Trax (Game Boy)
When I first started looking into the cute little tank game called Trax, I saw a part in the manual that was cause for some concern. While the small ball shaped tank isn’t restricted by tank controls and can move about rather freely, its turret will remain pointed in a direction until you hold down the A button. This will rotate the gun… but it can only do so clockwise. The Game Boy’s limited amount of buttons means it doesn’t really have a free button to devote to counterclockwise rotation, the B button busy being the way you actually fire and Start and Select being unnatural ways of hypothetically performing such an act. It seemed like Trax might be a case of a game that was not built with the Game Boy’s limitations in mind, but once I actually started playing, I found that this rotation method does not feel restrictive at all.
The turret limitation is actually accounted for in the game’s plot, the tank the player is controlling a rinky-dink vehicle cobbled together by a desperate peasant nation. The Republic of Akuda tried to squash this unassuming country under its heel as part of its plans of greater domination, but the people band together to send this single tank into Akuda’s territory to get revenge and overthrow their king. While the manual acknowledges the limitation of the turret, it also tries to say it having four tires instead of treads are also part of its amateurish make. If this were true, it’s definitely a bit odd when you see the enemy using the same exact style of tank against you right away. The heightened mobility of the design definitely helps the player get around the periods of time where they need to rotate the cannon to fire on a foe though, but even the rotation is quick enough that you can point it in whichever of the available eight directions you need in a snap.
The tank in Trax rolls through four levels on its warpath, Akuda throwing plenty of robots and vehicles at it to try and prevent it from reaching the capital. While having only four levels does make Trax a pretty short game all things considered, it makes up for its tininess by packing those stages with plenty of action. You can’t get complacent or careless as you drive into enemy territory, the enemy vehicles having plenty of different ways to damage your tank. Large robots stride through the middle of the screen and take too many shots to effectively deal with, enemy tanks fire their own shells or homing rockets to keep you on your toes, mines are detonated in crowded spots to potentially hit you with their blast, and the later stages start cranking up how liberal they are with speedy baddies like the motorbikes and helicopters while also peppering in durable and dangerous foes who can do things like fire shots off in every direction. There is enough room on screen to always worm you way around danger and fire back, although you might have to blast a path through some areas crowded with buildings and boulders or account for the movement restrictions faced in places like a cave’s tighter quarters.
Rushing into the action will put plenty of enemy vehicles on screen all at once, requiring much better control to survive, but it’s pretty easy early on to notice that your movement is what controls the appearance of your foes. By heading forward carefully you can trigger the opposition at a more manageable rate without needing to slow down to the point the game is just a crawl. Heading forward briefly and dealing with what appears gives the progression a decent rhythm, and this shoot ’em up doesn’t just have the enemies come in from the top of the screen. Because your turret can rotate all the way around, baddies will appear from all angles, the player sometimes needing to surge forward as a back attack pushes in or the sides suddenly send in some speedy foes to try and ram you. The level itself doesn’t stick to a forward push either, many stages reaching points where you’ll start heading to the side or even back down as you weave your way to the stage’s boss.
Trax’s minibosses and bosses are actually a surprisingly fun bunch even if they are pretty easy to handle once you know what they can do. While the design of your tank is a bit cartoony, the bosses crank things up even further, levels capping off with things like a robotic dragon or a clown whose parts enter on the end of long cables. Their weird designs actually translate pretty well to battles where they try to dominate the play area and your tank needs to be quick on its tires to avoid being crowded out by gunfire or the boss’s body. For example, there is one boss who is literally just a giant robot constantly tripping over itself, but since it is so large, its bumbling flings that heavy body all around the small arena. A helicopter that throws its blades at you and a tiny tank that expands to an enormous size when it gas taken enough damage also show that your own turret limitation adds an interesting angle to these fights. Since you are constantly asked to move around these massive enemies, you’ll need to keep your gun moving to maintain damaging fire, and this is how the game manages to keep you involved and interested in its action even though it is short and fairly simple.
While your default gun can handle whatever its up against, Trax also lets you grab power-ups to help you handle tougher foes and more crowded areas. By destroying trucks, you can pilfer their cargo, your tank having four unique shot types outside of its default shells. Piercing bullets will deal more damage and continue flying after hitting a foe, this basically being your most reliable high damage option, but if you’re willing to get riskier the explosive shot can deal heavy damage in a small area. This so-called Big Boy is probably the worst of your four weapons despite not being bad itself, and that’s because the two remaining power-ups all give you a greater chance of hitting enemies. Double Turrets has you fire a shot from behind as well, meaning you won’t have to rotate as much to hit any foes that try to catch you off-guard, and the Tri-Bombs launches three bullets in a spread that can usually cover a direction pretty handily. Each of these is certainly meant to be extremely strong, but taking damage will immediately strip away your current power-up. You can take quite a lot of damage before dying though, Gasoline pick-ups will refill life, and it’s easy to get back in after a death because of the game’s small size. Since your default gun is good at its job as well, Trax once again avoids being harmed by the restrictions it has applied to play.
It actually ends up a bit of a shame that Trax is so bite-sized, but it also maintains a degree of freshness by not artificially lengthening the experience. It does repeat enemies and even bosses, but not in a way that Trax ever feels like it’s retreading content just to fill time, ensuring its brisk playthrough is a quick bit of fun. There is a multiplayer competitive battle mode if you can find another player with Trax. It technically wants four players to play, but computer controlled opponents can fill in slots if necessary, and you can even try to account for skill levels by adding handicaps to players. This isn’t quite the extra amount of content that Trax needed to be more substantial though, but it was probably easy enough to implement that its presence can’t be begrudged.
THE VERDICT: Trax is a brief and breezy little tank game where the restrictions like easily lost power-ups and a turret that can only rotate one way surprisingly don’t drag down the experience. The action is always manageable but interesting for how many different enemy types it has, the bosses have strange but fun concepts that require good movement to overcome, and when you do have a special weapon type, you feel appropriately powerful but can’t just steamroll everything because every side of the screen can present a new danger. Trax is a bit easy once you’ve learned the ropes and its short length means it’s over sooner than you might like, but this humble tank game is still a fun little snack of a game that provides just enough to ensure it’s entertaining.
And so, I give Trax for Game Boy…
A GOOD rating. All too often a game that applies some restriction to movement ends up feeling too limited. Far too frequently a game that has some drawback due to the hardware’s design feels like it’s being held back from being as fun as it should be. However, the turret rotation in Trax is a decent way to keep it exciting and involved and isn’t so restrictive that you ever feel like you’re ill-equipped for a situation. That gun can be where it needs to be quite quickly, and mastering the mix of your own movement and its rotation is what gives the kooky boss fights and crowded enemy battles a bit more spice. Too much control might have made Trax too easy and the stage design would have had to be altered to account for it, but the little adventure Hal Laboratory made here is a good fit for how you control your part of it. The low difficulty even manages to skirt the common shoot ’em up problem of constantly yanking away fun power-ups the moment you take any damage. You can handle Trax’s action well enough to hold onto power-ups for a long time, and even if you’re hit, you can still put up a fight in away that remains entertaining despite your lower damage output.
Trax is a good example of making sure a game is fun within whatever limitations it has and shows that simplicity can benefit the design of certain game types. While it will leave you wanting more, especially when it comes to the creative boss fights, its levels and enemies are built in a way that challenges your tank’s specific abilities rather than straining them. Trax makes sure to never push its concept to its breaking point, and that allows it to thrive despite its restrictions.