Pro Tip of the Day

Occasionally when I observe people playing games with a joystick (especially in an arcade), I'll see them grab the joystick full-on with their hand and hang onto it like it's the only thing keeping them from falling off a cliff.

Which works, yeah, but it definitely hinders your experience by requiring that you use your entire arm to play which results in:

1. a loss of fine-control, you have to use the gross movements of your arm and
2. increasing the rate you get fatigued, moving your whole arm over the course of a few games takes more energy than you think

   The solution?

   Grip the joystick lightly between the thumb and the index finger, using the middle finger as well if that's more comfortable for you

   

   You get more accurate control and don't use so much energy, which leads to longer playing sessions. It's totally win-win!

If you watch the Attract Mode of most Dance Dance Revolution machines, they will eventually go into a tutorial on how to play the game, and in it, the demo character will stomp on an arrow, and then return its feet to the center. Check it out (it starts at about 0:58 in this clip):

And I see a lot of beginners playing the game like this... and stumbling around. Why? Because the arrows in the songs are set up so that you don't return your feet to center after hitting each one, which has the side effect of reducing the number of steps you have to take to hit all the arrows. Check out the kid's feet in this video:

If he returned his feet to the center after every time he hit an arrow, he wouldn't be quick enough to hit all the arrows, and neither would you.

So don't do it!

Since there's been some hubbub lately about this Mortal Kombat movie-pitch thingy, I figured it would be appropriate for a Mortal Kombat themed tip.

So, in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, after choosing your characters, you come up to the Vs. Screen, which has this row of symbols across the bottom.

Which you and your opponent can manipulate by pressing the buttons on your respective side of the cabinet. So, say you both press Low Punch exactly one time so that the display looks like this

Then when the match starts, you'll get confirmation at the bottom of the screen that the code worked

This one, for instance, disables throwing, so you have to beat up your opponent the old fashioned way... with punches, kicks, and special moves.

One of the things about playing arcade games is that you don't really have much guidance to tell you the ins and outs of the game. So, when I got the Super NES version of Turtles in Time, I was surprised to learn that there was a move in the game that I didn't know about, a shoulder tackle. The instructions in the manual were kind of vague, but I was eventually able to figure out what to do, and I'm going to share that with you today.

To do it, you first start running (depending on how your game is set up, either by double-tapping a direction or just holding it in for a few seconds)

Then, while running, press the Jump Button to do a handspring, which doesn't actually do any damage to anyone

Then, the instant that completes, press the Attack Button to do your shoulder tackle!

And, since it's kind of tough to follow along with just my description, I've provided an animated .gif for you here.

And, yes, this does work on the arcade version.

Pretty much since the video games kept score, it's been the obsession of a lot of people to get as many points as possible to show that they were the best player. And an arcade game called 'Giga Wing' takes that to its crazy extreme.

In Giga Wing, you have the ability to reflect enemy shots back at them, which allows you to collect these shield emblems, emblems that when collected increase your score multiplier, and your score multiplier increases the number of points you get every time you shoot down and enemy ship. And very quickly in this game there are lots of shots and lots of enemies that explode into a shower of pickups when hit

Seriously, it's enough anyone to get a score in the hundreds of millions.

But that's nothing compared to people who are actually good at the thing. Heck, you have to go through the whole game on one credit to see the 'real ending', and if you manage to do that, your score rockets up to the crazy-high territory: the Trillions.

Needless to say that I'm probably not going to achieve that any time soon. But maybe you can, if you can find a Giga Wing arcade machine (or a copy of the Dreamcast port).

It's no big secret that before there was an ESRB that Nintendo had certain hoops game developers had to jump through to publish games on their systems. Take Final Fight, for example, a game about going through the streets of Metro City and punching people to death.

In the arcade, the first boss you run across has a unique name.

So he gets a name change for the Super NES version

Which I guess shows that the kiddos who were going to play this game would have been more affected by some boss thug's name than bludgeoning people to death with steel pipes.

If find an arcade cabinet of Pengo (which is going to be kind of tough these days), you might be tempted to play it. And once you do, you're going to notice that in the middle of the playfield are these blocks with diamonds on them

They've got a couple of interesting features: they're indestructible and if you line up all three of them so that they're touching...

The screen freaks out and you get 10,000 points! As an added bonus, all the Sno-Bees in the level are stunned, for a few seconds

Giving you a pretty sweet advantage (even if it is temporary).

The only problem is that in some levels the blocks are placed in such a way that it's virtually impossible to get them lined up, so if that happens, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It's that time again! Time to discuss the ridiculously convoluted sequence required to play as another of the hidden characters in the arcade version of Marvel vs. Capcom.

First, move your cursor to Zangief and move the joystick in the following directions:

Left, Left, Down, Down, Right, Right, Down, Down, Left, Left, Up, Up, Up, Up, Right, Right, Left, Left, Down, Down, Down, Down, Right, Right, Up, Up, Left, Left, Down, Down, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up

Done right, your cursor should go off the top of the Selection Grid and you'll get to choose the Gold War Machine

You can try to remember the sequence by reducing it to a pattern, which looks something like this

Gold War Machine has a really terrible jump and can't block, so he's a little difficult to get a handle on

But he is pretty strong and has a couple of decent special moves to help him out

Which means he's not really for novices, more like pros...

When you go to the Character Selection screen in Killer Instinct, you have the ability to influence the stage you play on and the music that plays by holding either Up or Down on the Control Pad and pressing one of the Punch or Kick buttons.

But, what if you and a friend are playing the game and you go to the Player Select screen

Highlighted the character you wanted and then held Down on the Control Pad and pressed whatever button you designated for Medium Kick (the default is B)?

You'd be taken to the VS. screen (where you might want to take advantage of Easy Combo Breakers)

But once the fight actually starts you'll be on a platform mysteriously floating in the sky!

Which is very easy to get knocked off of

So even with Easy Combo Breakers turned on, if you get backed into a corner, you're going to be in trouble.

Have fun!

And yes, this works in the Arcade version as well.

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.