Tips and Tricks

[sloan]

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I did a search of the RVG forums and came up with nothing similar, so forgive me if I missed it.

I remember tricks to games of yore, and figured it might be good if a thread were dedicated before they are forgotten for all time. Maybe a pinnable topic? Admins and mods will decide.

So, without further ado, lets get it rolling:

Galaga (arcade): On the first screen, kill all enemies except the furthest left bottom bee, and do not get picked up by the Galaga tractor beams. Allow that final bee to dance and drop bombs for approximately 10-15 minutes until it finally stops dropping bombs (do not allow your ship to die during this time either). After it stops dropping bombs, kill it. Enjoy the remainder of the game with no bombs being dropped. This allows the racking up of some amazingly huge scores so long as you are good at avoiding the diving insects. I have not tried this on any home ports to know if it works, but can vouch for its effectiveness on arcade Galaga machines.

Spider Fighter (Atari VCS): There is a pattern to how the spiders drop their bombs. Since this game has no pause option, a  rest is good at times. If you watch the bomb-dropping pattern carefully you will notice a horizontal gap between where the spiders drop bombs. Kill all spiders except one on any screen and place your ship directly in that gap. Rest, take a bathroom break, get a drink, whatever. Come back and resume your spider fighting at your leisure.

[Shadowrunner]

Good idea, and cool Galaga trick!

[TrekMD]

Great idea for a thread!  We did not have one, so thanks for starting it!

[onthinice]

Some Great Tips, Sloan!!!! Cool Idea!!!!

[zapiy]

Great thread.

Pacman

Apparently it is possible to follow a pattern on each maze that will always clear the screen without being caught by the ghosts, many coin op masters have worked out this pattern and can stay on the game for hours.

[TrekMD]

This is an old one but a good one.  If you have the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders, hold down Reset and Power on the console and then select game 1 and start the game. You'll have double shots to deal with the aliens. 

[TL]

On the last level of Hard Drivin' on the Lynx when you have to beat the photon phantom you have to follow a detour to the stunt track, this is represented by a sign. If you hit the sign at full speed then you can run it over and take a short cut via the easier track.

[TrekMD]

That's a nifty one!

[sloan]

Great tips. Keep them coming.

On many NES games, pushing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, and a buttons in that exact sequence at the game's title screen or after pausing during game action often yields many power ups and goodies not normally available.

One that comes to mind: Gradius. On that NES game, doing the famous button sequence after pausing the game yields a full set of power ups.

Another classic that is know for its difficulty: Contra. Pushing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, and a buttons at the game's title screen awards 30 bonus lives.

[TrekMD]

Dang, so that works for manyl NES games?  I have to give that a try: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a. 

[TL]

Here are my 5 top tips for Theme Park:

• Put loads of salt on your fries, it makes the visitors really thirsty and you can sell more drinks at a higher price.
• Put loads of sugar in your ice cream, it makes it addictive and they will come back for more.
• If you put the Balloon Shop right in front of the entrance every single person will buy one.
• Set a low entrance price to get people on the bus, then raise it just before they get off.
• When you do staff/goods negotiations bring the hand forward quickly like you are going to agree to their terms then start to pull it away and they will follow. Sometimes you can even get them to take a loss!

[TrekMD]

Here are my 5 top tips for Theme Park:

• Put loads of salt on your fries, it makes the visitors really thirsty and you can sell more drinks at a higher price.
• Put loads of sugar in your ice cream, it makes it addictive and they will come back for more.
• If you put the Balloon Shop right in front of the entrance every single person will buy one.
• Set a low entrance price to get people on the bus, then raise it just before they get off.
• When you do staff/goods negotiations bring the hand forward quickly like you are going to agree to their terms then start to pull it away and they will follow. Sometimes you can even get them to take a loss!

True capitalism at its best!  Give them heart attacks and diabetes, lie, and then cheat!   

[sloan]

Y, I thought the same  Give the customers diabetes while you're at it.

[HomerRamone2084]

Theres definatley patterns for Pacman though I think different romsets change these

http://nrchapman.com/pacman/


You can also hide from the ghosts here:

You need to go there when none of them can actually see you do it or they will find you.

In Space invaders when the invaders reach the very last level before they land the bombs from the bottom rom wont blow you up (Which I think is because they start past where your ship is). Used to use this all the time in later levels when they start lower down. You leave one invader at one end, clear out a few rows wait until they reach the last row zip along to the end and come back shooting each bottom invader on the way. (Depending on how far down they are and such depends on which way they will be moving when you do this - works best of they are going say right to left when you are on the left.. Might make a make video of all this at some point - probly make more sense then my ramblings here)

[TL]

Here is a tip for Pit-Fighter:

When you get to the twin Chainman Eddie's you can actually get them to beat each other up! Wait until they are standing next to each other and then cartwheel/roll (depending which character you are) past them as quickly as possible. They will both try to barge you and end up hitting each other instead!