I could find, so go nuts

And that should make having to repeat the first few stages a little less tedious

In Yoshi's Island you occasionally find a locked door that, when unlocked, will lead to a bonus game where you have to play a game against a Bandit for extra lives.

But what if you're low on lives and you haven't taken the time to stock up, and you don't want to bother going through a stage to find one of those locked doors?

Well, good news!

If you go the map screen

And on Controller 1 hold Select while pressing X, X, Y, B, A, you'll be greeted with fanfare and a new screen

Which lets you choose which of the mini games you want to play (as an added bonus, you can play a couple of them with a second player)

And if you lose, there's no penalty, so there's really no reason to not go for it.

One of the neat things about Uniracers is that you can rename any of the racers to pretty much anything you want to.

But occasionally you'll put in a perfectly fine name only to have it rejected as being 'not cool enough'

Through some testing, I was able to determine that the game uses a rudimentary check for... we'll call them 'off-color' words, and if it finds them anywhere in the name you've typed in, either for the individual unis or for teams, then it gets rejected.

I can't provide a list of all the words it rejects, though. You're on your own for that.

Play enough Super Mario World and you'll eventually make your way to the Special area where eight fairly tough levels with kind of silly names await you.

But if you sit at the map screen long enough, for several minutes, you might notice the music changes to something that sounds oddly familiar, the theme from the first game!

Don't have access to a save file close enough to the Special area? Or don't have a Super NES within arm's length? That's OK, I've prepared a sample for you right here in mp3 form.

In the 'grassy' stages of Super Mario Bros. 3 (like stage 1-2, for example) you might notice that there's a dark green patch at the bottom of the screen.

You may be thinking that was an artistic choice, but if you're properly prepared, you'll find that it's more than that.

Enter one of those stages with a P-Wing equipped and fly down the closest pit (being careful to not actually fall in, of course) and you'll find that the dark green stuff is actually a tunnel that runs most of the length of the stage!

Of course, stuff like enemy fireballs that go through the ground can still hit you if you're not careful, if you stop mashing the A button you'll fall off the bottom of the screen and lose a life, and you can't actually finish the stage from down there, you have to be above ground to hit the Card at the end.

But it's a fun novelty to do once or twice.

In Super Mario Kart's Vanilla Lake 2, the center of the field has become melted, and kind of dangerous to drive on, y'know, because it's a lake.

But you can use that to your advantage.

While you're racing, as soon as you cross the finish line, take a hard left and head straight into the water.

Then, at the last second, turn 90° to your left so that you go back behind the Start/Finish line before Lakitu picks you up. Done right, you should be on the next lap.

Which will whittle down your best lap times to well under 10 seconds!

Not bad!

Donkey Kong Country really isn't that hard of a game, but some of the maneuvers you have to pull off are a little frustrating, so it would be nice to have a few extra chances.

If you go to the File Select screen

And press

B, A, R, R, A, L

on your controller (which kind of spells 'Barrel') you'll hear a confirmation noise. Start your file and blam!

50 Donkey Kongs (or Diddy Kongs, whichever way you want to look at it)!

Now you have plenty of opportunities to try and discover the hidden goodies littered throughout the game.