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.

Despite playing a lot of Toejam & Earl, I was never actually able to finish off the game. Heck, I was never even close. That's why, when I want to see the ending, I pause the game (usually at the beginning to make things way easier)

Then I press

Up + A + B + C, Right + A, Down + B, Left + C

which makes a 'ding' sound, and doesn't appear to do much until you go to the next stage. The next stage will have a ship part on it, collect it and...

Bam! It's the last piece!

Collect it and it's Ending Sequence for you!

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.

The NES Addams Family game is kind of tough, which means that you're going to be seeing this a lot:

But! Just like the Super NES game, you can just throw more lives at the game and brute-force your way through.

First, go to the title screen

Then press the following buttons on the controller:

A, B, B, A, Left, Right, Left, Right

If done right, you'll see a green letter C appear on the top-left of the screen

Now you'll have as many tries as you need to finish the game

And you're going to need as many as you can get.

You remember Waldo, right? The guy that stood around in a series of very busy pictures while you hunted for him? Turns out that was in some video games, too, like The Great Waldo Search.

But, unlike the books, there's a strict time limit that you can extend slightly by finding little clocks in the levels.

Or, you can plug in a second controller and press the B button. Do that and the clock will stop counting down, giving you plenty of time to find everything in the stage.

And, since you get bonus points for having extra time on the clock when you're done, if you stop the clock immediately, you'll get a heck of a bonus when you finish each stage.

So that's what I'd do.

Final Fight is a port of the arcade game of the same name. But unlike the arcade game, you can't just keep pumping quarters into it to brute-force your way through it, you have a finite amount of lives and continues to work with.

But you have a secret weapon.

At the title screen

Hold down the L button and press Start, and you get a hidden Option screen!

You get to adjust all kinds of things here: difficulty, extra lives, frequency of additional lives, there's a sound test to listen to, and you can even turn the 'Extra Joy' on or off.

I like to turn the 'Extra Joy' on.

Solstice is pretty hard, your wizardy guy is very fragile and not very maneuverable, kind of like real life wizards. But there's a way to give yourself an advantage.

First, press Start a new game and then press Select to access your inventory screen.

Then, press the following buttons:

B, Start, Start, B, B, Start, Start, B, B, Start, Start, Start, B, Start, B, B, B, Start, Start, Start, B, Start, B, Start, Start, B, Start, Start, B, B, Start, B, Start

Your screen will start flashing weird colors.

Exit the inventory screen and come back to find that you have four full potions and a stack of lives (about 90). Will that be enough of an edge for you to finish the game? If not, it'll sure help you play longer.

Gun.Smoke is one of those games that's a self-scrolling shooting game, but with cowboys instead of flying machines. You start off pretty weak (natch) and have to slowly walk forward shooting the bad cowboys and buying guns from the townsfolk.

But, what if you went to the title screen

And quickly pressed

A, A, A, A, Select, Select, Select, Select, Right, Right, Start

And then checked your inventory?

You'd have a machine gun to do anything you want with.

Me, I like mowing down everyone in the first level with it.

The second Legend of Zelda game is polarizing in the Zelda fan community because it's way different than the first game, but assuming you did like it, I've got a tip to that'll help you out.

Normally, once you lose all your lives (you get three to start) you get the game over screen and the choice to save the game or to continue. Which is great, until you want to save and quit and there's no easy way to blow through your extra lives to generate the Save screen.

In that case you would press Start to pause the game

Then press Up on the Cross-pad and A on Controller 2. The result?

Taken directly to a Save screen!

Handy!

If you play Super Mario Kart enough, you're going to get better, that's pretty much a given. But, what if you get so good at the game that you have nothing left to do? Nothing left to unlock, and the game's just not challenging any more?

Well, you could go to your driver select screen

Then hold Y and press A

Your driver shrinks! Just like he hit a poison mushroom or was hit by lightning. Start the race and:

You retain shrinky status, which means that not only is your top speed lower, but if you get hit by another kart you get flattened and immobilized for a few seconds

You can temporarily cancel the effects by grabbing a poison mushroom, but you'll shrink again when it wears off

How's that for a challenge?