Trying to catch fish in any fish-catching video game can be tedious. Good thing that the designers gave you some passably decent music to listen to. If only there was a way to listen to it without trolling for fist.

Like going somewhere in the title sequence

then holding Start + Select and hitting the Reset button to go to some kind of screen where you could hear the music any time you wanted

Yeah, something like that would be awesome.

When you finally get to Dr. Wily's castle in Mega Man 2, you get stymied by these floors that look solid, but you fall right through them. They're kind of tough to deal with until you remember that you have a (not so) secret weapon: the Bubble Lead.

The Bubble Lead follows the ground's contours (but never goes up, always down), so all you have to do is to fire one

and watch where it falls through the floor

Which makes it much easier to tell where the intangible blocks are, instead of trying to rely on your memory.

You remember Bo, right? Multi-sport athlete, and Nike spokesman? This guy?

He had a baseball game for the NES, and in it, you could kind of recreate that commercial.

First, pick a team, any team. Then, at the player lineup screen

press Left + Select + B. The result?

Everyone on your team turns into Bo Jackson.

Which means, among other things, that every time someone on your team strikes out a bat gets broken

Because that's how Bo rolls.

Pipe Dream is a little odd. You have to lay down some pipes to create a path for some kind of liquid to run through. The thing is, though, that the liquid flows as you're laying down the pipes, and if it dribbles out the end your progress is stopped, and your score is tallied. So, it's a high-pressure situation.

Unless...

Unless you press (and hold) Start to pause the game

And while you're holding Start, press

A, B, B, A

Then, unpause.

Done correctly, pressing the B button will stop the ebb of fluid, and allow you to build pipes to your heart's content.

Then you just press Select once you've created your masterpiece to let the fluid flow again.

Uniracers is kind of odd. You have to take your living unicycle through a series of races and stunt tracks because that's apparently what living unicycles do.

During the stunt tracks, you get points for doing a variety of tricks, but there are a couple that aren't listed in the manual anywhere, the so-called 'Mega' tricks.

The first one is the Head Bounce. While standing still, jump up, press and hold the X button so that you bounce a couple of times

Then let go. Boom! Head Bounce

The second one is a little tougher to do. You have to get some significant air, then press the X button, but release it when you're halfway turned

Then press X again to turn back, which will give you a Tabletop.

Now, you might notice that on your scoring screen, there's a spot for four Mega tricks, even though I've only shown you two.

And I can't find the article to source this, but the reason is that there's four spots for tricks, and only two tricks is because otherwise the scoring screen would have looked funny, like there was something missing.

So don't go trying to find tricks that don't exist, mmkay?

The Ren & Stimpy games were really tough. Mostly because the levels were long, poorly laid out, and you had poor control of your character. But they were based on a show that I liked at the time, so I was obligated to play them.

And, thankfully, I didn't have to slog my way through the game the hard way to see everything.

I went to the title screen

And before the word 'Veediots' is completely drawn, I pressed

L, R, A, L, R, L, B, R, X

To bring up a level-select menu.

Which was great, because now I could get a taste of all the levels.

Plus, some of the levels that you had to pick from weren't levels at all, but rather the between-level cutscenes

So I got to see those, too.

The Earthworm Jim games are known for being a little on the odd side.

Really.

For instance, in the first game for the SNES if you pause the game anywhere

And press:

Y, A, B, B, A, Y, A, B

You'll be greeted with this!

It goes on like this for a few minutes, with a message for Mr. Jones. And then takes you back to the title screen. So you probably don't want to do this if you've already made significant progress in the game.

You might not have heard of Cacoma Knight in Bizyland, but it's kind of like Qix, only with better graphics and more plot.

It also gets pretty tough as you go along, so I like to go to the Mode Selection screen

and put in Not Quite The Konami Code

Up, Up, Down, Down, Right, Left, Right, Left, B, A

Which takes me to the "Special Presents" menu

Where I get to play with all kinds of settings, including how many lives and continues I get, as well as my starting round.

Which is great when I get frustrated and stuck so that I can see the rest of the game.

The Clayfighter games are weird. They're fighting games where the characters are stop-motion claymation... things. And they're not very good. But the characters and presentation are usually pretty well done, so I still played them.

In C2: Judgment Clay you have a roster of eight combatants to choose from.

Unless!

You go back to the title screen

And press and hold L & X, while you press Up, Up, Select, Up, Up, Right. Done right you'll hear a sound. And when you start the game

Eight more characters to choose from. Sure they're just recolored versions of the original eight with different names, but don't worry about that.

In Super Mario Bros 3, getting maxed out on 1UPs on that one stage is pretty great, but what about the rest of the game?

Well, every time you finish a stage, you get a Card, which sits down at the bottom-right of the screen.

Collect three cards and you get a 1UP. Collect three matching cards, though, and you get more. Three mushrooms nets 2UP, Fire Flowers nets 3UP, and Starmen get you the pretty awesome 5UP.

So, if you know how to manipulate the cards, you can slowly build up a pretty good stockpile of extra lives.

You start by running into the dark area at the end of the stage at full speed (or pretty close to). Then jump up and hit the goal at 45 degree angle.

Done right you'll get a Star. Every time! Which will lead to

5 extra lives, every three stages or so.

Not a bad ROI, I'd say.