Most of the actual gameplay in E.V.O. isn't all that hard... but then you come to the bosses, and they're way bigger, stronger, and more maneuverable than you, which hardly seems fair.

But you have one weapon on your side, your Evo menu.

If you're low on health, pop it open

And choose anything, like changing the length of your neck, which doesn't affect your attack or defense

And when the process is complete, full health!

Any minor change will do it, so it's usually a good idea to stock up on E.V.O. points before facing a tough challenge.

One of the annoying parts about the first NES Ghostbusters game is the driving portion (the everything else is also pretty bad), but if you absolutely must play it, there is a way to cut down on the amount of time you have to play this game.

On the driving segments, you can press Up on the Control Pad to drive as fast as possible. Then hang out in one of the corners of the screen.

Due to a glitch, you'll actually use slightly less gas at full speed and most of the other cars on the road will sail right by you.

Just remember that this isn't foolproof

But it's close enough for me.

Stage 4-3 of Super Mario Bros. 2 is a kind of long one. You have to go across an impossible-to-jump-over gap, then climb up one tower and down another before fighting the boss of the area.

But you can skip most of that.

First, choose the Princess.

Ride the Birdo Egg across the gap as normal

Then, instead of going through the door, make a flying leap toward the right.

Once you land, go in the second door on that platform

To skip right to the boss's chamber!

This cuts the stage down to just a couple of minutes... unless you go in that door that I told you to not go in. That one is locked on the other side, which will require you to scale the tower, grab a key, and then go back down, which totally negates taking this shortcut in the first place.

One of the things about playing arcade games is that you don't really have much guidance to tell you the ins and outs of the game. So, when I got the Super NES version of Turtles in Time, I was surprised to learn that there was a move in the game that I didn't know about, a shoulder tackle. The instructions in the manual were kind of vague, but I was eventually able to figure out what to do, and I'm going to share that with you today.

To do it, you first start running (depending on how your game is set up, either by double-tapping a direction or just holding it in for a few seconds)

Then, while running, press the Jump Button to do a handspring, which doesn't actually do any damage to anyone

Then, the instant that completes, press the Attack Button to do your shoulder tackle!

And, since it's kind of tough to follow along with just my description, I've provided an animated .gif for you here.

And, yes, this does work on the arcade version.

One of the most useful techniques in the NES Gauntlet port is shooting through the gaps in some of the walls to clear out a bunch of baddies in total safety before rounding a corner.

Unless you pick the Warrior. He's got the strongest weapon, true, but he's slow, and when he tries to shoot through the corners

He totally can't, his shots are too large.

Making the Warrior almost completely useless, so I wouldn't bother picking him... unless you want to make the game harder on yourself for some reason.

Recently I came across an article titled: 'The 15 Most Annoying Levels In Video Game History', and right at the top of the list was the second half of the Dam Level (a.k.a the second half of Level 2) from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. This level seems to come up a lot when people start talking about tough levels in games, but it's really not even all that hard as long as you remember to stay away from anything that's glowing. I've prepared a video walkthrough to illustrate.

Observe:

No, the Dam is child's play compared to Level 4, the JFK Airport. That level is an exercise in annoyance and difficulty, and one that we'll have to tackle another day.

In Super Mario Kart, every time you win a race you have to start in the back of the pack for the next one, I guess to make it fair to the rest of the racers somehow. But with a little knowledge, this won't be much of a problem.

If you can get your kart's engine revved up to just the right point, you can take off like you used a mushroom for a speed boost, but it's kind of hard to do.

Or is it?

When the countdown for the race starts, right after the first light/buzzer goes 'beep', lay on the gas

If you've timed it just right, you'll rocket ahead like a shot!

You just have to remember to steer around the racers that are in front of you, otherwise you run the risk of slamming headlong into Donkey Kong Jr.'s backside going full speed, and nobody wants that.

One of the kinds of games that have kind of fallen out of favor in recent years is the button-mashing competitive sports game.

And no, that's not a bad thing.

But if you're playing one, like the original Skate or Die and its High Jump mode

You and (optionally) your friends will take turns hitting the buttons as fast as you can, getting cramped arms, and getting lame scores

But plug in a turbo controller, though, and you can sail to superhuman heights. Just make sure that you pass the controller around so that everybody gets the same high scores.

Then you can move on to the events that take actual skill, and save yourself from getting cramped forearms.

When you're playing through the Super NES Legend of Zelda game, you come across lots of walls that look like they can be destroyed to find some goodies behind them, but some of them are just old, crumbly, and not real breakable. Wouldn't it be great if there were some way to tell them apart?

And there totally is!

First, find a wall that you want to test. Then press and hold the Sword Button (commonly known as the 'B' Button) then walk into whatever wall you want to test. Keep trying to walk into the wall and Link will eventually start tapping on the wall with his sword.

If it's a normal, non-breaky wall, you'll hear this tapping sound.

But!

If it's a breakable wall, you'll hear this tapping sound instead.

Which will save you time, effort, and you won't waste time throwing bombs around walls that will never break.

So it's totally win-win... er... win.

Pretty much since the video games kept score, it's been the obsession of a lot of people to get as many points as possible to show that they were the best player. And an arcade game called 'Giga Wing' takes that to its crazy extreme.

In Giga Wing, you have the ability to reflect enemy shots back at them, which allows you to collect these shield emblems, emblems that when collected increase your score multiplier, and your score multiplier increases the number of points you get every time you shoot down and enemy ship. And very quickly in this game there are lots of shots and lots of enemies that explode into a shower of pickups when hit

Seriously, it's enough anyone to get a score in the hundreds of millions.

But that's nothing compared to people who are actually good at the thing. Heck, you have to go through the whole game on one credit to see the 'real ending', and if you manage to do that, your score rockets up to the crazy-high territory: the Trillions.

Needless to say that I'm probably not going to achieve that any time soon. But maybe you can, if you can find a Giga Wing arcade machine (or a copy of the Dreamcast port).