Tron 2.0 first impressions

Cafe Society
1

OK, based on the number of people who saw Tron I fully expect this thread to die a quick death, but here I go anyway.

Tron 2.0 was released yesterday, 21 years after the movie premiered. I was at just the right age to be sucked in by Tron, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the game.

I picked up the game at Best Buy (along with TTT) and was pleasantly surprised to get $10 off - $39.99 vs the as-marked $49.99.

The game has high-production value details - a good manual, a quick-reference guide, and even a walkthrough of the first level provided by the folks publishing the official strategy guide. I, of course, plop the quick-reference guide below my monitor, install the game and begin.

First thing - get me on a light cycle!!! The game provides a separate, stand-alone light cycle campaign. You compete against the AI and open up different tracks. The cycles look cool, they sound just right and they have some interesting power-ups (ie Turbo Curse, which causes every light cycle to speed up). In my first race I lost every time, but I did manage to kill one opponent (out of two) a few times. New type of race, new techniques to develop.

The game itself promises to be very deep. There are the standard FPS things with several RPG themes mixed in. Your character, Jet, upgrades over time and you can choose where to spend the upgrade points a la NOLF 2. Everything is computer related - to upgrade your jumping ability, you upload a subroutine. The subroutine starts in Alpha mode - it takes up a lot of memory and doesn’t work very well. An Optimizer can upgrade your subroutines to Beta and Gold. This theme carries on throughout the game.

The visuals are simply fantastic. Tron was set inside a computer (21 years ago!), and the game perfectly captures the feel of the movie. The blue=good, red=evil lighting really works - a “SecRezz” security monitor is a glowing red menace in an otherwise un-noteworthy wall. The sound so far has been good - I’m just getting started, so I expect it to pick up as I get more in depth.

So far I’m impressed. It looks great, has lots of character upgrading possibilities, and I’ve already ridden a light cycle!

More updates to follow if anyone cares.

Anyone else out there who’s even seen the movie? Anybody? Wiggum?

2

I love Tron the movie. I practically grew up on it. I’d originally heard that Tron 2.0 was going to be a film sequel, but now it’s a game. Interesting… sounds like a film sequel is still a possibility, but a distant one.

I did notice on the IMDB listing for the game, though, that my talented friend Ken Boynton did some voices for Tron 2.0. I’ll definitely have to check it out.

3

I’ve thought about getting it, but what I really liked about Tron the movie were the tanks. It doesn’t look like you get to drive a tank in the game. I also loved the flying ships in the movie. Let me know if there are any cool vehicles in the game besides the light cycles.

4

Yeah, the Recognizers were one of the things I loved in the original film. And I noticed that none of the trailers showed the tanks.

How about it, pilot? Are tanks and Recognizer ships in the game?

5

Only watched Tron once as a kid and it didn’t exactly rock my boat at the time.

About the game, how does it compare to NOLF2? I loved that game to death - it was so cool!

6

Well, no tanks or recognizer units so far, but I’m still on the first mission. The combat is conducted with discs, and it takes some getting used to (read: I’ve been dying a LOT).

Still impressed with everything I’ve seen.

Back to the game…

7

Tron isn’t really all that obscure. It’s a “cult favorite” (meaning popular with geeky guys like myself).

I just played the demo of Tron 2.0 for a little bit yesterday, and it was frustrating, much like the original movie. There were so many things they got so right – the overall look, and the sound effects (the sound of someone de-rezzing is perfect), and the character names and upgrades. But the combat was “eh.” Having the disc as your primary weapon would be a great idea if they just took advantage of it – you should be able to make a real strategy out of bouncing it off walls and such, instead of just having it work like a gun. I think my biggest problem with it is that they took an amazing setting and just made a FPS out of it.

With lots of jumping puzzles. Jumping puzzles are unforgiveable.

I’ll play through the whole demo before I dismiss it entirely, though. And if I find out you get to ride the Solar Sailer, or fight one of the Recognizers, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat.

End of line.

8

I’m starting to get the hang of making bank shots with the disc, still can’t steer it or block with it consistently. The level design is very cool and I like the upgrade process.

Agree with SolGrundy on the jumping puzzles. They are a cardinal sin in a FPS. Time to look for some cheat codes so I can use “ghost” mode in those sections.

9

Well, so far the jumping puzzles haven’t been too bad…but all of the “data blocks” that are floating around in the levels make jumping puzzles almost irresistable for the designers…I’m hoping that they got it out of their systems early!

Did my first few battles with the “Rod” - not much technique there!

Question: (maybe spoilers) The mission guide that’s included ends when you get caught and are standing tall in front of the Kernel (heh). Is this where the single-player demo ends also?

I’m noticing that after a couple of (ahem) cocktails I can’t hit the side of a barn with that disc…so I put the movie in the old LaserDisc and I’m watching Jeff Bridges take all the shots!

Comparing the movie and the game side by side…wow. They got it right!

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Oh, and as for the disc…in some areas I’ve had that thing enter a room and bounce around like crazy. It doesn’t seem to actually hit anything other than walls…I’d like to see the ICP’s have to duck or something while my disc is careening around their little holding area. Or maybe my aim is so poor that I can’t even get a ricochet kill…

Right now in the movie the Jai-Alai ball battle is underway. The ball is #3 on the weapon list…more ways for me to miss coming soon.

11

Nope, the demo is from further into the game. You’re trying to unmoor some sort of transport barge by flipping four different switches scattered around the level. You don’t actually get to see the transport, but I’m guessing it’s the big sailship from the movie.

12

I loved Tron growing up! It was one of my favorite movies, and I still really like the premise. It just had such a cool look to it, and the light cycles are one of the coolest vehicles ever. I was never any good at any of the computer games, but they were lots of fun (I especially liked how in the light cycle game, when they let you start off with two partners, one got killed off super quick and the other just seemed to run into the wall).

When I heard about tron 2.0 I was really excited, then found out it was just going to be a video game, and then found out it was going to be a first person shooter. There didn’t seem to be many weapons in the movie, and seeing as how the big fun with FPSs is the variety of weapons, I couldn’t see how it would work. I see from the box cover, there are eventually going to be guns involved. BAH! But from what I’ve seen, the graphics look great! I just can’t wait for game designers to finally get over the whole FPS thing and start making fun video games again.

Just out of curiosity, is there any way to control the discs when you throw them? It always seemed to me that the really good programs could control their discs (for example, you see several occassions where a disc will kill one opponent, and immediately circle around and hit another after doing several loops).

13

I just finished this, and if you look closely (from far away) you’ll see that the switches holding the transports are on the legs of Recognizers! The transport is being held by several Recognizers, and the switches are on the outside of their legs…very cool.

Yes, in a rudimentary way. If you hold down the fire button and move the mouse you can turn the disc in-flight. I haven’t had much success with this in combat…I seem to do better at close range so that the disc returns to me quickly so I can get off another shot.