This power-saving tip is pretty much for the DS guys only, sorry PSP folks.

If you check out the bottom of your Nintendo DS, you'll see another slot. This is where stuff like the Rumble Pak or the Guitar Hero add-on goes. You can also toss in your older Game Boy Advance games and play them on your newfangled system. The benefit here is that when you're playing your GBA games, only one of the screens is being used, saving you precious wattage.

The only problem is that Game Boy Advance games are getting hard to find nowadays. So unless you've stockpiled a few (*cough*), you might not have a whole lot (or anything) in your current library to cram in there.

That's about the time you're going to want to visit your local video game resale shop.

Which we'll discuss another day.

If you're without power in the daytime, you might consider turning off the backlight on your portable system. If you have sufficient light (i.e. the Sun) shining down on your system, then you have all the illumination you need, which will save precious watts to power your system a bit longer.

Of course, systems like the DS and Game Boy Advance almost need a backlight because they're just so dark without one, but direct sunlight is actually pretty playable.

Today's method to increase battery life: turn off the Wi-Fi.

I fully understand that when you're in a power-outage situation, or just a long car trip, that you want to play games with the other people around you.

But, using that extra feature puts a bit of strain on the battery, and will cause it to run down faster. Not such a big deal if you have a power source handy, but once power becomes a limited resource, then you're going to want every second of power you can have.

This week's pro tips are inspired by my 6-day (and counting) power outage due to some freakish ice storm.

Today's bit of advice: Turn down the speakers.

This tip dates back to the old spinach-green original Game Boy days. Yes, your portable system can crank out some pretty loud sounds, but that also drains the battery slightly faster. Better would be to turn down the speakers to a barely audible level, or better yet, turn them off completely.

Yeah, you'll miss some of the sounds, but you'll eke out a bit more playtime from your device, and you'll need every precious minute of power in an extended outage.

If you check out Mega Man 9's pause screen, you get lots of info like how much weapon energy you have left and how many more Mega Mans you have in reserve.

[Normally a screen shot would go here, but I kind of don't have access to a working capture device, and my artist is on vacation, so use your imagination, or just consult your own status screen]

You'll notice that next to Mega Man's Mug that there's a two-digit number to indicate how many lives you have left. You might think that you can get up to 99 tries to off Wily, but you'd be mistaken.

For some reason, even though you have two digits to show how many lives you have left, the counter stops at 9. And lives don't continue to accrue, either. If you have 9 lives, pick up 4 more, lose one, you won't have 12 left in reserve, you'll have 8.

So be wary.

Sonic Rush isn't really that hard of a game, but you will run through lots of lives. This is mostly because Sonic moves at Ludicrous Speed and if you're not expecting a pitfall (which you won't your first few times through the stages) you just can't react fast enough to avoid it. The solution? Throw more lives (a.k.a. chances) at the problem. But, Sonic only starts with three lives. That's a problem.

Or is it?

One of the neat things about this game is that it allows you to go back to stages that you've already beaten to get powerups, like Chaos Emeralds or extra lives.

You should be able to complete the first stage pretty easily, since it's kind of the intro to the game. Along the way, you'll be able to pick up 100 rings with little effort, the stage is loaded with them.

Once you have your 100 rings (which, after running through the stage a few times shouldn't take more than about 45 seconds), assuming you've already cleared the area, you can just press Start and then choose to leave the stage, and you get to keep the lives you got. Just rinse and repeat until you have as many lives as you want.

You'll notice, though, that the counter in the bottom-left corner stops at 9. You can get way more lives than that, though. They show up on the Overworld map screen.

In Double Dragon's Mission 2, right after you get all your hearts, you probably want to continue on with the game. Go a little further in, and you fight Chin.

Now, you could just beat on him until he flashes and disappears like normal, or you could go back down the ladders. Go down two ladders and he dies somehow... I don't think I'm up to rationalizing it.

Or you could use one of your new abilities to grab his hair and toss him off the side.

Either way and you'll be well on your way to the next Mission.

In the NES version of Double Dragon, you have this weird Heart System to deal with that earns your moves. Essentially, as you beat up bad guys you get heart points, get 1000 heart points and you get another heart and another fighting move.

It's kind of tedious to earn moves this way, I'd much rather have all my moves up front for maximum face-smashing potential.

So, to speed the process along, go to Mission 2, right past the big pit. Go just far enough to make the two Williams appear. Let the top one get to about the end of the girders in the background and then hop back on the fence, they'll freeze in place.

Go all the way back to the left as far as you can. You don't have to fall off the ledge like I did here, but I think Billy's face is pretty funny if you do.

Then go back to where the upper William was and start attacking. You'll hit him over and over again, even though he's not there.

Keep going until you have 7 hearts, the maximum.

Then you'll have your entire martial arts toolbox available to use.

Good luck!

In Super Mario Bros. 2, you get these potions. Which you can toss down to make doors. Go through the doors and you find all kinds of stuff, but probably one of the more important changes is that the plants that hold vegetables now hold coins. Coins that you use at the end of the stages to gamble for extra lives.

Now, if you try to get coins more than twice in a level, you start picking up vegetables instead of coins, probably to prevent you from abusing the system.

But, what happens if you go to, say, 5-1?

You notice how the potion is near some plants and a pit?

Grab the potion, toss it down, and go into Subspace. Grab the coins and while you're in subspace, jump down the hole.

It'll cost you a life, but you gain five coins (six if you're quick). Then, do it all again, grab the coins and jump down the hole. As long as you don't actually exit to the 'real world', then it doesn't count toward your two-trip limit.

Once you have all the coins you want, go on to the end of the stage. Then check out your coin total.

Depending on how many lives you sacrificed for the coins, you might be here for a while using the slot machine.

Enjoy!

I mentioned Bad Dudes the other day when I was talking about finding our friend Karnov in more games than just his own. The game was brought to the NES, but since putting quarters in your NES doesn't actually get you any continues, the game's actually pretty tough.

So, you do what I do to make it easier on yourself. Go to the title screen.

Then pick up controller 2 and (quickly) press "B, A, Down, Up, Down, Up", then Start on controller one. Done right, you'll see this:

Which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you, so when you get into the game proper, it displays correctly

Now, with that many chances, you'd practically have to try to fail to rescue the president from the ninjas.