From: shaggy@av8r.uucp (Chris Taylor)
Subject: X-Men tips
Organization: Daniel Webster College, Nashua, NH
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 01:51:11 GMT

In article <l6ltq7INNic0@male.EBay.Sun.COM> jasonf@wayfarer.EBay.Sun.COM (Jason Freund) writes:
}[X-Men] has excellent sound and music ....

     Konami did a very good job with the music. Stereo helps.
Unfortunately the unit I play on has the speakers wired backwards!
Makes you wonder...

}	Nightcrawler ... can jump faster and farther than any other
}charcter....

     Wolverine jumps about as far, though not as fast. His jump kick
(the attack you get when pressing jump and attack at the same time)
will hit bosses twice in one shot if he's properly positioned.
Colossus can do the same with his jump kick. No matter who you use,
though, be careful when attacking mandroids. (I'm not sure of that
name. I'm talking about the guys either wearing green power suits and
carrying grenade launchers or wearing red power suits and carrying a
gun that shoots a sort of fireball.) The green mandroids will lob a
grenade right at you if you jump at them. The red mandroids will shoot
=after= you jump, then take a swing at you if you land in their
vicinity.

}[Nightcrawler's] super-power is the only one that zaps everything on
}the screen.

     Not quite. It's random -- sometimes you'll nail everything, more
often you'll get a little over half of what's on the screen. Usually
he'll miss something because it's in the air: the bee, the bat, and
rock-carrying sentinels before they land. His power is ideal for
multiple large targets, such as the vehicles carrying tons of
mandroids in one haul or the two or three bosses at once you come up
against in the last round.

}Stand between robots with boulders so they throw them at each other.

     Nah. I'd rather punch the sentinel from behind, then punch the
rock as it falls down. Two points! Besides, the sentinels don't always
hit each other with the rocks they throw.

}... I think it helps if [multiple X-men] stick very close together ...

     Except that one player inevitably throws an enemy right into the
others. Ouch! There goes a couple life points. A better strategy is to
spread out: start with the edges, then the corners, then the middle.
If only two or three people are playing, make sure one player stays in
the back so the screen won't inadvertently scroll forward.  (Doing
this prevents enemies from appearing until =you're= ready to attack
them.) If you've got four or more players, put one in each corner,
with the remaining two in the middle or on the sides, depending on
where enemies are.
     I wouldn't recommend ganging up on bosses, either. What usually
happens to me is that a boss will grab one player and throw them right
at the other players. This is just as if a player threw an enemy,
except it can do more damage. Usually only one or two players
attacking from opposite ends is better. Storm does well for this job
because she has the longest reach of any player.

}Can anyone say for sure whether there are fewer opponents when
}playing with less people?

     Definitely. As more people join the game, the number and strength
of the enemies increases. This game can be a challenge (perhaps I
should say "quartermuncher" =8) ) when six people are playing
together. Since there are so many enemies attacking at once, it takes
real teamwork to stay alive any appreciable amount of time.
     One of the keys to staying alive is this game is simple: don't
use your mutant power unless you must. An example of when =not= to use
a mutant power is getting grabbed by a boss. You can use your mutant
power, knock the boss down, and lose three life units; or you can take
the fall, lose two life units, get up, hit the boss two or three times
while he's recovering from throwing you, and knock him down anyway.
     There are only three times you should consider using a mutant
power:
       1) to destroy objects that can take more than one hit
          (excluding bosses). Examples are the mandroid carriers, the
          bee, the bat, and the killer flowers. Even then, this use is
          questionable since these enemies can be avoided or attacked
          in other ways.
       2) to prevent you from losing life points to large numbers of
          sentinels, mandroids, and lizards. Examples are the point at
          which about 10 red mandroids appear halfway through the
          fourth round and the scads of mandroids and sentinels which
          crowd you into falling off the cliff at the beginning of the
          sixth round. In these cases, it's better to waste three life
          points -- and the enemies <evil grin> -- than to let them
          continue punching/shooting/flaming/tail-whipping you to
          death. Go ahead, fry 'em!
       3) Magneto. He's the guy you've been saving up all those power
          balls for, right? Well, now's the time to use them! If six
          players have saved nine power balls and are at full power
          when they start attacking Magneto, that's =72= mutant power
          attacks. I've never seen it done, but there's no way Magneto
          should survive it.


