MEGA Guide is the part of MCCW for tips and help on playing games. This first part was just written by me but I hope that I will receive some material of our readers. So, please mail me if you got a great cheat or tip. But also when you are stuck in a game. Yes, this part of MCCW totally depends on the input from the readers. Of course you will get credit and fame for all published material that you handed in. In MCCW the reward for your input is the eternal fame of having your name in our web magazine. In any case: please send me material, or this part of MCCW will end very soon.

     This new MEGA Guide will have a ‘direct help’ service. This means that you can always send me an e-mail with questions about games. If I can, I will answer you within three days. If I cannot find the answer in that time, I will search for it. When successful, I will publish the answer in the MEGA Guide. So, do not hesitate to e-mail me, because your input in the form of questions is also material for this part of MCCW and the more I get, the more likely it is that I can continue with MEGA Guide.

     Every game hint that I receive will be checked, so all of them should work. However, if something goes wrong with this, please mail me so that I can put it right in the next Guide. For this issue, we are going to put some things right, first. Some game tips are published with errors in them. It is not a problem if the errors are corrected later, but most of the time this does not happen and the erroneous tip is copied and recopied and many people complain that it does not work. So here are a few corrected tips with an explanation about what went wrong, if possible.

Arkanoid, Taito (MSX1, ROM)
A great break out clone from Taito, which was released for many systems. And sometimes this can be very handy: there are a lot of Japanese MSX games released in English for some consoles or even for the pc. However, most of these versions have small differences. In issue 70 of MCCM someone mentioned the password DSIMAGIC. A few MCCMs later, someone said that it did not work. Well it does work in the pc version of Arkanoid, but not in the MSX version.

     As you see this is a nice lesson for the future. It can sometimes be very handy to play an MSX-game on another system. But remember that if you give tips the game, that they must work in the MSX version. So, if you want to translate some menus easily, by just taking over the English menu text in the console version, do not forget to look if it is exactly the same menu in the MSX version. I have seen it myself with Ys 3: three different versions means three different menus.

     To come back to Arkanoid: there is a cheat mode in the MSX version. Just hold GRPH at the beginning and push the cursors up and down a few times and you will get infinite lives.

Dynamite Dan, Mirrorsoft (MSX1, cas)
Another old tip which is wrong: many people claim that you if you push F9 and F10 together, you will get infinite lives. Wrong! If you press these two keys you will go directly to the safe and have enough Dynamite. Now, there is a nice trick you can do with these buttons: if you walk against the door and press the two keys quickly enough, you will be teleported to the place on the right side of the screen and it will not cost you any lives for blowing up the door. Dynamite Dan also has a cheat mode for infinite lives: press SHIFT, A, S, D, Z, X, C all simultaneously. If you do this for a second time, you will no longer have infinite lives.

     The next tip is for a newer game, called ‘The Lost World’. This game is a nice RPG from UMAX, which looks like Dragonslayer 6. I think it is a great game, except for the ending. I will explain two things about this game that have been asked to me many times.

The Lost World, UMAX (MSX2, 4*2DD, Stereo)
Question 1: what is the cheat mode and were can I enter it? Enter this in the title screen: A, A, R, A, B, Z, A, R, A, Q. If you typed it correctly, the game will go to the start-menu. Now choose ‘NEW GAME’ and you will start with Joshua at level 75 with some nice spells and the mirrorshroud, so that you have a really easy time playing the game. This also brings me to a big question, which I have been asked for several times: where is the Altar of Eternal Power? It is in the desolate waste of Northland. There are some caves in this area and in one of the caves there is the Altar of Eternal Power. Put the three skulls on the Altar and a door will open. Now walk to the north until you find a stone on which the password is written.

Livingstone, I Presume?, Opera soft (MSX1, cas)
And now a tip for an old game again. A long time ago, there were still many commercial European game makers. One of them was the Spanish company Opera Soft. They did not only make Ease, but also some great games like ‘La Abadia del Crimen’. This tip is about two of their other games; both having exactly the same cheat. It is known that you can cheat with The Last Mission MSX2, with the following (this does not work in the MSX1 version): press STOP, now type OPERA, press RETURN and press STOP again. You now have infinite lives.

     Only a few people know that it also works with ‘Livingstone, I Presume?’. Note that it only works in the MSX1 version of the game. The MSX2 version has a different subtitle and was released only in Spanish. Anyway, the game will be a lot easier with this tip.

     Remember the Game Builder? The old game making tool, published by MSX Club Magazine. It is a nice program, but many people made the big mistake to only use the routines of the example game ‘The Castle’... and so all games made with Game Builder are very similar. Some games do not have this problem: The ATP, The Castle of Blackburn and Lizard. However, most were just new Castle games. Consequently, Game Builder does not have a good reputation as a game creation tool. I think that it can be useful, though, as long as you make new game routines. It can be very frustrating to play almost the same game ten times: why don’t we just load the end demo too see if the programmer did make something nice in the end? The next tip is how you can do this for one of the Castle clones.

