Like pretty much every other game in the series, Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts is a kind of tough game. And that means that unless you spend a lot of time getting good at it, you're never going to see the advanced stages.

Unless...

You go to the Options screen

Highlight 'Exit' and press and hold L + Start on Controller 2 and press Start on Controller 1. Done right, you'll see a second Options screen

Letting you pick where you want to start along with letting you hear whatever music in the game you want!

Which means that you'll finally be able to see what the later stages look like!

I admit, I never was very good at Abadox. Mostly because I had a hard time finding it at my local rental stores, and that means that I never got what you might call 'passably decent' at the thing. And that means that I saw this a lot the few times that I did play it.

So now when I get the urge to play this game, I go to the title screen

And press

On controller one. If I've done it right, I'll be totally invulnerable!

And since the game scrolls on its own, I can totally start a stage, go make a sandwich, come back and defeat the boss, and repeat until I've sailed through to the end.

Which is totally cheating, yeah, but it's been out for over 20 years at this point. I think I can justify it now.

Super Tennis is a surprisingly decent Tennis game. But I can tell, sometimes you want to mess with it. Change it around somehow.

And you can!

First, start a match

Then hit Select on Controller 1 to pause the action

Grab Controller 2 and hit

R, R, Left, Down, B, A, L, L

Then grab Controller 1 and hit B. Done right, you'll see a screen full of gobbledygook come up.

Which is actually a whole bunch of statistics, which you can change to whatever you want. And since they're in Base 16, the highest thing you can adjust them to is 'F'.

And there are four pages of them to change, so you might be there for a second or two.

Then you go back to the game an notice... well... not much, really. But at least I know that my Tennis Star's stats are maxed out, even though they don't seem to do much.

The Bubsy games are a little on the tough side, so you're probably going to want to have all the help you can get going through the levels, right?

Like the second one, for instance. If you go to the title screen

And take Controller One and press:

B, Up, B, Select, y

(which conveniently can be acronymed as 'BUBSY')

And start the game up.

Done right, you should have 50 Bubsys to play with!

Making it way easier to make it through the first few stages, at least.

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...

This is going to sound very similar to something I talked about some time ago, but I assure you, it's totally different.

Totally.

So, you're playing Bad News Baseball and saying to yourself, "Gee, this is great, but I'd like to play with a team of girls rather than a team of guys." And I can understand that. The selection of games featuring women playing competitive sports is, shall we say, lacking.

But!

You totally have the option of changing everyone in Bad News Baseball into women if you perform the following steps:

1. On Controller 1, hold Down + Left
2. On Controller 2, hold Up
3. While holding all of these, turn on your NES (or reset it)

Done right, the mode selection indicator will turn from a baseball

To a heart

And when you start the game, all of the players have female names

And, unlike in Baseball Stars, the players actually look feminine, more or less

At least as much as possible on the limited hardware.

Sorry it took me so long to get to Shaq-Fu. I didn't realize how popular this game was with you guys. If you've never played it, it involves everyone's favorite basketball star, Shaquille O'Neal, in a martial-arts tournament where he has to keep the Earth safe from being invaded by otherworldly forces.

Which sounds great, right? But let's say that you've played it for a bit and want to spice up the action. You could go to the Options Screen

Grab Controller One and (kind of quickly) press

Y, X, B, A, L, R

Done right, you should see the screen momentarily flash red. And that means that when you get into the game, the little white indicators that you've been hit

Will turn red

Which I have been told is supposed to be blood. It's not Mortal Kombat levels or anything, but there you go.

The second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for NES is based off the first one for the arcade, try to not think about that too much.

But, since it's based on an arcade game, it's kind of tough, and there are button codes for level select and for bonus lives to help you out. But why bother with choosing one over the other when you can have both?

First, go to the title screen

Then (kind of quickly) enter the following code:

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

You won't get a confirmation 'ding' or anything, but hit Start and choose your Turtle

If you put the code in right, you'll then be able to choose your starting stage

And when you start playing your chosen stage, you'll have 9 lives to play with

It's totally win-win!

Ring King is a kind of tough game. You have to take your underpowered boxer up against a whole host of guys much more powerful and skilled than you are, which hardly seems fair.

So that's why I like to even the playing field a little bit.

When you're at the Training Gym screen

Grab a couple of controllers (or an NES Advantage with the snazzy switch to toggle between Controllers 1 and 2) and (quickly) press the following sequence.

Controller 2: A, Controller 1: A, Select, A, Controller 2: B, Controller 1: Select, Controller 2: A, B, Controller 1: B, B

You won't get any confirmation or anything, but when you go to the match, you'll notice that you can take all the punishment the other guy can dish out

And it won't cost you any stamina

You will actually have to land a few punches if you want to win, though, so it's not a total cakewalk.

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.