Tron 2.0

I grew up watching ReBoot. I own The Last Starfighter on DVD. I'm a Computer Engineering student. The fact that I'm drawn to the Tron franchise as a firefly to the bug zapper should go without saying, and so far, Tron 2.0 hasn't driven me away.

In 1982 there wasn't a whole lot they could do to make a licensed game from the original Tron movie (other than countless lightcycle racing games, that is). Fortunately, sometime around the 20th anniversary hullabaloo, somebody realized that we now have the real-world technology to make the Tron-world technology interactive and fun.

Tron 2.0 is played from a first person perspective to ease combat, but despite the familiar trappings, it's no vapid FPS. It's not a Metroid Prime-level adventure game either, but Tron 2.0 is more like Deus Ex, with some puzzles to tickle the mind as well as stat points and equippable "subroutines" for performance upgrades. It's no brain-bender but these added levels of complexity at least make the game interesting to play.

The controls to make all this happen are pretty involved. There is some introduction on how to play, but it's pretty fast and loose. Fortunately (at least in Normal difficulty) I haven't been too outmatched yet, although I have availed myself of the Quicksave function a handful of times. And it even adapts well to the, drumroll please, lightcycle racing minigame.

Of course my favorite thing about the game is the atmosphere. Program NPCs, subroutine optimizers, milestones; the technobabble in Tron 2.0 is extremely satisfying. Your average game player probably won't be able to appreciate the programming jokes hidden in the game dialogue and events, but I, for one, welcome our new defragmented overlords.

Progress: Vaporware - Prisoner Bin