Meecra Chase 2 Guide

By y_c

Welcome guest



This an extension to the guide here, Grivvet does a fine job of outlining the basics and I don't need to go over them again, so if you haven't read his guide yet, do that first, then read this one.

Go here for more guides than you can dream of.

Just because it's important, you MUST play in gravity mode by typing 'superextrahypergravitymode'. This whole guide assumes you're playing in that mode.

These are some "advanced" tactics to refine your playing, I decided I've achieved all I want to do in MC2 so there's no harm in sharing how I play to get my top scores, hopefully it brings in some better challenges in 'Open Challenges' because winning 1954 to scores of 400 for a 10k bet, isn't fun.....easy and profitable, but not fun.

Quickly my records:

Highest score: 2466
Gold Trophy
Rank for Nov 05: #4
Rank for Dec 05: #1 then #5 (hehe died on purpose to keep score under 2k so the score didn't go under review and I got my gold trophy quickly ;))
Completed Neopia Central map 1
Completed Neopia Central map 2 (x2)

I converted all my maps now, I've played too much WC too fast so now I'm really bored with it, my conversions always turned into pretty bad paint brushes so I think my luck is too bad to continue bothering with maps. If you want to convert more than one map, you have to ask a friend or someone you trust if they don't mind letting you use their map space, lots of people arn't interested in playing the games, so having completed maps is a total bonus for them, just be very very very sure you can trust the person or else you'll likely loose your map and the item.

Now the guide starts :)

I've made a movie showing some of the stuff I talk about, which you can download from here:

http://files.filefront.com/meecra1wmv/;4438738;;/fileinfo.html
Neopets doesn't let me link to non-neopets sites, so you have to copy/paste it into your address bar, rest assured there is nothing there to scam you, it's just a movie file, just hit the big "download now" graphic.

The movie shows: an example of black hole surfing, two examples of difficult black hole neggs, an example of falling backwards then some general drifting/tapping movements.

There are 3 basics ways to move around the game area, you must master these before trying anything else, as everything is a combination of drifting and tapping:

Drifting: This simply involves lining yourself up correctly and letting the meecra drift (or slide) into position, due to the gravity that is always pulling you inwards. This means you are not holding the up key, you're letting the gravity move you, nothing else.

Tapping: This is when you need to tap the up key, to make short controlled movements.

Rotating: This is the use of the left and right keys, use these to make your meecra face the direction that you want to move forward in.

If you had two reds like this and you were the M:
R M

R

You would first tap yourself lined up with the top R, then rotate to face your meecra at the same angle the gap is at, then let yourself drift diagonally to the gap, then tap yourself through the gap.

That's the basic idea for everything, drift, tap, drift, tap. The smaller the gap, the less you want to tap. If the gap can just barely fit a meecra through it, DONT tap through, drift and line up then FULL SPEED through it. With a combination of the above 3 methods, you can get most neggs and achieve WC winning scores.

Advanced movements to extend your abilities, these will help you achieve High Score Table scores or help you set new personal bests:

U-Turn: This one is a little tricky and takes practice, you need to tap yourself into the negg head on, then do a tiny tap to the left or right (depending where your exit is), then rotate the meecra to face your tail, and tap yourself along the tail to escape, creating a U shape with your tail. Note, never actually hit your tail :) Make sure you always have your entire tail on one side, it can't be blocking your exit path.

Falling backwards: This is a bit risky, when there's no room for a U turn, you need to fall directly back into yourself. Now it only takes a few moments before the first 3 parts of your tail bunch up and you hit them, to slighty avoid this you need to keep tapping yourself back upwards and slightly altering your angle, letting yourself fall backwards a little further each time. This is not something you can do for a long time but it's still worth a try if it otherwise means you're going to crash anyway. It is helpful when the negg is surrounded by reds but you can just hit the negg, so you hit it and use this method to move away from the reds and back into play.

Black hole angling: This will get most black hole neggs, it's the same as the normal way of just letting your meecra drift into the hole. but instead of letting yourself drift straight into the negg, drift at an angle, it is easier to pull away from the hole if you're at angle, than it is if you're moving straight in to it. You may wish to move straight in the negg if you think your good at doing it that way. I just find it alot easier to move away at angles. I don't mean you need to be MOVING at an angle, you just need your meecra FACING at an angle, if his straight, then if you've been drifting for a while when you move forward, your tail won't uncoil enough and you'll hit it, being at angle, you won't even be near the tail when you move away. Try it both ways and you'll see what I mean.

Black hole surfing: This is probably the hardest thing you can do. It's very very risky and requires you to be quick and alert, but mastering it means you can get neggs that many people think are too far in the black hole and die. For a short distance, you can actually swing the meecra very close to the black holes edge, picking up any negg that is sticking out of the hole (if the whole negg is in the hole, even by just a smidge, you can't get it).

