OXCGN’s Tron: Evolution Review
Inside The Grid ‘Lock’
©2010 Gav Ross
Tron has always seemed tailor-made for constant video game exploitation After all, the original Disney film from 1982 was created alongside the arcade and home console revolution of the late 70’s/early 80’s, before the industry crashed in 1983.
Apart from an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 2 and a PC-only first person shooter (Tron 2.0) earlier last decade, there hasn’t been much Tron to be seen in the gaming landscape.
As expected, Disney Interactive have jumped right on the release of the new film blockbuster Tron: Legacy and Vancouver development house Propaganda Games have created Tron: Evolution – a prequel of sorts to the movie.
• TRON: Evolution The Game
Evolution’s story is strictly focused on staying true to the Tron universe and it doesn’t do a great job at explaining itself. Unless you’re well-versed in the race war between ISOs and Basics (and let’s face it, most of us aren’t as even if we watched the movie as kids the details have long since left our memories), then most of the lines spoken by in-game characters will be lost on you.
The main entity players control is named Anon, short for Anonymous and he/she is a program completely devoid of any personality. Gameplay revolves around acrobatics and ranged combat.
Evolutions borrows a lot from games like the recent Prince Of Persia series as there’s plenty of wall-running, ledge-climbing and jumping with an electric grappling beam. Movement around levels is fairly forgiving and it isn’t often the player will get confused and be lost as to where to venture next.
Even if Anon does fall to his doom or succumb to an enemy’s wrath, he simply ‘derezzes’ and reboots like a computer program back to the last checkpoint. There isn’t an easy rewind function like in Prince Of Persia, but checkpoints occur often enough that nothing becomes frustrating.
Evolution could almost be compared to a game like Mirror’s Edge in regards to the chaining together of moves and timing everything perfectly to create a seamless blend of freestyle acrobatics.
But the game’s camera completely obliterates this possibility. Wall-running is fine when it’s at a side-view, but quite often when Anon runs horizontally up a wall in order to jump backwards and engage enemies, the camera either doesn’t pan around and makes it feel like he’s jumping into nothingness, or it jerks around too fast as the disastrous lock-on mechanic tries to function.
Locking onto an enemy and fighting them – either with ranged or melee attacks – is very little fun and constantly problematic throughout the game. Taking on groups of baddies is a complete mess as the lock-on cursor is never sure where it’s meant to be and the camera haphazardly changes to suit whatever enemy may be closest.
It’s fine when there are just one or two of them to take out, but any more than that and it’s best to just throw ranged explosions with Anon’s ‘bomb disc’ and hope for the best.
There are four different disc types that Anon can use as a weapon (Heavy, Bomb, Stasis and Corruption) and each can be unlocked throughout the adventure at various intervals. Certain discs only work on particular enemy types, but most of the time it’s easier to rely on the Bomb disc and upgrade it accordingly.
Anon’s weapon and software upgrades can be continuously improved with the use of upgrade stations placed sporadically throughout levels. There is a experience leveling system that goes all the way to Level 50 and it takes a few playthroughs to reach this zenith.
Really though, players would be advised to try and replay/grind a few levels before attempting the highest (Insane) difficulty setting as you’ll need all the help you can get. On the Casual/Normal difficulty setting, Tron is a breeze to play through and can be over and done with in under six hours.
• TRON Evolution The Video Game Slideshow
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The game’s on-foot sections are broken up occasionally by the use of light cycles and tanks, although these don’t do much to improve things. The light cycle parts are merely lessons in trial and error as the player dodges obstacles and attempts to see where the neon roads are going, while the tanks feature awkward controls and are pretty useless unless you sit back and fire away at enemies from a distance.
Most often in cases like this, the multiplayer turns out to be just as dire (or even worse) than the single player experience. Thankfully, Evolution delivers an online portion that’s completely different to the campaign and is actually decent fun after getting the hang of what the Grid arena entails.
This arena setting hearkens back to the original film and is basically a free-for-all for up to 10 players. Light cycles can morph beneath your legs simply by pressing the right bumper and game types include a take on capture-the-flag with teams attempting to locate and defend ‘nodes’ that emit from the ground as beams of radiant light.
For some reason the controls feel slightly less wonky with online play and experience can be earned that goes towards stats for the single player game. The only problem is finding more than one or two people in the lobby at the same time to make a match worthwhile.
One day there may be a definitive Tron game that does the films justice. Unfortunately, Evolution is far from near this mark and it will test the patience of even the most avid Tron devotee.
`5.0/10
©2010 Gav Ross
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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Game Impressions, New Xbox 360 Games, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | " Propaganda Games", 360, Disney, Disney Interactive, DIsney Interactive Studios, games, Kingdom Hearts 2, Mirror's Edge, Prince of persia, Tron, Tron Evolution, Tron: Legacy, Video game, Xbox 360, xbox live