Anger, MSX Club Magazine (MSX2, 1DD)
If you want to see the end demos you have to do the following. Start your MSX up in basic and type:
RUN"anger.014" for the end demo with the bad end
RUN"anger.015" for the one with the happy end.

Bomberman Special, Hudson Soft (MSX1, ROM)
Warning: this is not the Paragon MSX2 game, but a game of Hudson Soft which was released quite some time ago. There should also be a cassette version around. This would then be the officially released version for Europe. But I have never seen the cassette itself.

     Here are the passwords for the first 13 stages:

     Another tip: when a bomb explodes and another bomb is laying in the explosion line, it explodes together with the first one. So check if your in a safe position, before you blow yourself up. This multi bomb explosion can be very useful sometimes, though! And the last tip: the ghosts can walk through walls, but not through bombs.

Nemesis 3, Konami (MSX2, 2MEGAROM, SCC)
Most people know that Nemesis 3 has four passwords, which can be used when the game is paused, after pressing F1. Now most people already know what FIND does. For the people who do not: it will detect the weapons and maps and other stuff for you. The other two are also known. GOOD increases the difficulty level by one, while HARD decreases it by one. Now let me explain what the last known password does, since I have not seen any explanation so far. EXPAND just extends the shield duration: your shield will last twice as long. All passwords are typed in using F1passwordRETURNF1.

Ninja-kun, HAL/UPL (MSX2, 1MEGAROM)
Sometimes you will encounter stages that have two exits. The trick is to finish the level not via the easy exit, otherwise you won’t get the extra weapons as bonus. If you solve scene 3 by going through the difficult exit you will get boomerangs. For scene 6 you will get grenades. Now in one of the levels close after the second one with two exits, the bombs will be very useful to you. I think it was in scene 9 that you have to defeat two big jumping enemies. If you have the grenades, then just throw two grenades on both creatures. If you do not have grenades then I wish you good luck, because defeating them with ninja stars or boomerangs is much more difficult.

Super Rambo, Pack-In-Video (MSX2, ROM)
Are you such a sick guy, that you count dead bodies when playing this game? There is a nice cheat for all those freaks. With this cheat you will no longer have to count the bodies yourself. Just press F1 for the ‘Body Count Mode’: the computer counts the dead bodies and you can concentrate on making as many dead bodies as you want.

Puyo vs Gorby, Compile/S.T.U.F.F. (MSX2, 2DD, stereo)
Everybody wants to have the high score. Using the next tip you will see that you will get a lot more points in the same time compared to normal, which enables you to get the second place in the hall of fame by only playing the first stage. Shoot all Puyos until they are red. The Puyos that will come through, will form nice structures giving you lots of points. However, there is a bug in the game, which will cause that you never get the highest score. Every time you have the highest score, Carbun will get the same score as yours and stay on top of the list. So you will always be second...

Jagur, Compile & Hudson Soft (MSX1, ROM)
And now for some longer tips! From now on we will try to place a complete solve for a game in each Guide. I will start with a nice MSX1 game that is a crossover between an action game and an RPG. Since I do not know the story of this game at this time, I will only give you the solution itself.

     Let me first explain the controls. If you play with keyboard, you can use all weapons except the bombs with SPACE or SHIFT. Bombs are used differently: first place a bomb with SPACE or SHIFT and then use Z to let them explode. In all other cases, the Z is used to enable the options menu. Selecting is done with Z and to exit the menu you can use SPACE. The items of this menu are explained in the next paragraph. In the shops, use LEFT and RIGHT to select other products. With UP you can talk about other things. This way you can get weapons at some stores or men for your army.

     The options menu has the following items:

1. Leader
   With this option you can select a team member as leader, who is the character for whom you can select another weapon/item. It is also the one who will fight against the boss. Each character has different weapons: Anne has the flame thrower, Roger (my personal favourite) has grenades, Jeff has a gun, Ukon has ninja stars and Guadic has a bazooka.
2. Formation
   With formation you can choose different formations for your group.
3. Item
   Can be used for selecting other weapons. Other items such as drugs which return your HP are automatically used when needed. During a boss fight this will not work, however.
4. Status
   Just shows the status.
5. Contact
   Gives you a code which you can use for playing the game on a later time, starting at the point you you were. For this option you need the receiver, costing $1200.

     With UP you can talk about other things. This way you can get weapons at some stores or men for your army.

