Mendel Palace is an odd little game. You have to manipulate the tiles on the floor around in such a way that you slide the enemies into the walls.

But, what if you've played the original set of levels to death and want a different challenge?

You could hold Start and Select and then press Reset on your console. You might then notice that the title screen is a little bit different.

You now have some more levels to challenge your tile-sliding fingers, known as the Extra Stages by... well, just me, really.

But no matter what you call them, they start out slightly tougher than the main game does, so good luck!

If you're playing any one of the remakes of Super Mario Bros. 2, then you know that occasionally a powerup, like a heart or a Starman, will appear, completely at random.

But, did you know that it's not completely random? Heck, it's not even partially random. Those powerups appear based on your actions.

Like if you kill five enemies, you'll make a heart appear to replenish one dot on your life meter.

Likewise, if you collect five cherries, a Starman will appear, which will make you temporarily invincible when you collect it.

And pulling five fully-grown vegetables out of the ground (the ones with the face on them) will get you a stopwatch.

Which will freeze everything in place for a few seconds.

And since everything resets when you go in the nearest door, you can totally manipulate the game to your advantage, so go to it!

The NES Duck Hunt is a staple of the system. It and Super Mario Bros. was bundled with a ton of the systems, mostly to show off the Zapper.

There's not much to it, either, dog jumps into field, flushes out ducks, and you have to shoot them down.

But! According to manual (which you probably won't have access to at this point in the game's life), a second player can join in the fun.

Just plug in a controller along with the Zapper, and a second player can control the directions that the Ducks fly.

And unlike some other games, this actually works.

In the NES Skate of Die! game one of the events is the Jam,

where you have to race a computer-controlled opponent down a back alley.

You get points for smashing bottles, doing tricks, and beating up your opponent, just like in real life

And you'll notice that toward the end of the track there's a police cruiser. Turns out that it's not there for decoration. if you can manage to jump on the hood

Sirens blare, lights flash, and you get some extra points!

Which might be enough to put you over the top in a close game.

If you managed to get past the Crab boss in Area 5 of Blaster Master, you get to move on to the ice stage, Area 6, which features these blocks that you have to destroy from below to proceed.

But, say you need to check your status screen for some reason, or you just want to pause the game for a breather

Once you leave the status screen...

The blocks are back!

I sure hope you didn't need to go back down that shaft.

Also, as a bonus tip: the boss's room is to the right once you get to the top of this shaft. If you go left it'll lead you back to beginning of the stage, and some of these mysterious blocks will be back, making you take the long way around.

The NES Ghostbusters game isn't very good, but that didn't stop me from playing the heck out of it when I was younger. Mostly because I didn't have much better to do.

Fast forward a few years and I find mention of a technique for raising money that I had never heard of. It's all over the Internet, and boils down to:

buy the Ghost Alarm for $2000 and sell it back for $3000. Keep doing that until you have all the money you need.

But, I didn't have a copy of Ghostbusters to test, so I went out and found the only copy of the game within 10 miles of my house at great personal expense ($3.95 American).

I popped the game in and went to work.

I immediately went to the Shop:

Bought a Ghost Alarm for $2000

And sold it... for $1000

Then I kept doing that until I couldn't buy anything else, and the game was unwinnable because I didn't have any equipment.

But, given the prevalence and specificity of this tip, I'm thinking that there might be some revisions floating around out there that have this bug, but it certainly wasn't in any that I had.

Double Dragon 2 is a tough game, especially if you're just starting out with it. But if you're playing by yourself, there's a way to give yourself a slight edge.

First, pick a 2-player 'B' game, so that you can hurt your partner. Then, after you've cleared the enemies away, start beating up on the prone second player.

Keep on beating him up until he's gone through all of his lives. As you're eliminating the dead weight, you'll notice that your number of remaining lives is climbing. Keep on going until you have them all

Which will definitely come in handy, trust me.

In Mega Man 5 you get these M-Tanks which are very helpful. Just like the E-Tank, they restore all of your life energy, but unlike the old-fashioned E-Tanks, they restore all of your weapon energy as well.

But, what would happen if you already had full everything when you used your M-Tank, hm?

Well, you would hear the sound like you collected a 1UP, and all non-boss enemies on the screen would turn into 1UPs!

Which is very handy for stocking up on lives before taking on a particularly tough challenge.

I've been thinking about Zombie Nation lately (no, not that Zombie Nation, the other one). It's pretty tough, but you have one secret weapon up your sleeve... if your character had sleeves, that is.

When you run low on health

Pause the game and put in the ol' Konami Code, even though Konami had nothing to do with this game

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

Unpause, and you'll have full health!

But, beware, this can only be done one time across all of your continues, so make sure you really need it before you do it.

You might remember that Contra was one of the myriad games that the famous Konami Code works on.

So you might logically deduce that the code works on its sequel, Super C as well.

So you go to the title screen

and put in the code

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

And nothing happens. It turns out that the famous code doesn't actually do anything in this game.

But!

While you're at the title screen you could press instead

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

Then you'd have 10 lives to work with instead of 3

Which isn't as helpful as 30, but I'll take what I can get.

Also, if you have two players, you might want to hit Select before you hit Start. That way you both can benefit.