Game: Tron: Evolution

Developer: Propaganda Games

Release date: Holiday 2010

Tron is back, people.  Coming soon to a theatre and video game console near you are all new experiences from the famed Tron universe.  Tron: Evolution bridges the gap between the original Tron movie (1982) and the upcoming Tron: Legacy flick set to hit theatres later this year on December 17.  In the game you play as a system monitor who investigates “mysterious goings-on” that’s happening in the digital Tron universe.  The controls are best described by comparing them to Mirror’s Edge gameplay.  You are a parkour champion and you move through the levels by completing wall jumps, among other high-flying, fast and fluid techniques.  These are known as “mobility moves”.  In combination with “combat moves” you will successfully defeat incoming enemies and move on through the game.  Combat moves include typical melee fight style with punching and kicking, but you can also climb a wall and pounce your enemies from above.  You wield a disc that can be thrown at top speeds towards enemies to knock them out.  And if you have a few seconds to spare you can charge up your attacks and this results in a more powerful and effective combat move.  In the demo above you can see all the different types of combo moves you can perform (there’s disc-disc-melee, jump-jump-disc, disc-jump-melee, and so on).  Another neat gameplay features involves how you pick up health.  Through the various environments there are glowing white lines that run along the walls.  You can jump and vault along these lines to increase your health and energy meters.  This encourages you to use mobility moves and always be aware of your surroundings.

And this wouldn’t be a Tron game without the use of Light Cycles.  In the demo I hopped onto a Light Cycle and was being hunted down by enemies on their respective Cycles.  These Cycles beat out the ones played in the original Tron arcade game; thanks to a full physics model the vehicles don’t just turn at 90 degree angles.  Controls to accelerate and brake are simple.  You can also throw your discs to hit enemies off their rides as you speed past them.  This part of them demo was quite fun.  As you’re trying to escape from your enemies the world is falling apart and collapsing around you.  It’s you vs. the enemies vs. the environment.  The only fault I have with the Cycles is that they’re not fast enough.  If the devs bump up the speed this part of the game will be a whole lot more exhilarating.

A couple other odds and ends: Whatever you earn in the game can be used when you switch over to multiplayer, and vise-versa.  When I asked about PlayStation Move support I was told “there’s still some issues to be resolved in that department.”  We all know the movie will release in 3D, but what about that game?  The dev I spoke to said “it would be fantastic if we could get the game in 3D” and he seemed a whole more positive about 3D support than Move capability.  So we shall wait and see…

Overall Tron: Evolution is panning out to be one of the better game to movie to game adaptations I’ve seen in some time.  The visuals are slick, the gameplay is fluid, and story should excite Tron fans to no end.  Look for its release to coincide with the movie later this year.