Play Trax Online

Trax came out for the Game Boy in 1991, developed by HAL Laboratory. It was one of those early portable action games that felt ambitious for the hardware, a top-down shooter that tried to do a lot with a little. You don't see many games like it from that time, where the entire experience is built around controlling a single vehicle through increasingly hostile territory.

You control a small tank, navigating maze-like stages from an overhead perspective. Your main objective is to destroy all enemy generators in each area before confronting the boss. The tank's turret only rotates clockwise, a deliberate limitation that forces you to plan your movements carefully. You collect power-ups to upgrade your main cannon and gain secondary weapons, like bouncing bombs or homing missiles, to handle the swarms of smaller enemies. The pacing is relentless; you are almost always under fire, and the difficulty escalates quickly. It feels like a tense, tactical dance, constantly recalculating your position to survive.