     Other points to consider:

     * Don't use a mutant power when Magneto's shield is up. You won't
hit him; instead, you'll knock the shield out. After that, Magneto
either immediately turns the shield on again or shoots at whoever's in
front of him. Also, don't use Nightcrawler's power on Magneto's
shield. You'll knock out the shield, but you'll lose three life points
in the deal when Nightcrawler slams into the shield.

     * Throw sentinels! Always throw sentinels if you can. Each player
throws in a fairly predictable pattern. Usually you must knock down or
destroy an enemy before you can throw a sentinel. Each player's
movements are a little different, though:
       Cyclops: run into the sentinel and hit attack. Instant throw!
          He and Nightcrawler are the easiest with which to perform
          throws.
       Colossus: his throw is fun to watch. Walk up to a sentinel,
         turn around and hit attack. He'll grab the sentinel from
         behind and toss him overhead. Be careful, though: if Colossus
         just does a punch, turn around fast before he gets hit by the
         sentinel!
       Wolverine: I've had difficulty making Wolvie throw
         consistently. From what I've found, you need to walk past a
         sentinel so you're facing away from him, then turn around and
         hit attack. Your distance from the sentinel is critical in
         making Wolvie's throw work.
       Storm: walk up to a sentinel until you're just in range of him,
         then attack. She'll flip the sentinel right around. As with
         Wolverine, you must be at just the right distance.
       Nightcrawler: just like Cyke. Walk up and hit attack.
       Dazzler: get just in range of a sentinel and attack. She'll
         grab the sentinel, then do a cartwheel, throwing the enemy at
         the same time. Again, distance is important.
     Dazzler's throw is interesting because she's the only player who
throws =forward=. All other players throw backward relative to their
original direction. This can make a player vulnerable if faced with a
tight group of enemies, since after he throws, his back is
automatically turned away from the remaining enemies and he can be hit
from behind. When Dazzler throws, she is automatically turned around,
too -- but this time, she's facing the direction she just came from.
So if she's fighting two or three baddies at once, she can throw a
sentinel, cartwheel through the bunch of enemies at the same time,
then be automatically turned around to punch out the remainder. Neat,
huh?

     * With any boss, if they are about to throw a player, walk up to
the boss and punch him. He'll drop the other player and often get
knocked down in the process.
     * Pyro is easy to kill with jump kicks. If you're on the edge of
the screen and Pyro does a flying kick, you do the same. You'll hit
him almost every time once you get the timing down.
     * When fighting the Blob, always hit him in front. When you knock
him down, continue hitting him in front; just before he gets up,
you'll knock him back a bit and he'll "Oof!" a little. That's your cue
to get out of the way. If you hit him from behind when he's down,
he'll get up without warning and slap everyone silly.
     * The Wendigo is easy to beat. Just stand there and wait for him
to jump at you. When he does, punch him two or three times and he'll
fall down.
     * The White Queen is almost as easy to beat as the Wendigo.
Pound away at her; the instant you see her move her arm out, move
away. Wait for her to shoot or strike, then go back in and knock her
down.
     * The three boss players with sickles at the end of the sixth
round (I don't remember their names -- I like the X-men comic, but I
didn't read it =that= much =8) ) can be a real pain at times. I've
found no sure-fire way of tackling them, but I found that it helps
when you move above one of them, then move down so you're overlapping
him on the screen. Often he won't be able to hit you with his sickle
and you can pound on him until he falls down. =Don't= try to use
flying attacks on them, even with Nightcrawler! They just raise their
sickles up and pluck you right out of the air. Scratch three life
points.
     * Next time you fight Magneto, look in the upper-left corner of
the screen for a red square. Almost every time before Magneto attacks,
this red square will flash.


     If anyone else discovers any tricks, finds any bugs, or has some
more hints, I'm interested in hearing about them.
     Oh, yeah -- can you tell I've played this a little? Nah... =8)
-- 
Chris Taylor (N1KFM)     decvax!av8r!shaggy  or  shaggy@av8r.uucp