Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

Cool Beans! Dr. Robot-nik's Mean Bean Machine from Sega is also available on the Game Gear for portable puzzle maniacs! The Game Gear version is a one- or two-player Gear-to-Gear game so you can double your puzzle-solving pleasure with a friend.

You get an extra Puzzle Mode in the Game Gear version in addition to Exercise, Scenario and Gear-toGear Modes. Puzzle Mode challenges you to solve different lessons," such as eliminating four stacks of beans at the same time or freeing all the red beans at once. The trick is to try and solve the lesson within the first few moves...oth-eiwise it gets hard to group all the red beans together or to make four stacks of beans of the same color. The strategy in the other modes is the same as for the Genesis game —you've got to connect four beans to free them from Robotnik's dungeon while trying to send refugee beans to your opponent's dungeon to mess up his groupings.

Hot Hints:

1. In Scenario and Gear-to-Gear Modes, try to free at least two groups of beans at the same time. This will send more refugee beans over to your opponent's dungeon to block his groupings, plus earn you more points.
2. You can rearrange the order of the beans coming down by pressing Buttons 1 or 2.
3. Remember that the beans coming down will always drop to the top of uneven stacks. This is great when you need to break up a pair of beans.
4. In Scenario Mode, you get a Time Bonus each time you beat Robotnik's metalheads within two minutes.
5. Has-Bean — a little yellow robot who's kinda shaped like the sun — used to be a bean and will jump in to help you free his old pals during Exercise Mode. In the higher levels, watch for the purple Big Bean. Every bean he drops on will be freed, too.