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Dom Robinson reviews
Buena Vista Interactive 
- Price: £34.99
- Players: 1-online
- System requirements (rec.):
- Windows 98/2000/XP/Me
- Pentium 3/AMD Athlon 500Mhz (1Ghz)
- 128Mb RAM (256Mb for WinXP)
- Hard disk space: 2.23Gb
- 32Mb GeForce2 video card or comparable
- DirectX 9 (included)
Back in 1982, at the age of 10, Tronwas a film for me which changed my life. Not only was I at an impressionableage, although I can still be impressed at 31, but a fascination with computersand a love of the look of the film just made me want to jump into the cinemascreen.
This was so much so, that when there was a competition held throughout theschools in the country to win a prize by summarising the movie in 100 sentencesI got to work. For the life of me, though, to this day I can’t remember orwork out why I never actually entered the final draft into the competition,although the fact the prize was for the school and I’d get nothing personallywas probably the main reason. Also, when time came to make that year’s Xmaswant list of things which I didn’t have a hope in hell of getting, I wrote onit, “One of those computers that made Tron”. Well, it’s the only timeof the year you get to make such a list…
Talking of not having a hope in hell of getting something, if you have a PCwith just the minimum specification listed above you won’t have much luck inrunning this. It runs great on the PC I use which is a Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512MbRAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440, although at first I was getting a jittery effectthat I first noticed while playing initially on the light cycles. Effectively,I was getting a ‘blip’ every second, regular as clockwork, for a reason Icouldn’t fathom. It made the game ‘jump’, if that’s the right word, at thatfrequency.
I turned the settings down to as low as they could be, but it wasonly when I set the resolution down to 800×600 that it was resolved, althoughonce I’d overcome this hurdle I found I could increase it back to 1024×768 andstill watch it on my TV, and ramp the settings back up – including the gorgeousglowing effect, and it still ran perfectly. Given the pressure this will puton your system though, I’d recommend you reboot and shut down anythingunnecessary before playing otherwise you’ll still notice the occasionalstutters.
However, it’s worth taking such steps since all the effort is up there onthe screen.
But about this game, continuing on from the movie and coming from the samedirector, Tron 2.0 places you in the role of Jet Bradley, son ofthe film’s Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, who reprises his Tronrole in vocal form here and who I haven’t seen since being shot dead early onin the Christian Slater comedy, Kuffs, although he’s part of theBabylon 5 cast too). Also using their voice here, as Ma3a (Ma-three-a),is Cindy Morgan, Lora/Yori in the movie, and X-Men actress andmodel Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mercury. The plot tells us that Alan’sdisappeared under suspicious circumstances linked to his research, so as Jetyou must go into the digital world and look for those answers, uncovering asinster plot spinning out of control that threatens to corrupt one realityand forever change another.
Translated into English, what this means is that you’ll be playing a first-personshooter in the Tron environment, killing baddies in red after which youcan access their core dump (pick up energy and ammo left behind, although you’llalso find these in red and green circular icons dotted about), roam aroundand access archive bins (containers of power-ups) to get energy to jump higherand do all kinds of other things. Similar happens for weapons, transfer rateand efficiency. Later on, you’ll be told things like your “Y-amp subroutinehas become infected”, which means you’ll have problems jumping untilyou’ve got that sorted out. Pressing F1 brings up the equivalent of a harddrive with “bad blocks” that need resolving with a quick defrag.
At first it looks, and probably sounds from this review, that it’s quitecomplex to get used to implementing things in the required manner but it doescome to you sooner than you think. In fact, if you’re a fan of the film you’llbuy this game and you’ll find it’s easier to play it than to describe it,since describing it makes it sound like a PC manual.
What was that other element of the movie that made it such a must-have? Yes,the light cycles. Here, there are levels aplenty in which you can play up to8 other bikes all zooming along at top speed, albeit at a slow one for theearly sections. The more bikes there are, the sooner many of them will bedispensed with, or ‘derezzed’.
If you move your mouse while playing this part, sure it’ll look cool as theelevation of the track’s camera is cycled between the flat plain and directlyabove, you’ll probably die as you know you should really have it halfwaybetween so you can see realistically what’s going on.
Die in a light cycle race – as you often will – and you’ll be told suchone-liners as “You’ll address those bugs in the next patch?” and, in themain game, “If that was a user, I’m shareware!”. And I’m sure in anotherpart of the game I was told, “Looks like you fucked up!”. Then again,the game does have a ’12’ rating.
“So, are we all agreed that red’s not really our colour?”
By far and away, the best thing about Tron 2.0 is the graphics. Theseare clearly worthy of a 5/5 score whether it’s the glowing lights, the slo-mofalling of the obstacles on the bridge near the start of the game, the disctrails, the perfect replica of the Tron environment – at least as good as itcan be without a Cray supercomputer – or the mirror effects and shimmeringgreen of the light cycle tracks.
The sound is also effective and I can find no fault with it, but it doesn’timpress as much of the visuals. In playing the game, it can seem at times likea standard FPS with puzzles and how pissing the bad guys off makes them go andget their mates, but the Tron aspect brings it through and sustains interest,showing that it can do for games based on Tron what Star Warsgames have done for that franchise.
In closing, Buena Vista Interactive can be proud that, finally this year, afterTomb Raider: Angel of Darkness,The HulkandEnter The Matrix,this is the first game based on a movie which actually delivers what itpromises.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.