Tron. A word that many will mostly associate with a classic movie franchise that begun in the 80s. Tron: Evolution is the video game sequel to Tron, bridging the gap between the movie’s sequel called Tron: Legacy. Development house Propaganda Games was tasked by publisher Disney Interactive to create a 3rd person action parkour game set in the futuristic world of Tron which includes most of the major characters from the movies including Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. As always, when it comes to movie based games I was skeptical of the title’s quality but as a fan of the franchise I am certainly excited about the possibility of a good Tron game.
Tron Evolution at its heart is a 3rd person action game with free running elements, disc and melee combat with the occasional light cycle and light tank sections. While there are vehicle levels in Tron, they are kept rather short and simple. The light cycles are pretty cool looking but you’ll only be driving them in a straight line avoiding obstacles and jumping over broken bridge gaps. The light tanks are a bit more entertaining as players will shoot their way through short sections of blowing up other tanks and taking out the rather easy grunts running across the streets.
As I said, time in Tron is mostly spent free running from section to section and fighting several different classes of opponents in combat arenas before the door opens to the next parkour path. Combat in Tron Evolution is fun at first but becomes repetitive after a couple of hours. The game’s silent hero, Anon is a Monitor Program assisting Quorra in finding out what is happening on the Grid between the ISO’s and Basics as an infection spreads across the world. Flynn and Tron a presumed dead while Clu and Abraxas are looking to take over. Tron’s plot is well delivered and probably the strongest part of the experience. Anon can switch his disc between four different settings during combat, which is needed in order to exploit the different enemies’ particular weaknesses. There are a few variations of enemies ranging from grunts, over shielded brutes and quick, agile hunters. Anon’s light disc can be upgraded at disc stations where points can be traded for upgrades, this is also true for light cycles and tanks. Upgrading your equipment becomes pretty important as every level will bring with it more and more enemies – efficiency is very important during combat. Players can regain health by running across light pads and gain energy for special attacks by jumping over light sources. The animations are done pretty well and fun to watch as Anon displays some cool moves but the AI isn’t very smart and the controls aren’t up to snuff.
I have found the free running parkour sections, which also involve wall running, pretty entertaining but too often they seem not accurate and intuitive enough, causing me to fall to my death. Sure, this can happen a few times due to ‘user error’ but when I have to try and try again in order to pass a section it is more than just a small issue. Good on Propaganda for including many checkpoints, you’ll need them.
The world of Tron is exactly what you’d expect, there are a lot of blue and orange lights, and neon is everywhere. A lot of time will be spent running, jumping and grappling (there is an invisible zip line to traverse across gaps) across the outside of the futuristic looking buildings. Platforming elements are also plentiful but arbitrary. Moving around the world can be really fun when the controls aren’t causing you to die over and over – this can be the most frustrating part in this game. Character models are done fairly well but don’t seem quite up to the standards this far into the generation.
The musical score and sound effects are great; Tron Evolution’s music is done by Daft Punk and deliver 100 percent. Tron fans will be in love with what they hear. The sound effects during combat are also great and make the experience more immersive.
Lastly, Tron Evolution has multiplayer which incorporates 3rd person combat, light cycles and tanks. The leveling progression is persistent across the single and multiplayer. In order to unlock some of the cooler disc mods and light cycles, players will need to spend some time grinding their experience points. The multiplayer itself is fun and I did not have any trouble finding a game but I cannot see myself playing this mode for more than a couple of weeks.
Giving a final verdict to Tron Evolution is a bit painful for me. I really wanted to love this game, I wanted it to be great as a fan of the franchise but the game falls short of my expectations. The biggest problem with Tron is that it is neither great nor terrible; it is a middle of the park video game. While some aspects of the title are strong such as the audio and parts of the combat, others are too weak such as the free running and vehicle sections. At times I was having a lot of fun with Tron and at others I was extremely frustrated due to the lacking controls and simple vehicle action. If you are a Tron nut you can certainly give this a go but don’t expect to the blown away.
Score: 6.5 / 10
Tron Evolution was developed by Propaganda Games and published by Disney Interactive for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on December 7th, 2010. A copy of the PS3 version was provided to us by Disney Interactive for reviewing purposes.