     You start with Jef in a little town. Now go to the highest house on the left side, where you will get some money. The same you can do with the highest house on the right side. See also the map in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Map of town 1 in Jagur. Legend: M = place where you can get money J = junk R = rent a jeep ($500) D = drugs F = food B = bar (B1: also has a sound test) + = hospital J1/D3 = sells machine gun and grenades J3 = sells receiver and transmitter

     Now go to the most left bar B1. Just talk, using SPACE and they will ask you to pay $1000. Press SPACE to pay and you will get another character to play with. You should also find the other team members. Because they are randomly placed in the game, I can only give you the following three tips:

1. They should be in a shop: junk, food or drugs. Check J, F, and D on the map.
2. However, they are not in the shops which sell machine guns and grenades.
3. You will need to swap a machine or some other equipment for a person.

     You can buy the following things in the town:

• weapons: grenades, machine gun
• drugs: medicine A, medicine B
• food: A, B; I can’t remember using food actually
• items: transceiver (needed for saving), receiver (I don’t know what it is for, just buy one to be sure.)
• bullets: additional bullets for machine gun
• body armor: this can be bought for any team member and increases defence
• health: in bar 2 and the hospital you can refill your hp points for $400 per person.

Note: most stores let you switch to a second item with LEFT and RIGHT!

     If you do not have five characters at this point, visit all stores again and just buy some different equipment, like grenades, a machine gun, a transceiver and a receiver. Talk with the aforementioned store owners again, until you have all five. So now we have our private army. What for? Well, we are going to the warzone!

     To go to the warzone, go to the house (R on map) near the hospital and pay the $500. Then walk to the jeep and step in it. For this, just move down when you are ‘above’ the jeep. Now you will drive to a new screen, with some buildings. Some contain enemy soldiers and others have paths to other places. Here is a simple ‘map’:

     * Temple * Forrest * Town 2 * Base * Rocks * End-temple *
      *The area between the Town 1 and other places*
                    * Town 1 *

     What you have to do first is buy a bazooka. You can get it on a house on the right side in this area, for $2250. Close to this house there is a house in which you can refill your health for $400 per person. Use this if you need it. After you got the bazooka, you can start with getting the dolls. You will need five dolls before you can go to the end temple. Let us start with the rocks. Just walk through the opening which leads to them, see the map. Blow up some rock with the bazooka and walk through the rocky area. You will find some statue with water on the left. Blow up the rock with the bazooka and enter it. The other rocks that are before some caves can also be blown up. When fighting the boss, jump up or duck when he shoots at you. When you have defeated him, you will get a statue.

     So, that is one area cleared. Now lets go to the base. Just enter every building until you get the flame thrower. (A red bar with fire on it.) As soon as you get it, select this item and go to the flower fields. Destroy all the flowers with the flame thrower. You should find a hole. Select your fighter and enter the hole for the next boss. Just kill him in the same way as the first boss.

     After this, go to the forest. Walk until you find six red holes in the ground. Search the area for six big statues and put them on the holes. The only problem that you will have, is that there are some trees in your way. However some trees can be blown up with your bazooka, so that you can place the statues on the holes. When completing this, two statues before a house will move apart. Walk through the hole and blow up some trees. Enter the house. Here is the next boss, defeat him the same way as the other two.

     After defeating him, go to the temple. Here you must find five red scrolls. First enter the three houses, which will give you three scrolls. Now you must blow up some parts of the temple. On the left there are three sort of towers on a row. Blow up the second one with the bazooka and enter the hole. Here you find the fourth one. The fifth is in a tower on the left. If I am right, it is the left one in the second row. Enter this hole and you will find the fifth scroll. Go up and enter the big temple door for the fourth boss. Guess how to defeat him... yeah, just like the other bosses.

     The next thing you should do is visit all the houses. There is one house with a guy who wants to sell you a letter (which you cannot see) for $800 dollars. Buy it. Next, make sure to have $12000 and go the second town. The person in the house before the bridge will let you pass because of the letter. Go the big house above the bridge. There, you will see a lady with green hair. She will join you. Next, buy all new items in town and enter every house and hut until you meet a lady with purple hair. At this point the music will change and you will have to go back to the big house above the bridge. Here you will fight the fifth boss. After defeating it, go to the end-temple. Walk as soon as you can. Enter the only entrance and you will have to finish off the end boss. Just kill him the same way as the other bosses and you have finished Jagur: you will see an end demo and a credits scroll.

     That is it for this first issue. In the next issue we will have new short tips, for at least Pentaro Odyssey 2. We will also have the perfect solve of King Kong 2. I have received so many questions about this game and finally there will be one perfect English solve. It will also contain some other short tips. I hope you enjoyed it and please give me some feedback.

     A short note from the editors:

     Of course there will never be a next issue, unfortunately...