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As pilot of an Intergalactic battle cruiser, you have penetrated a place where human life strains to exist. Your mission is to defend your home planet against your once peaceful ally. The problem you are faced with is this: can aggression and mindless violence further the cause of peace which you are trying to restore? A tricky question to answer, but being the hero that you are you must succeed and prove yourself worthy as a legendary space fighter.

Your life endangering mission is split into three parts, each testing various aspects of your skills. The first section tests your manoeuvring and reflex capabilities in flight. The enemy have launched a hail of volatile space mines which your ship has either to avoid or obliterate. To aid this task, your battle cruiser is equipped with the latest in trendy high powered space blasters.

Having survived the shower of mines, you find yourself flying over the Zarkab Valley - a test of courage, complete with rivers and rapids. There are three forms of invading enemy which have to be destroyed: meteors; alien craft, which can be attacked from the front or annihilated with a quick blast of your exhaust pipe; and lasers which flit across the valley and have to be cut off before you can proceed. Accompanying these meanies are an assortment of aliens, such as a fleet of Police Craft.

The final part of the test places you far from your craft on a distant plain. This is designed to test your stealth and determination on foot, and is reminiscent of Commando in that you have to battle your way through the undergrowth, blowing everything to smithereens. Most important here is the collection of spherical objects which are in fact Orbs, the currency of the future. With sufficient Orbs you can buy a more powerful space craft which will help you as your quest continues.

Your score is displayed alongside the playing area and also shows the amount of lasers, boats and aliens which have to be destroyed.

Control keys: Q/A speed up/down, O/P left/right, SPACE fire, A/SPACE drop bomb
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Use of colour: lots, but it's badly used
Graphics: reasonable, but rather confusing
Sound: no tune and reasonable spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 14

'The Spectrum is not famous for its shoot 'em ups. There have been a couple of outstanding ones, but even more have failed - Trap is simply another one to add to that pile. The area of the screen the game is actually played on is ridiculously small, I can't imagine what the point behind this is - especially as the score and status board takes up nearly a third of the screen! As far as I can see, It isn't worth converting reasonable Commodore shoot 'em ups onto the Spectrum... as they never seem to reach their full potential.'

'I wasn't really looking forward to this, and I should have listened to my instincts and stayed away it's extremely unplayable. The screen contains the most appalling mix of colours you could dream, it's like playing a shoot 'em up in a trifle. I had great difficulty in distinguishing the characters from the scenery. Basically, I would feel sorry for anyone buying Trap.'

'On playing Trap, my mind kept jumping to Xevious - I wonder why?! The game isn't up to much, and I think that Alligata's advertising has been a little bit immodest - they seem to be putting a lot of effort behind a game which doesn't really deserve it. The shading on the planets in the first bit of the game is pretty appalling, even given the limitations of the Spectrum. Come to think of it, my comparison between Trap and Xevious isn't really accurate - I much prefer the latter.'