The trick is this, say the negg is at the west side of the black hole and only a bit of it's side is poking out, attempting to slowly fall backwards will be too slow and the hole will eat you. Instead, you need to come in at FULL SPEED, zooming just over the north part of the hole, just be moving in a straight line, right past the top of the hole. If you positioned yourself well zooming past, instead of getting eaten straight away, you'll overshoot the hole by a little bit but still be close enough that it won't let you get away, so instead your meecra will fall back into the hole but at the same time, he'll be orbitting and swinging towards the west negg. At this moment you need to be very quick, and hold down up and left keys at full power. If you're lucky, because of the momentum and the speed of your meecra, as you hit the west negg, you will be just far enough from the hole, that you can angle and zoom away from it. Never for a moment let go of the up key, you need to start using the left key as soon as you overshoot the hole and let go very soon after you hit the negg. It will work if the negg is at the east, just do the reverse. If the negg is at the north or south, it's a little harder just because of how our brains will think but you can just tilt your whole screen if you want :D (joke, don't actually tilt your screen).

Please note, this is incredibly difficult to do and alot of the times you just need to be lucky that you reacted fast enough. Still if you pull it off picking up a fish negg and that means you can get keep playing, you'll be very happy. I don't recommended practicing this too much because it'll just make you angry, just try it out during normal games, if you get it congratulations, if not, don't worry about it. If you don't think you can do it, DONT, it's better to just crash into the fish negg and get the points than it is to loose the meecra before you hit it. If it's just a yellow and your score is already bad, try it out. You will hardly ever need to use it, normally it's best to just use black hole angling for just about every negg near the black hole but sometimes you have a series of reds that force you to use black hole surfing. It is just a little extra type of movement for people who really want to be ready for everything.

General Comments about the black hole: Many people give up too quickly on neggs that appear here. Just remember, that it's ALWAYS worth a shot to attempt to get the negg, never just give up and let yourself get eaten. About 99% of the time, just use black hole angling, you can actually get really close with angling, just be very careful and alert, that's all it takes. Remember you DONT have to get the negg on your first try, if it looks like you've drifted in wrong, move away, loop the game area and try again. I've had to re-try a black hole negg 5 times before I thought I could get it without dying. Be Patient.

General gameplay: The area will become full of reds eventually, sometimes you get nasty mazes early on, other times it takes awhile. Whatever happens you can get past anything that has enough room to fit your meecra. Just be smart and use drifting and tapping to get past almost any red maze that isn't impossible. As a extra tip, ALWAYS make sure you have an escape route once you actually pick up the negg, never get caught up trying to make up an escape, you'll end up getting too careless trying to path through reds and most certainly crash. Come into every negg with a plan.

GET USED TO THE BLACK HOLE, so so so so many neggs are going to pop up near the black hole, get used to fighting it, get used to understanding how close you can get before it eats you. It won't go away and it's a big part of the game, master the hole and your life will be alot easier.

Quick big scores don't come from games that only spawn millions of yellows, if you don't get any blue or higher neggs popping up every now and again, I suggest crashing your meecra and starting a fresh game until you do. My standards are if I don't have at least one blue or higher by my 4th negg, I crash my meecra. That is for WC games.

If you are going for a high score, play through EVERY SINGLE GAME, you just never know what's going to happen. My score of 2466 started with something like 16 yellows in a row, then I got two fish neggs and a few coloured ones.

Using the above, you can be a WC champion with no problems, you won't have to rely on submitting one million scores in the hope that you'll get enough wins to score a map piece. You can just take it easy, submit 3-4 scores and take a break for the other 40mins of the hour :)

Extra tips:

You can stop reading now if you want, these are just some extra little tips that you might find useful but maybe not.

Be careful of small tails: If say you get a fish negg as your first negg, you definately don't want to die on your 2nd negg now do you. However it can happen easily, at certain angles, if you tap or drift into the 2nd negg, it will grow underneath your meecra, causing death and a wasted fish negg. Just remember, always hit your 2nd negg at full speed if possible, if it's not just be very careful what direction your first tail piece is facing.

At 2 pieces long, you can still crash easy into the 3rd piece if you are drifting backwards, the 3rd piece if you're moving slow will pop up directly over the 2nd piece, which means if you drift back, you'll hit it very quickly, you can pick up the 3rd negg slowly, but just move forward quickly to uncoil your tail straight.

At 3 pieces, you're pretty safe, the tail is still short, so you don't have your full drifting abilities, just be careful.

At 4 pieces, you're in the clear, you can do all methods safely.

Controlling your speed: If you can avoid it, don't pick up neggs at full speed, tap into them then wait and see where the next reds spawns. If it spawns right infront of you (it happens) then your still safe and ready to rotate and move, if you were going full speed you would of crashed into it straight away. At the same time, you also need to understand that sometimes you MUST be moving at full speed (just hope a red spawns away from you). I can't explain it that much in words, you need to play the game and see how the gravity effects your movements, trust me, it doesn't take too long to get used to it. Keep practicing.

Brucey B Slots Guide

By y_c