Tron 2.0

[Keith Heitmann]

I've acquired a copy of Buena Vista's (Disney) Tron 2.0 and have been playing it for the past 2 days or so.

I'm usually not a big first person shooter player, but I have been known to play a few such as Half-Life. Tron 2.0 is a great game. It is sort of sequel to the original Tron story and once again you as the main character are back inside the computer fighting off ISPs, Data Wraiths, Resource Hogs, riding the light cycles, and Packet Transports around the world in side your machine.

The game runs very smoothly on my system but then I would expect it too on my Dell XPS. My advice is that if you want the max out of this game you'll want a good high end machine. You may find that even some P3s may have some troubles running this with all the settings turned up.

I've been playing the game for about 15 hours over the past couple of days and have battled my way up to level 16, "City Hub", so far and have just experienced a bug that is causing my game to CTD on me. It's reproducable, and I've fired off a email to my contact at BV with a save of the problem. There is a patch out for the game already and I do have that installed. Up this point there hasn't been any problems.

Luckily, if I have to I can used the cheat to get past this level to the next one to get around the bug. So no biggie.

The game looks and sound just like Tron the movie. THe music is even composed by the person that did the music for the film.

There are many "puzzles" to solve as you work your way through each level collecting "permissions", "emails", and "unknown subroutines" from data archive bins (sort of a glass box). Some bins have to have permissions in hand before you can access the contents.

There are many interesting and ingenous puzzles and levels. Some require jumping, avoiding various enemies such as the ISP, data wraiths, tanks, corruptors and seekers all out to de-rez you.

For battle you have your trusty disc. You can gain upgrades and new weapons from the various data bins as you progress. You may have to defrag or disinfect some of these before they can be used. Each weapon or utlity has various levels, alpha, beta, and gold. Each level produces a more lethal weapon than the one before it so you want to keep your eyes open for any upgraded weapons.

Unfortunately you can collect more than you can use at any one time and periodically you must find a server, sort of a little robot thing that creeps about, and once you have it it will perform a optimization on your selected utlity or weapon for you so it takes less space in your carried inventory. This makes room for possibly another weapon for you to carry. You can compress a deveice down from the maximum of 3 spaces to 1 by running it through a server optimization twice.

Eventually you will even pay a visit to the old system of Tron to find the Tron Legacy code and run into an old program called I-No, who knew the original Tron. With his help and the computer intelligence known as Ma3a (ma-three-ah), you work your way through more levels of the game.

Only 22 more levels for me to go before I'm done!

If you enjoy FPS type games, you'll like Tron 2.0.

[Keith Heitmann]

Well, I made it. As of 9:03PM CST Friday night, I finished the final (38th) level of Tron 2.0. I installed it late Tuesday night around 10pm or 11pm, played for about 8 hours, then 2 hours the next day, and about 10 hours Friday.

Excellent game despite its strange bug that crashed to the desktop once in a while. Luckily that didn't happen too often but one night I had it happen about 4 times, and only 2 other times beside that. I think there must be something I run that is causing the problem because if I reboot before playing the problem doesn't seem to want to occur.

There were a number of very frustrating levels that caused me to replay them again, and again, and again...., but I finally did get through them by making quicksaves and replaying from there when I was on role. I dare say that very few people get through the entire game without the quicksave feature (no matter what they claim.)

There are a number of fun levels to that aren't too difficult an don't require much thought. One of the more popular levels is the "sniper tower" (not really called that but that's the popular term for it.) You have to protect Ma3a (the computer main frame intelligence that guides you) while she works on accessing the fCon data ports.

You have to position yourself up on a high point above some courtyards, stairways and ramps, and using your inventory of weapons from disc (3 versions), rod primitive (not useable here as it is a close range weapon), LOL (powerful energy rifle), etc. as the system ICP units make a dash through the area below and up a ramp to stop Ma3a.

You have to pick them off quickly and not let one of them get into the area where Ma3a is working. A miss could mean a loss and restart. The problem with the energy rifle is that it uses a lot of stored energy, you carry stored energy and must replenish when low, with each burst. You don't have much time to run to a charging sphere and draw more energy so it is better to use one of the disc variants that don't use energy.

There are three light cycle levels in the game, and each level involves three races that you must win by derezzing the other players cycles and be the last one on the grid. For those that don't remember, lightcycles leave a trail of "light" behind them and it act like a wall and if another player or yourself runs into that wall you crash and derez and have to start that race over again.

The trick is to get ahead of another lightcycle and make 90 degree turns in their path and hopefully they won't react quickly enough and crash. One level is straight up with only four obstacles to avoid, but the trick is that you have to pass through a narrow area where tanks roll out to cut you off and derez you. If you don't get derezed by the tanks or crash into the obstacles that also in that area you make it to the next race on that level.

The next instance of a lightcycle race trio is harder, you have to race in what is essentially a huge maze making good driving and speed critical. The last three races on the last race level in the game was a bit of a cakewalk for me. The first two races were over before I even got warmed up.

The enemy is varied and vicious, from the ICP, resource hogs, seekers, recognizers, and data wraiths they are all out to get you.

One particularly tough level was where you face off against the ICP Kernel (yes, Kernel). He's tough. He starts out on a platform above and ahead of you and you have to find a way to damage him enough that he sees you as a worth opponent and announce a disc-only combat between the two of you on the ground flooer. There are a health and engery recharger on the level and you'll need them. The trick I found was to find a brokwn column in the middle floor area and crouch behind it and then "lean" out and toss my disc at the Kernel until his damage points finally get the best of him and derezzes in a fit of gibberish. The trick is finding place quickly enough where he won't come at you and wipe you out at close range. I restarted this level many times but I finally found that golden area where I could be close enough for a quick disc return so I could fling it off at him again while the Kernel just stood there taking the punishment unable to reach me with his disc.

A couple of Hollywood actors did voices for some of the characters in the game Bruce Boxleitner and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos did the voice of the female program Venus, that the main character, Jet, shows an interest in.

There is a editor that will let you make new levels and lightcycle contests out now too.

I can highly recommend Tron 2.0.

www.tron20.net