Tron 2.0

Details: Category: Computer; By CCGR; 01.Jun; Hits: 9355

CCGR is all about game reviews from a Christian perspective, and Tron is looking at everything from a computer perspective. That\'s right, in this game you\'re going behind the scenes and learning all about your system and the programs running inside of it. The programs are more humanlike than you think. In fact they take the likeness of their user/creator. It makes me wonder about the whereabouts of my homework programs running around out there ;). For a background and to gain appreciation for the story and graphics, I highly recommend renting or buying the movie from Disney called Tron (PG) before playing the game.

Game play

Tron 2.0 picks up roughly twenty years after the movie. Your mother has died and it\'s just you and your dad Alan. You play the role of Jet, but the computer thinks you\'re Alan2. Just like Flynn, you are a computer expert and not all of your talents are legal. Your dad wants you to work for him but it\'s just not fun enough. To make matters worse, your dad has gone missing and you get digitized by his invention to save him. Welcome to the computer world! Everything here glows and looks really cool. Although many of the computer\'s resources are out to get you, not all of them are bad. You have some friends like Byte, Mercury, and ma3a. Instead of death you get derezzed, which is the worst fate for a program. All of your resources get absorbed by the master computer and you cease to exist. Living in the computer world is not easy. You will experience drive reformats, firewalls, virus infections, SPAM, and system reboots all firsthand. Like a computer you too will be able to get upgrades. For example, when you update your version number you can increase your health, energy, weapon efficiency, processor, and transfer rate. There are many offensive and defensive enhancements called subroutines. All of the subroutines come at the cost of energy which is rechargeable. Be careful when fighting against viruses because they will corrode and infect your subroutines. Luckily you can disinfect them.

Weapons

To combat your foes there are a variety of weapons you can use. You always have your handy disc. Definitely get the zoom upgrade for it. There are P-rods which are like cattle prods, and are good for sneak attacks. You also have ball bombs and mesh energy weapons. I found myself using the disc primarily. All the weapons mentioned above have power up subroutines you can add to them to make them much more powerful.

Light Cycles

Some of your battles will not be hand to hand but on light cycles! Armed only with your fast bike and reflexes, you must avoid the light trails the other bikes leave behind. There are other obstacles as well. Power ups, fast and slow spots will be scattered around the levels. If you are purely interested in light cycle style games, there are a few free versions out there, like Armagetron and glTron (Linux). The latest patch allows you to skip past the light cycle parts if it\'s not to your liking.

Enemies

You will mainly run into Intrusion Countermeasure Programs (ICP\'s). Be sure to disable the Sec Rezzers that can call more down if they get activated. Also be sure to keep your eyes up high, as there are some nasty finder programs that can nail you from above. Many corrupted programs controlled by Thorne will try their best to corrupt you, and they are very hard in groups. Resource hogs lurk around hoping to gain your resources, so don\'t let them get too close! Also you\'re not the only digitized human. Datawraiths are humans digitized by Fcon to scavenge confidential files, and they go back to the human world when you derezz them. Like most games out there you will face some nasty bosses. Keep that quick save button handy!

Christian Perspective

This game has digitized violence but the programs can usually be recompiled (kidding!). There is no blood, just energy. There is some mild swearing. Finally, the outfits seem like a second layer of skin on the female programs.

Saving

I have two gripes with the saving in this game. My biggest complaint is the limited amount of save slots. I hate overwriting older saves and sometimes the quick save is not enough. My only other complaint is that you cannot save in light cycle tournaments, even if there are multiple tracks. One good thing to mention is that if you do die you can continue on the last track you were at instead of starting from scratch, and do this unlimited times. Saving is a big part of the game. The AI can be really tough at times, but fortunately you can change the difficulty level throughout the game. When put on easy mode the AI is quite dumb and their aim is not as accurate. If the AI doesn\'t get you the jumping puzzles surely will. If jumping puzzles don\'t make you sweat, the timed sequences will. You will be using that quick save often and these are the reasons why more save slots would have been nice!

Multiplayer

You can play against bots in the single player cycle circuits. As you win more circuits more bikes will become available to you. There are Disc Arena and Disc Tournament modes where you need to be good at Disc throwing to survive. In Disc Arena you have to focus more on removing your opponents rings instead of derezzing them. Disc Tournament is like your standard FPS, derezz or be derezzed. Unfortunately, these modes don\'t support bots.

Conclusion

This game has a great feel to it, just like the movie. I enjoyed the storyline very much. The graphics are great. It has the same feel as the movie, and looks even better in my opinion. The characters look very lifelike and the levels are very colorful and look great. It\'s powered by the Monolith engine. The thirty levels are pretty big and leaves plenty of room for exploration. The sound will not disappoint either. In fact, the music in the game was inspired by the same composer as the movie! The remixed and modernized music sets a great tone for the game and adds to the environment nicely. The voice acting is great too. The game is easy to setup and play. The AI can be overly easy or way too hard. It\'s hard to find a happy medium. The controls are great and customizable. There are some puzzles in the game and some of those require jumping :(. I don\'t mind the thinking as much as the many difficult jumps. The game ran pretty stable but it did BSOD on me once. As I mentioned earlier there is a 23MB patch to enhance multiplayer and give the player an option to skip light cycles in single player mode. There are cheats available too if you are into that. Overall this game will give you around thirty hours of game play if you don\'t cheat too much. ;) It\'s a great extension to the movie and I highly recommend it.