Wheel of Fortune Strategy

Obviously, picking letters that are contained in the phrase or word which is displayed is crucial to doing well in wheel of fortune (and other word games like hangman).

Most people know that some letters occur more frequently in words than other letters, in general. For example e is more common than z. Do you know the most common letters?

They are (in order):
e a r i o t n s l c u d p m h g b f y w k v x z j q

Vowels:
e a i o u

Consonants:
r t n s l c d p m h g f y w k v x z j q

(the letter e occurs nearly 60 times as often as the letter q)

Common three letter words in order:
the and for are but not you all any can had was her one our out day get has him

Common four letter words in order:
that with have this will your from they know want been good much some time very

The 5 most common 1st letter in words:
t o a w b

The 5 most common 2nd letter in words:
h o e i a

The 5 most common last letter in words:
e s t d n (over half of all words end in these)

S is a fairly common 1st letter for longer words. It is often followed by p, t, c, or h.

Q is uncommon, but when beginning a word, it is invariably followed by u.

Most common single letters following an apostrophe:
's 't

Most common double letters following an apostrophe:
're 've

Here are some tips for online Wheel of Fortune available from worldwinner.com

1) You get rewarded for playing fast at worldwinner. Many people find it quicker to type their letters rather than select them with their mouse.

2) The music can be turned off, however it does give a clue when your time is about to run out.

3) You can 'solve' the puzzle early for extra time points, but it is generally better to keep playing and spinning for letter points.

4) There is a 'bankrupt' space on the wheel, but it never comes up. (when playing in cash games)

Admit it - you still crave a game of scrolling Super Mario or Frogger just like "back in the day." We all do because playing them brings back some great memories. But it's not always easy to play these games the way we used to. Unless you've kept the systems and cartridges of the past in good working condition, the only way is through a little known process called emulation.

Using emulation, you can play many favorite games from the past including games made for Commodore, Atari, and Nintendo. Emulation refers to the ability of a program or device to imitate another program or device by tricking the software into believing that a device is really another device. It is also possible for a computer to emulate another type of computer. For example, there are programs which enable an Apple Macintosh to emulate a PC. 1

All that doesn't really mean a lot until you discover that with the right emulator, your computer can play all your old favorite games. And the news gets even better. You can download emulators from the Internet - free. You can download Amiga, Commodore, GameBoy, Playstation 1, and Nintendo emulators plus you can download the games (ROMs) that these machines play.

Our favorite emulator is the ZSNES Emulator. This particular program emulates the old Super Nintendo console and you can learn more about it yourself by visiting http://www.zsnes.com. This program comes with an extensive help file and walks you through the process of setting up a copy on your own PC. At the very least, your system needs a 486/100 processor, 14.5MB of RAM, a VGA card, and a Sound Blaster or 100% compatible sound card. However a system with a fast P200 or higher Pentium processor, 32MB of RAM, VGA card, and Sound Blaster 16 or 100% compatible sound card yields the most realistic results.

But don't think that just because a console is on the computer - you can't enjoy your favorite gaming accessories. The ZSNES Emulator let's users maneuver around games with the keyboard and a joystick. But enough about the emulator - You probably want to know what kind of games you can play, right?

Called ROMs, you can play any game on your PC that you played on the Super Nintendo System including:

* Bomberman 5
* Super Battleship
* Beavis n' Butthead
* Bustamove
* Clue
* Dragonballz
* DreamTV
* Final Fantasy 4
* Frogger
* The Great Waldo Search
* Inspector Gadget
* Jeopardy Deluxee
* John Madden Football
* Mariokart
* Marvel Superheroes
* Megamans Soccer
* Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
* Monopoly
* Mortal Kombat 2
* Pinocchio
* Power Rangers
* Race Driving
* Carmen San Diego
* SimAnt
* SimCity
* SimCity 2000
* Super Mario RPG
* Sonic
* Space Football
* Starfox
* Streetfighter 2
* Super Black Bass
* Super Ninja Boy
* Super Punch-Out!!
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
* Themepark
* Troddlers
* Utopia
* Vortex
* Wacky Race
* Wheel of Fortune
* Wings 2
* Wordtris
* World Soccer 94
* Yoshis Island
* Zelda 3
* ... and tons more.

Downloading these games is a simple matter of finding them online and there are plenty of websites that host them. Try http://www.everyvideogame.com for starters.

Be aware that there's an issue with downloading these games and it's a legal one. Basically, you're not allowed to download and play any game that you don't already own on a cartridge. If can abide by this law, you can revisit the past, in the present, on your brand new PC.