Companion Chronicles: Lucas: 9 - Men In Black Alien Attack

Heads up, hotshot. Today we're going to be reviewing how YOU can maximize your score on Universal Studios Orlando's Men In Black Alien Attack shooting attraction.

I know what some of you are thinking.. who the hell are you? I've gotten the suit AND hit the bonus before! To you, I say-- I am the Mir Family shooting ride savant. I've carried a gaggle of three Mexican grandmothers to a suit. I've had children and parents alike stare at my final score with wide eyes. And if your last name is Mir, odds are I was there when you earned your first suit (I'm just assuming we never got one as kids; that feels fair).

Now that we've covered who I am, let's get some of the basics you should know before getting on this ride:

First, and most important, never let go of the trigger. Holding down the trigger will keep your blaster firing as quickly as possible
Your cart-mates are not your friends

More often than not, you're not going to be on-target with your first shot. 3-4 other lasers from Knowers surrounding your target will make it harder to adjust
Some of the higher-scoring targets, specifically the opposing cart's Fusion Exhaust Port, are only able to be shot by one player at a time

This is just my theory, but I believe the gun's shoot at a higher, but harmonious, frequency relative to the Fusion Exhaust Port. Picture the 50 Hz wave as the Exhaust Port and the 200 as the blaster. This means that even though the blaster is firing more often than you get points, you are still earning points as quickly as possible (and keeping your cart-mates from earning points)

You get points just for shooting!

By just holding down the trigger, you earn 30,000-35,000 points per ride

Anything and everything can be broken on this ride

We've had broken blasters, broken targets, just about everything

Aim high

None of the big monsters on ground-level are worth many points. You want to aim for windows and look for glowing eyes

Stay on the same target

Keeping your blaster trained on one target will keep you from wasting time switching targets every couple seconds. There's points-maxing, and then there's having fun. We're points-maxing

There are two tracks

There is a red and a green track. This guide will mostly cover the red track, because that is the track used most often
You can tell what track you are on by the color of the numbers before you board the ride vehicle, shown below

Now that everyone knows or skipped the basic training, let's move onto the different rooms and priority targets:

Training Room

The Training Room isn't a big source of points. On a good run, you may leave this room with ~50,000; a good start, but much less than our goal of 999,999. In this room, I normally just pick one of the targets on the overpass and stay on it until they go out of sight.

Next up, I'm aiming at the two far windows where some monster will appear. This results in some downtime between targets, but I've found aiming for the light-post swingers results in more time loss than just preparing for the window monsters.

Crash Site

This room has some downtime before the first good targets appear, but you should always be on the lookout just incase the carts in front of you let you get a head start on some big earners. I don't think the alien by the space ship even gives points. I've seen his eyes light up (signaling he was shot?) but I've never noticed getting anything from it.

Up next are the good targets. You should be looking for these guys the entire time you're in this room. There are a couple options, all scoring pretty similarly

Target #1 is a better target for the green track, but it's important to know he's there in case #2 or #3 are broken. Those guys are the real bread and butter. Targets #2 and #3 should be shot early and often. Target #4 is only visible for a limited time, but can be helpful for picking up some points while your cart is spinning in the Spin Zone, an area where your cart spins around after being shot by an alien terrorist (hope you're not motion sick).

Once you move past the first Spin Zone along with Targets #2, #3, and #4, you should see a giant eyeball. I don't even know if he can be shot for points. What you're looking for here is.. you guessed it! More windows. Target #5 is the next guy we're looking at. Target #6 can be seen from here, but the alien is too far inside the window for us to shoot him. Keep firing at #5 until you hit the second Spin Zone, at which point move on to #6.

Target #7 isn't very worth shooting, but it's good to know he's there if #6 is broken.

Ambush!

Picture time! There's not much to shoot in here, but if you turn around in your chair, you should be able to keep shooting Target #6 from the Crash Site. Here are some of my pictures from the ride:

Katie and I just got engaged!

Here, I'm farming Target #6 for some juicy points

The Scan

Between the Ambush and the Scan, there are some bushes with eyes. They don't really seem to belong to any area, but they can score you a boatload of points if you get a quick lock onto a set of eyes. They're really hard to see in the picture because it's dark and the green-path cart is blocking some of them, but I was able to put oranges boxes around a couple eyes.

Besides the busheyes, there isn't anything to do during the scan except to prepare for the final room. On my strong runs, I am generally between 350,000 and 500,000 when the scan starts. Now would be a good time to explain this Fusion Exhaust Port I couldn't stop talking about at the top.

That little target on the top of the other track's cart is called the Fusion Exhaust Port. Shooting that sucker will give you 25,000 points every time you successfully hit it. Hitting it will also cause the opposing cart to spin. Here's the kicker: the spinning part is broken about half the time. If you get an opposing cart that won't spin, and either the opposing cart is empty or your cart also doesn't spin, you can easily farm this target for 300, maybe even 400,000 points. The real hard part, like I mentioned earlier, is to beat the other people on your cart.

Manhattan

Once the scan stops, start blasting at the opposing cart's Fusion Exhaust Port. Oops! Their port is broken. Or your cart is spinning. Or one of your cart-mates is hogging all the points. Do not fret, this area has more than one cash cow. We're back to the windows.

Shooting at these disembodied eyes will get you a lot of points. There aren't many alternatives around here, so your cart-mates may also be spamming the same spot. For highly contested targets, I find it best to purposefully shoot your first shot Down and to the Left, so I can find my laser and bring it to the target without worrying if I'm looking at my own shots.

When the window eyes eventually turn off, there is a cheeky little glasses advertisement with some glowing eyes you can target. This doesn't give many points, but it's your final chance to score points besides the Big Bug Bonus.

Big Bug

As the ride comes to a close, we reach the climax of this story. Will Smith warns us about a Big Big Bug and we soon come face-to-face with this behemoth.

As Rip Torn will tell you, there's only one thing left to do. We have to push the red button just like in the titular film. The exact line will be: "There's only one thing left to do. Push the red button". When Rip Torn hits the "P" in "Push", that's when you push the red button. If all goes well, you should then be given a clutch 100,000 point bonus.