So here it is, another 2 credits (20p) challenge from the Retrotech100 Facebook group, this week it is on the vertical scrolling space shooter Truxton. This 1998 shmup sees you (once again) flying a space ship to save the world / universe/ planet or something like that from another race / aliens / robots or whatever, and you are the only hope.
So, story wise it’s much the same as the others in its genre, and the gameplay pretty much follows the same path as other shootemups set in space, fly up, down, left and right and fire a lot as the playfield scrolls down towards you. Along with the playfield are a lot of bullets and at times little space between them, and a variety of enemy craft which take one or more shots to kill them, mostly more than one. You get the usual power ups along the way after you shoot certain targets, and your guns change in how they operate when you collect them. I did find the visuals were very nice to look at (when you get a chance) and everything is moving quickly along the linear path towards you.
The music comes in with a bit of a bang, but it’s a pretty good tune and fits nicely with the game. Explosions and other sound effects can be a little lacklustre among all the music but it doesn’t spoil the game. As usual you can see how we did, and how our two credits disappeared in the video at the end, for now it’s enough to say it is up to our usual standards of gaming expertise, especially when the difficulty ramps up with the bigger ships firing more weapons at us.
So Truxton, a good looking and fun game to play. I will just add that you have to keep firing and my old thumb got a bit tired, but I can claim that as exercise for the week so it all works out for the best!
