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Tron, and on and on!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: July 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Get this game if you know any of the following: (a) what a lightcycle is? (b) who the MCP was? (c) why 1982 was a great year for Disney?

Back in 1982, the original movie Tron was an incredible change in how computer animation and live motion video merged. It was an introduction into the world of the microprocessor ... a world geeks like me just knew really existed! (OK, the cat's out of the bag ... I am a Tron geek, and I just had to get my hands on this edition of the video game, newly released for the Macintosh.)

One the other hand, as big a geek as I am, I am not really much of a gamer. After I had downloaded the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy demo, it wasn't ten minutes before I had accidently killed Chewebacca with my lightsaber. I'm fairly sure that my karma, along with my force-self, is permanently damaged. As usual, I digress ... back to the game.

Tron 2.0 opens twenty years (surprise!) after the original. Your role, as Jet Bradley, the son of Adam Bradley (once again played by Jeff Bridges), is defined by the fact that your father has disappeared, his prize computer system is under a mysterious attack, and you've been transported into the virtual world of the microprocessor, a world where software programs are the characters populating the scene.

Immediately, I was in love. I felt like I was deeply and thoroughly immersed into the game.

After a brief introduction, I was pleased to find a nice training field which helped me learn to control actions via keystrokes and mouse movements (you can play the game with a track-pad, but I didn't have any luck with controlling fine movements that way.)

The story was fun, with a nice sound track and voice quality.

Plus, actually playing with the lightcycles was really, really fun.

I needed to keep the guidebook out, and periodically pause the game to collect and plan out how I wanted to move and interact with the game. I didn't find this much of a burden, but it wasn't entirely routinely obvious to me what I was supposed to "do" next.

One thing I liked, unlike some games which allow the main character to obtain a limitless supply of tools and devices, Tron 2.0 requires the player to plan out what things to add, and what to let go (much like really programs, bogged down by too much stuff or insufficient resources, the character is challenged to routinely upgrade in order to succeed.)

While the game allows interaction over the net for gameplay, I didn't actually connect with anyone and try this. But as a single player action game, I was more than suitably impressed.

I'm off on vacation now, where I'll introduce my young nephew to the movie Tron and to the game Tron 2.0; he is very good at games, and I imagine he'll be showing me a thing or two within just a few days.

Major Disappointment

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: February 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Hello-

TRON 2.0 is not much fun as games go.

First and foremost, the gameplay is really not very well developed. I only played about halfway through, but I found myself repeatedly wishing the developers had cut out about half the levels and focused on tuning up the rest: there's long sections of pointless wandering, suddenly followed by a part where an enemy you can't see shoots you in the back of the head and you have to respawn several times before you can even figure out where he is.

The game is hard. Not hard as in "challenging," but hard as in "tedious and arbitrary." Get used to the "Quick-Save" option-- you'll be using it a LOT. For the first few levels, most of your enemies can kill you with a single shot; but, thanks to the deliberately innacurate weapons, though, YOU can't count on hitting THEM at all unless you're at extremely close range.

TRON 2.0 has a LOT of trial-and error puzzle-type situations that I found not at all fun to solve. There's a lot of jumping from one moving platform to another--falling equals death--and the interface is set up so that it's hard to tell exactly where you're standing to begin with.

Some interface irritations are: When one dies, it takes a long time (15-20sec) to respawn, which would be irritating enough on its own, but just adds to the tediousness of a game where one tends to die quite a bit. Also, there is no option other than to play full-screen (no playing in a window, the game takes over your entire computer) and (grrrrr) one *can't turn off the music.**

I could go on. My advice is to give it the miss. Two stars for fun, with an additional star for the graphics (above-average.)

light cycles and the MCP and ICRs! Oh my!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: September 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Despite a few flaws, I gladly give this game 5 stars because I have had hours and hours and HOURS of immersive glorious fun. You are Jet Bradley, the son of Alan Bradley, and you have been digitized by the computer to help fight the hacking machinations of evil corporate types.

Pros: If you like first-person shooters and/or the Tron film, you'll have a blast, literally and figuratively, with this beautifully realized game. The environs are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and the plot is plausible and interesting. Also, the cut-scenes are seamless. You have a WIDE array of weapons and skills, and the freedom to configure your skills periodically. You can also save the game at any time. You can play the light cycles at any time too, and the grids are very nice. With one exception the game was incredibly stable.

Cons: It takes an abnormally long time to install the game (like 20 minutes!) and the learning curve is very steep. It will take you a long time and many pauses and referrals to the manual to get through the first few levels, but then again, the play is correspondingly rich once you've learned all this stuff. Various procedures, like defragging or porting subroutines can take a very long time and the process is tedious. Sometimes tasks are too repetitive and tiresome. I found it annoying that there were certain keys I couldn't assign when configuring the keyboard, and I couldn't use the mouse button to move forward. Also, while I liked the light cycles, none of the other games-within-the-game from the old Tron video game were here, which was too bad. Finally, I have a 1-year old very good gaming computer, but mid-game I had a big crash and eventually had to contact the software company for help; it took two days for them to answer but then they did help and I played the rest of the game without trouble.

Mega-microcycles of fun. Jump in, program!

Tron 2.0

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: May 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Tron 2.0 (for mac) makes you feel like you are back in the 80s, back when you first watched the movie, now you can play the game, you feel like you are actually in the game and running around and saving people.
simply,
this game rocks

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