Unreleased SEGA MegaDrive / Genesis Game ... Time Trax -Released..

Old School Game Time..

I've Been wanting to post about this for a while since it was brought to my attention.

But I wanted to give it a a bit of game time before i made a post about it. Also I'm not 100% sure regarding the legalities of this piece of software, and / or It's Distribution but i assume the good folks who got this out to us have had that covered? if not.. oh well.

Regardless, I see no harm in a quick write up on the game, which did see a release back in the day for the Super Nintendo, however the SEGA version was never released... Until Now!

Sadly It's not a Cartridge release, for obvious reasons, so it comes as is, in Binary (.bin) rom format, which should be compatable with almost all of the emulators out there, flash rom carts such as Kirkzz's EverDrive, or if you're that way inclined and tooled up, Flash the .bin to a 1mb rom chip and hack it into a MD/Genesis cart (eg a cheap sports game) to play on the real hardware if you, like me are still rockin' a MegaDrive Console.

Eventually i plan on doing the latter, but currently do not have a rom chip or programmer.

The Good Folk over at http://segaage.com/ have made this release possible, and happen, so a new game for all to enjoy.

Anyway, the game is "Time Trax" a nice little platformer in classic 16bit style, while the graphics are not earth shattering even for back then, the gameplay and music are pretty solid, music is especially good. but that is all subjective so i suggest checking it out for yourself.

Screenshots of the Title Screen and Options, taken by myself using Emulator "Gens/GS R7" on Ubuntu based system 13.04 64bit(almost everything i do is/will be on free and open source software, I'm a big Advocate of free and open source operating systems and applications):

This Seems to be a Different Screen to what is show over on SegaAge

 

Options Screen

The Options screen, has the usual, a music / sound test, Difficulty settings, and 6 different controller settings, this is nice as there is no manual with this release, so set this as you like.


Back Story:
The game does have a back story, you play Captain Darian Lambert, Fugitive Retrieval Section, the Year is 2193 - and theres a whole heap of back story and text which im not going to read right now or go into.

Gameplay:
Basic platforming gameplay, Nothing special here other than the ability to slow down time, this as per the games storyline, is one of Captain Darian Lambert's psychic powers, slowing down the perception of time for other human enemies, however this does not work against machines, this will need to be used to get past certain areas/ obstacles etc. and only lasts for a few seconds at a time, then quickly recharges. Then, the standard jump and attack buttons, you start with a long range electric weapon which is good vs machines, but only stuns human oponents(keep shooting them and they eventually die), for them you need to get up close and beat them up hand to hand, (same button)

As per classic platforming rules, there are secret areas and boxes, barrels and crates will contain items / points / power ups,

Movement and control are all solid, although I've yet to play this on an actual MegaDrive but i dont see there being any issues. there are spike pits to fall in and pipes to shimmy across, ladders to go up and down etc.

 Graphics:
In-game graphics are as to be expected for a 16bit MegaDrive game. how they compare to the SNES version I can't say as i've never played it. Here's some quick gameplay screenshots:

Player standing still with enemies above and below. Note the overlay graphics which can be seen around the edges i think they're meant to be webs, as there's spiders which crawl off them and into the players path, which i thought was a nice touch.

Shooting - not it's more effective to beat up the human enemies up close. at the top left you can see your life meter(the green bars)and the number of lives or "1ups" you have(the heart shape with the "2" in it), on the top right is your time slowing power meter, this will drain as you use your time slowing power but will recharge quickly when not in use.

Shimmying(?) over Spike pit on pipe - every old school platforming veteran knows: "Pipes are our friends" and "spike pits are bad mmmkay"

When you die and fail your mission, the game lets you know how disappointed it is with you by rubbing it in:

And Rightly So! Shame on you!

 
Sound and Music:

Well, Really , it's all there as far as I'm concerned, Cheesy 90's yet catchy, not annoying music, well composed, and decent sounding 16bit tracks, sound effects again are solid and kind of what you would expect. all in all solid


Conclusion:
Solid old school, stop the bad guy, save the world sci fi platformer, good solid gameplay, music and sound are good, graphics nothing special but solid, controls are good and solid too. So I say, Check it out! win win, you got nothing to lose here. Solid all rounder.

Note1:
So far i have only played the first level, due to time constraints, and other goings on, also as I said I'm not sure how this compares to the SNES version.