Trax
Trax | ||||||||||||||||
Game Boy - USA - 1st edition. |
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Trax is a scrolling tank shooter developed and published by HAL Laboratory for the Game Boy on 1991-01-08 in Japan, and published by Electro Brain in the USA and UK later that year. It has a single-player story mode and a multiplayer competitive mode.
Contents
Personal
Own? | No. |
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Won? | Yes. |
Finished | 2017-11-26. |
I never played this game when it was popular. Instead, I saw it on a list of the best Game Boy games and played it in an emulator. I found the game to be quite enjoyable, and feel it had real potential, but it ends far too soon. I've never played it in multi-player mode, so perhaps I'm missing out in that regard.
Review
4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
Best Version: Game Boy
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- Scrolling shooters are usually so frustratingly difficult, I don't bother with them, but this one was enjoyable the whole way through.
- The game has decent graphics and sound for a Game Boy game. Nothing amazing, but above average for the low-quality hardware. Hirohiko Takayama's music is quite fitting for the genre.
- The animation, especially for the bosses, is cute and fun.
- Movement is nicely responsive.
- The weapon power-ups vary in style, and none of them are bad.
Bad
- Games that require turret rotation, but lack a rotating joystick, are always difficult to maneuver, but this one is made even worse because you can only turn your turret clockwise. I know this is a limitation of the Game Boy's two-button controls, and they try to justify it in the manual, but it makes the game less-playable. This would probably be better made on the GBA.
- The game is far too easy. I beat it the very first time I played it.
- It would have been nice to allow the weapons to be upgraded to multiple levels.
Ugly
- The game is far too short. There are only 4 levels, so you can beat it an about 15 minutes. Had I paid money for this I would have felt ripped off.
Media
Box Art
Documentation
Videos
Play Online
Game Boy (Japan), Game Boy (USA)
Representation
Strong female character? | Fail | There don't appear to be any people. |
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Bechdel test? | Fail | There don't appear to be any people. |
Strong person of color character? | Fail | There don't appear to be any people. |
Queer character? | Fail | There don't appear to be any people. |
Credits
The game doesn't contain credits.
Roles | Staff |
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Music (Uncredited) | Hirohiko Takayama |
Titles
Language | Native | Transliteration | Translation |
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English | Trax | ||
Japanese | 突撃!ポンコツタンク | Totsugeki! Poncotsu Tank | Charge! Junk Tank |
Links
Categories:
- Video Games
- 1991 Video Games
- Video games developed by HAL Laboratory
- Video games published by HAL Laboratory
- Video games published by Electro Brain
- Game Boy Games
- Video Game Genre - Action
- Video Game Genre - Scrolling shooter
- Video Game Genre - Shooter
- Media Theme - War
- Multiplayer
- Multiplayer Simultaneous versus
- Software Distribution Model - Commercial
- Video Games I Don't Own
- Video Games I've Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 4
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 5
- Video Game Sound Rating - 5
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Action, Adventure, Strategy