Tron 2.0 (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.1 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Scott Osborne
• Reviewed on: 08/27/2003
• Updated on: 08/29/2003
• Released on: 08/26/2003
• Originally published on GameSpot: Tron 2.0 (PC) Review

The 1982 film Tron may not hold up by today's standards, but it was a revelation for anyone who grew up during the video game boom of the early '80s. The movie was filled with vivid computer-generated graphics, and it put the lead character first in a real arcade and then in neon-lit cyberspace, where anthropomorphic "programs" faced off in video-game-style challenges. For young gamers, at the time, watching Tron was like dying and going to cinematic heaven. Tron gave birth to some fun games back in the day, and now Monolith brings you Tron 2.0 for the PC. Like the film, Tron 2.0 treads a fine line between cool and corny, and, also like the film, it often stumbles into the latter. Like the movie, the game also boasts a unique visual style. However, despite its great look and some exciting moments, Tron 2.0 is a fairly conventional and uneven shooter.

Tron 2.0 picks up where the film left off. After years of research, programmer Alan Bradley has finally managed to re-create the technology needed to digitize humans and send them into and out of the digital/virtual world. A big, bad corporate rival, Future Control Industries (or fCon) is after Bradley's research and is about to take over his company. When Bradley's AI creation, Ma3a, comes under attack and Bradley suddenly disappears, his son Jet must save the day. After Jet is conveniently digitized, it's off to the races in a thematic and visual retread of the film: Basically, red security programs menace Jet, lots of deadly discs get thrown about, a sexy female program helps our hero escape from the light cycle grid, and so on.

While staying true to the film, Monolith has ably fleshed out the world of Tron with new allies and enemies. Things are a little more complex than in the movie since there are multiple enemy factions to deal with now. You'll face off against the Intrusion Countermeasure Programs, or ICPs, who are like the red guards of the film. These ICPs aren't particularly bright or deadly, but they usually have numbers on their side. They're under the command of the militant program "Kernel". You'll also have to deal with finders, little sentinels that float around high-security areas and blast you with energy bolts.

Along with these security programs, you'll also have to face a whole other faction of enemies. They are led by the malevolent Thorne, who secretly sold the digitization technology to rival fCon and now acts as head of security for Bradley's company. To prove that the technology actually worked, he tried to digitize himself into the virtual world, but things went awry; he ended up corrupting his data and turning mad. Now a blight of data corruption cascades through the computer world, giving rise to enemies like the Z-lots and rector scripts.

In addition to these corrupted programs, you'll run into game bots, the programs you face in light cycle competitions for the amusement of other programs. More ominous are the resources hogs, pudgy enemies who try to co-opt other programs for their own ends. Then there are the mysterious data wraiths, who are digitized human hackers doing fCon's corporate dirty work from the inside.

While all these enemies sound diverse and interesting on paper, they leave something to be desired in practice. That's because, at heart, Tron 2.0 is a standard run-and-gun shooter with a neon patina. These strange-sounding digital enemies aren't really strange but turn out to be generic cannon fodder. They might engage in idle banter or cry out for help, but otherwise they pretty much just run around and shoot at you.

At the same time, you pretty much just run around and shoot at them in very conventional firefights. The famous glowing, Frisbee-style disc weapon from the movie reappears in a slightly different guise, but it's one of the game's surprising letdowns. It flies and returns to your hands so quickly that it feels more like some fancy machine gun than a specialized, graceful weapon. You can very slightly control the disc in-flight, and you can more or less block with it, but there's just nothing exciting about it and not much finesse required to use it.

In addition to the disc, you also pick up a few other basic weapons during your adventures, but these are equally ordinary at heart. There's a glowing assault rifle, a glowing rod for close combat and sneak attacks, and a glowing ball that acts as a grenade. (Everything glows in Tron 2.0.) Then there are specialized variants like a sniper rifle, which features a really neat animation when you break it out, yet it works just like any shooter's sniper rifle.

Ultimately, the weapons and enemies are basically the same things shooter fans have seen many times over. It doesn't help that the story and characters are forgettable and the dialogue is awkwardly juvenile, with weak humor that mostly falls flat. This is very surprising, given the sharp writing Monolith is known for. Once you look past the unique visual style of the game, you quickly see that many of the levels are bland and linear. You run across a bridge to get to point X to push a button. You hunt for some keys, push some more buttons, meet a forgettable female ally, only minimally interact with the world, and only, occasionally, talk with characters at certain selected junctures. ("Talking" here means listening to some preset dialogue.)

Still, the levels are nicely crafted for what they are and provide a fair amount of action, though the combat is usually bland--a major problem for a shooter. Some memorable moments do enliven things. For instance, when a system-wide reformat, in the form of a moving wall of red energy, threatens to erase you, things perk up. Think of the Star Wars trash compactor scene but on a much grander scale. There's also an exciting shootout on a huge transport ship filled with innocent passengers. The whole ending sequence is wonderfully paced and filled with wild and unexpected visuals.

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