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Have you noticed how games have been getting smaller recently? Whole chunks of screen disappear to be filled with scrolls or very very large score tables. The actual playing area, meanwhile, is up in the top left-hand corner. Probably some technical explanation...

I bring up the subject in the case of Trap because it too has a diminished screen and enormous scores. It reminds me in a general way of Terra Cresta and its ilk - not a rip-off but the same kind of up down scrolling, blast that, bomb this, avoid that, opus.

Level 1 is barely a level, as such, at all. You hurtle through space avoiding space mines before arriving at the planet proper. It's not too difficult and just gives you a chance to get going and gain the misleading impression that you're going to be good at the game.

Level 2 is the crux of the affair. A Terra Cresta-like battle across a scrolling landscape chock fill of missile launching alien crafts, defensive barrier thingys that zip back and forth, round things that kill you, cell-like things that kill you and so on. There are boats in rivers to be bombed lasers to be destroyed and smart bombs called Zammo(s). To complete the level you need to reach certain scores on aliens blasted, boats bombed and lasers obliterated.

Then you go on to Level 3 which is where you walk about the planet surface collecting Orbs and dodging holes. Why? Read on.

One of the more twiddly aspects of the game is the way, using Orbs you have collected, you can, (at the beginning of each round) buy yourself a new spaceship.

The graphics are fair - standard design aliens but OK. Though the landscape scroll is a little jerky it does contain a fair amount of detail. Personally. I found the whole thing a bit garish.

One definite negative point in an undecided sort of review - the additional sound on the 128K version of the game is very odd indeed, like a chorus of deranged Mugwies.

Fairly good space dodge and kill game. It has all the extra trimmings but maybe doesn't add up to anything really stunning.