NES Ice Climber Guide

Ice Climber may not be one of the most well known of the classic games from the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. But it does have a big enough cult following to have been released as one of the "NES Classic" games for the Game Boy Advance and the Wii Virtual Console, and the games' characters have become playable characters on the Super Smash Bros. Game.

Ice Climber is a simple upward-scrolling platform game with a simple objective. You play a mountain climber out to scale the top of a high, ice-capped mountain. However, the mountain dwellers are out to stop you, believing you only want the vegetables they've stored near the peak. Your only weapon against them is your hammer.

Each mountain has eight initial ledges that you must jump up onto in order to reach the top. Many of these ledges (including all in the first stage) are blocked up, but you break the blocks by jumping up at them with the A button, smashing them with your hammer. You get points for each block you destroy.

As creatures come at you on the mountain, either by flying or walking across the surface, you can swing your hammer with the B button to knock them away. The most common foes you face are the white flurries. You don't get points for hitting them with the hammer, but you do get points for destroying the ice they push across the floor to seal the gaps in the surface. You also get points for hitting the birds that fly at you, either by swinging at them or jumping at them with your hammer in the air. If you get hit by any of these creatures or fall off the bottom of the screen, you lose a life.

Then there are the polar bears. They won't kill you directly, but they will push you across a ledge and over the edge if it's in the path they push you. They will also stomp the ground and push the game screen downward, putting you at the risk of dying should you be at the bottom of the screen. You can hit these bears with your hammer, but you won't get any points.

When you reach the mountaintop, the stage changes to a bonus stage. You can grab the vegetables for points, but the ultimate goal is to make it all the way to the summit and then grab hold of the giant bird flying overhead - and you only have 40 seconds to do this. You won't die if you fall off the screen this time, but the stage will end without you getting the biggest bonus.

Your points aren't tallied until the stage is over. At the end of your first stage, you get 10 points for every block you destroy, 400 for every ice block you destroy, 800 for every bird you hit and 3000 for grabbing the giant bird at the summit. You will only get points for the first 99 of each object that you hit; most of the time, this will only be a factor with blocks. With each stage, the points for each of these go up.

As you advance to each stage, more obstacles get in your way. These include clouds that move across the screen and you must ride to reach the next ledge, moving floors (or possibly strong winds) that push you in one direction and icicles that drop down on you (you can destroy the icicles with the hammer).

There are 32 mountain stages; should you complete the 32nd, the game resets back to stage 1. You can actually choose to start the game on any of the 32 mountains - regardless of where you start, the points start as if it's the first stage. The game also offers two-player simultaneous play, which turns each stage into a race to the top and grab that bird.

The controls are simple but take some getting used to. When you jump from a standing position, you'll barely be able to move in any direction while in the air, but you'll naturally get more distance from a running jump. You must land on the middle of a block in order to completely land on that level - if you only hit the edge, you'll fall back down.

Now, for some pointers on scoring high points:

When a ledge has two layers of blocks, those bottom blocks are free points. Break as many as you can get to increase your totals in that area, but remember that you'll only get points for the first 99.

You can also rack up a lot of points from the ice blocks that the flurries push. When they reach the edge of a ledge, they run back off-screen and come back pushing an ice block. If you create a small hole in a ledge near the edge of the screen and stand on the side of the hole opposite where the flurry comes out, you can wait for him to come out with an ice block, If you hit the block but not the flurry, he'll walk to the edge again (you'll be save because you're on the other side) run off and come back with another ice block. You can't do this for too long, though, because that polar bear will come.

When you reach the bonus stage, the ultimate goal is reaching the top and getting that bird. No matter which path you take to get there (there are always multiple ledges and clouds), you should be able to get at least two of the four vegetables with no problem. But don't waste time grabbing them all if it leaves you with too little time to make it to the top for the big bonus. Only once you know you can make it within the time frame easily should you try for all the crops and get the bonus.

Ice Climber may not have a long, complex storyline like many games today, but the controls are simple and the game itself is very addicting, like many simple games from the earlier eras of video gaming.