Mention Tron Legacy and you’ll have a look of pure bliss or utter disdain returned by the masses. At least we can all agree that the Daft Punk soundtrack was good, eh?
I was firmly in the ‘loved it’ camp, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I finally got around to playing the PS3/Xbox 360/PC prequel, Tron Evolution. Did it capture the techno-punk feel of the new sequel, or did it derezz (ie: Tron’s lingo for dying) immediately, like most movie tie-in games? Read on to find out.
The hot: Since I started with the film’s music, I might as well with the game’s too. The soundtrack isn’t Daft Punk, but it is damn close…”inspired by” is quite appropriate. The music helps to really keep the game in line with the feel of the new movie; sure, the computer allegory is pretty much obsolete (like in the film), but the world is as it should be. The new Tron is dark (well, apart from those familiar strips of light on everything), efficient, and its cities are comprised by towering futuristic constructs – and that translates well to a video game.
Those “towering futuristic constructs” I mentioned? PERFECT for some Prince of Persia-esque parkour. Your character is a System Monitor, created by Flynn to assist Tron (the character, not the city…or the game, for that matter) with system security. As such, the Monitor can perform amazing acrobatic feats to scale buildings and become untouchable in fights with other programs (ie: humanoid Tron enemies) and large vehicles like light tanks, light bikes, and those cool orange flying…thingers.
Most of the acrobatic moves – wall runs, rebounds, and the like – are easy enough to perform and are used for level progression and combat. Your character moves fast, bounces off walls, and on top of all that, he gets to whip around his light disc to deal with enemy threats at the same time. Almost immediately in the game, you feel like a bad-ass, and that’s only added to with four main light disc upgrade streams. You can upgrade with sufficient XP, and as you earn that, you also level up to new versions of the System Monitor (get it?); those levels are shared between the single-player and multiplayer campaign.
The meh: The multiplayer is fairly standard fair, with beat-em-up, team beat-em-up, and capture-and-hold gametypes; honestly, if there weren’t achievements on the line, I would have given it a miss. The only exceptional thing about the multiplayer is that you get more of a chance to use the infamous Tron lightcycle – you know, that motorcycle with the light that streams out of it, that derezzes anything in its path? In the game, you use the cycle to get from one location to the other, with very little fighting and a ton of object-avoidance; in the multiplayer, you can use it to your heart’s content. Have fun trying to expertly control the damn thing though.
The only other meh thing about this game is that it’s a prequel. You know who’s going to betray Flynn. You know that the main character of Evolution isn’t in Legacy, so you can pretty much guess his (its?) fate. These points don’t detract too much from the game, as Evolution is really just a bit of flying around, beat-em-up fun – in the same way that the movie isn’t Oscar-winning material.
The cold: Most of the parkour platforming can be performed without too much trouble, but you know you’re in for a spell when you hit a checkpoint just a minute or two after the last one; it signifies a section that will give you some trouble. Those points in the game sucked — I felt I was pretty good at controlling the Monitor, and knew exactly what I had to do to get him to move on…it’s just that the character just wasn’t doing it right. The fact that a checkpoint was right where I was struggling seemed to justify my feeling that the game designers had the same problem — and rather than fixing it, they just went “repeat the same moves over and over…you’ll eventually get it!” Boo to that.
The bottom line? Tron Evolution isn’t going to win awards for originality, or exceptional level or gameplay design, but it is very fun to play within. It’s well deserving of a great rating, and is a must for any fans of the franchise or anyone craving some Prince of Persia fun, with a bigger emphasis on combat. Tron Evolution is definitely a rental, and since I’ve been seeing it around Australian shops at a $45 price-point, its well worth a purchase to boot.
This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.
