Trax

Trax is an entertaining two-way scrolling shoot 'em up offering GameBoy players 8 way shooting with many different power-ups. Mid-level and end-level bosses are impressively large and challenging to beat.

In Trax, nasty invaders have turned your once-peaceful country into a huge parking lot for their marauding tank army. Your defense is one rusty tank with a turret that only turns clockwise. You've got to admire HAL America's notion of fair odds.

Tanks Alot

If you like vehicular shoot-em-ups, you'll dig Trax. In this sharp-looking overhead view, multi-scrolling tank game, you carry on a running gun battle across four hazardous stages. In four-player mode you'll party hearty with up to four friends across 12 different landscapes. Naturally, you need a Nintendo Four-Player Adapter, four Game Boys, and four Trax carts.

Great graphics and game-play make the action pop out of the Game Boy. The main enemy force includes tanks, self-propelled rocket launchers, anti-tank guns, and copters. They're decent foes, but watch out for the bosses.

You'll cross treads with eight of the weirdest GB bosses around such as the giant propeller-hurling helicopter-bot and the bizarre Clown Prince. They all look great and fight hard.

Trax doesn't skimp on the action. Your tank turret only turns one way, but you can grab four types of cannons, and your tank really moves.

A Little Tank That Could

Trax is an above-average shoot-em-up with excellent graphics. The Trax tank's a little cutesy, but the cart dishes out a good fight. If tanks are your thing, make tracks with Trax.

ProTips:

• You don't have to grab every weapon icon. Gasoline and extra lives are the only critical icons.
• Fire at least two shots at a time. That way you can intercept an enemy shot and get him before he shoots again.
• Inch forward in suspicious territory. Sometimes you can detect enemies at the top of the screen.
• Shoot mines to wipe out enemy tanks.