Tron: Evolution

So what is Tron?

 Tron is a classic 80’s film filled with neon, smoke machines and terrible CG.

What’s Tron: Evolution?

 It’s a game produced by Disney to capitalize on the second movie in the Tron series, Tron: Legacy, too make this more confusing. If you’ve seen any of the original Tron, then in all honesty you won’t need to watch Tron: Legacy nor would you probably want to. Legacy follows on from the original Tron in the same way a dog would chase its own tail meaning that they are pretty much the same. Yeah one has better CG or better visual quality but that wouldn’t be hard seeing as the original Tron looked awful with all the rendered background being hidden by the constant use of bellowing smoke and headache inducing neon lights. But that was Tron’s charm and I guess films pretty much got a free ride in the 80’s no matter what, but I digress. 

So, Tron: Evolution is a 3^rd person “Action Adventure”, I guess except it left the adventure at home and the action is pretty lackluster. Really this game is a platformer but it’s not even good at that due to the crappy camera, but anyway on with the story. So if you haven’t already worked out that most movie tie-in games are a complete waste of time then I’m sorry to burst your bubble, hey if you enjoy them then that’s great but I don’t think there is any argument that they hold up to the average AAA title. Tron: Evolution is on a different level. I get that the game is released in conjunction with the film and therefore has an obligation to carry the same characters, settings and story. A game however is an interactive medium and you have access to do and show more in some cases. This game completely missed that last part and opted to just be essentially a carbon copy of the film. Evolution railroads you through a very linear campaign, reintroducing everyone you met in the film except for one character which lead me to briefly scan the wiki page and learn that Evolution is the bridging of Tron to Tron Legacy. I will admit, I finished Tron: Evolution with no idea it takes place in between the 2 films but it didn’t really matter. In the films, both time the protagonist’s creator/son of the creator is battling against a virus in the system and the only difference here is the name. Abraxas is the guy this time around, a yellow neon clad hooded figure and that’s pretty much the most interesting thing about that guy. 

So the story is nothing new but what about that platforming game play I mentioned earlier? The first thing you do in the game is climb a wall and then run along another wall to jump onto a platform opposite you, after a 10-minute platforming tutorial you are then treated to a couple of enemies and the game timidly tells you about the 2 moves you can do with your light disc. This alone tells me that the developers never really wanted this to be a video game, it plays more like a movie with shorter action scenes and worse camera angles. 

Speaking of which, the reason the camera is attached to an analog stick in a 3^rd person game is to be able to see what’s behind you at a moment’s notice without having to get the player character into specific positions. It’s particularly beneficial when you are jumping off a ledge or wall running up onto another platform like Evolution likes to throw at you all the time. It’s pretty useful and smart to have in a game that demands this much platforming so why the hell hasn’t Evolution got it!? If you find yourself at a loss and hanging from a ledge, the game with allow you to look a little bit left and a little bit right but snap back to front and center the second you touch any other button, meaning that you will probably have to find a ledge to stand on and slowly look around to map out your path. This breaks flow and is un-intuitive game design but at least there is a way to deal with it in these circumstances, it’s when you move onto combat that the camera really has it out for you.

 You can jump around and the camera will happily follow you but the moment an enemy shows their pixelated face the camera gets all moody. So here the right trigger is used to select what you want to target in combat, but when you jump and the camera suddenly has a seizure you will lose your current target in favor of the menacing pot plant in the corner of the room. Or maybe when the game starts to run on empty and just throws a lot of enemies at you, because that’s what films think games are and the whole final boss is this, the camera just seems to give up and leaves you at the mercy of jumping and throwing at what you’re pretty sure was there. Every now and again it will spontaneously swing back into position just over your shoulder which means if you were planning on heading in the opposite direction and leaving your enemies in the dust, you have now spun 180 degrees and are now heading right back into the fray whether you like it or not. 

The combat itself is probably the best part of the game, you get to fling your neon Frisbee around hitting people in the face and, if done with good enough timing, building your combo for a more powerful throw. That’s it, there is no building on that really, you get a couple of power-ups for your disc but only to increase the damage done against certain enemies that take less damage from everything else anyway so it’s creating busy work having to equip it.

At the end of the day it’s a game inspired by a movie franchise and it’s true to that at least. Overly long cut scenes that have had so much effort put into them, no clue about how to challenge the player except by employing rush tactics and relying on poor level design, and it’s just a bit on railsy, for example the collectables are pretty simple to find because most of them are on your path. TRON: Evolution is average at best both in game play and story and If you haven’t seen TRON: Legacy and have a compulsion to push buttons while watching films get this, I’m sure it will satisfy that itch.