From: youngj4@warren1c.its.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Young)
Subject: Re: X-Men -Can somebody help me !!!!!
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 20:04:57 GMT


X-men help and hints appeared on here awhile back, I'll see if I
still don't have the file around here...

In general, I play Nightcrawler because of said jump kick, speed and
the mutant power's high chance of getting you out of trouble.  
Everyone else you can get slammed right after you toast everyone
else on the OTHER side of the board, well, except Colossus.
(A good strategy is to stick around a good Colossus player or a 
bad one who uses his/her (going by player, here) mutant power lots.  
 (half smile) )

But seriously.  A general infighting tactic, is 'know your limits.'
 Dazzler has the WORST, IMHO, hand to hand attack range, Nightcrawler's
got decent range from that hunched over stance.  If you swing and miss,  
you WILL get hit.  Konami's 'battle royal' games all let you have the first
shot, in general, but it's important to make that count.  
Throwing your opponents (an iffy thing based on distance from your opponent)
is actually BAD, when playing with lotsa players, even if it does look
really cool on the screen.  Reason is, 'use opponent as missile' WILL
knock down players as well, although all your other attacks never 
hurt your friends.    

 Most important, by far, is 'use that screen!'  The screen is 3-d: if
the robots are lined up with you ( on the same horizontal level on the
screen) the ones that shoot, WILL.   If you have a good reaction time,
however, you can pull down, push up or if you want to be daring, jump
over the flying beam/hand/whatnot.  When I'm Nightcrawler, I hit
the attack button and reverse the attack, nailing him. *grin* 
Gotta love that flying kick.   Duck and dodge and pick off robots in
ones and twos.  If too many robots are standing in the same spot,
and you try and take down the pile with standard attacking, ONE of them
is going to nail you.   A common multi-player tactic is when they have
'doors' they come outof, team up and stand one on each side of the door,
and just whale away.    My own tactic is to take Nightcrawler, and run
around in back of the robots -- they turn around VERY slowly -- and
hit them with no risk to myself.  The big robots occasionally turn around
and smash me, however.  (Another plus of NC is that the really close in
attack is a crouched hit that shots fired horizonal (not grenade launchers)
while I'm attacking will miss.) 

 Of dubious worth is the two button special attack- it's a standing
jump kick as far as I know for everyone.  It WILL kill your opponent 
if you connect, but if you miss, you're way helpess.

Rarely does a single knockdown kill an opponent.   However, when you knock
someone down, if there's time, run over to the fallen opponent, pull down 
on the stick while standing above him, and hit the attack button repeatedly.
The mutant will do a 'finish off' attack sequence (Storm's is this
'reach down and electrocute' thing, real painful-looking..)

 Other tactics: Work as a team, with multiplayer. There are no powerups,
foods, or whatnots to steal/hoard from other players.  If someone else
is in trouble, help 'em out.  Divide up the screen somewhat, with people
taking the left right and middle screens as quadrants, while moving 
along, or team up in bunches.  Robots are no match for mutants. *GRIN*
Watch the big robots with the guns: They generally set up for an attack
(a crouch to one knee) a half second before they fire. Dodge.  Quick.


 Don'ts:  Don't jump without coming down with an attack.  If you do,
you get this real slow floating landing that gives robots a lot of time
to line up with you.   Don't flying jump approach a big green robot
(grenade launcher) because if they fire, you'll be knocked out of the air.
Ditto for the robots carrying boulders.  You can't kill them easily either,
because the rock still falls and generally hits you.  I just try and stay
out of the way and hope I get lucky when they throw.
Don't hit the mutant power button arbitrarily.  It takes three bars off your
health, initially, and then when you're down to like, five, uses up
the 'balls' under your name (you start with two and get one after each
level on the games I've played) and then your mutant power doesn't work.
It produces neat-looking effects, but also shortens your life-expectancy.
Save it for when there's a slew of monsters on the screen, to clear them out.
Or when (as I was very thankful for to the Storm player) you see a friend
surrounded by baddies.. (WHOOOOSH...and Nightcrawler's standing in a pile
of dead critters..*phew*) 

Fighting Mutants: This is one of the harder aspects of the game.
 Mutants have mutant powers too, and they don't lose health by using
them, unlike you.  This, however, is where if you saved up any mutant
power uses, is the place to use them, because they recharge your 
health AND give you another power ball after the end of the level.
(and with the exception of the White Queen, that IS the end of the 
level when you polish off said mutant.)  

Pyro: throws these NASTY fire bombs. Do NOT jump in on Pyro.  
 If you see him raise his hands, move down or up on the screen.
 'Cause he's gonna hurl.  He also jumps around alot, which is annoying.
  But, as the first opponent, he's not that hard.

Blob: ("Nothing Moves the Blob.." ..Storm: 'Oh yeah? WHOOSH') 
 One of the easier/harder mutants to kill, depending if you have    
cooperative players.   A trick I've heard of (and used in practice)
 is there's a certain amount of hits that it takes to knock him down.
  You can, unlike the others, hit him while he's down, and if you
 hit him that number of times to get a knockdown minus one, one hit
 will knock him down again when he does get up.  Repeat process until
 he's dead. 

Windigo: Try not to let him line up with you, he's got this nasty
charging attack that will hit from wayfar away.   Get in close if you
want to attack, but be prepared to soak up some damage as well.
Hit and run works decently.

The White Queen: Nail her with everything you've got.  She generally
stands facing to the left, a possible tactic is to use a character as 
'bait' and dodge lightning, while someone else beats on her,
but in general only heavy doses of mutant power seem to be really
effective. (NOTE: This is NOT the end of the level when you kill her:
 run up to the top of the screen right after she dies, because 
there will be these insect things coming out of the wall shortly after.

The robot holding Kitty: Up and down hit and run works real well.
 Hit, move up, wait for him to take a step to follow, move down, hit,
move down.  I did this one by myself, no mutant power.

Juggernaut: Again, stay out of the line of fire, I don't remember
 how we killed him, though.

The statues: Hit and run...not sure if this ends the level, it might not,
come to think of it, ditto Mystique.  But by Mystique, we're too busy
trying to toast everything before it kills us to worry about conserving
health. 

Magneto: Look out!  Using your mutant power on Magneto when he's in
'charged ball' mode will BOUNCE your mutant power right back at you..

In general: Communicate.. people I play TMNT (original) with are really
really surprised when I tell them,  'Don't kill the guys on the skateboards!'
on the skateboard board.   But they are definitely grateful for the trick
when I explain what that does... Using mutant power on a downed mutant
wastes the charge.  Nominate someone to use their power on them, take turns,
yell, 'I'm up', 'I'm out', whatnot.  Three and four mutants have little
trouble finishing the game if you do this...  

One other thing: Some opponents (Windigo most notably) have a hangtime 
 when they're beating the snot out of you in a sequence, i.e., Windigo
will lift you up and go, 'AHRRR..').. if you get caught in one of these,
 hit the mutant power button.  You're going to lose the health anyway.
  
+'s/-'s of the various mutants from my own warped point of view
available on request.  I love this game. *grin*  Especially the 
fact that it rolls over when you finish it... always hated the way
any other game ate your quarter when done.

Have fun...
Taldin


-- 
TTTTT AA    LL DDDD   II   II NN      "I don't believe in a religion
   TT  AA   LL DD  D  II   II NNNN      that doesn't believe in me."
  TT  AAAA  LL DD   D   II II NN NN        Taldin The Blue Unicorn
 TT  AA  AA LL DDDDDD IIIIII  NN  NN          youngj4@pawl.rpi.edu
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