My childhood was filled with TRON; I was fortunate to be alive when the original hit the theatres and remember watching it, playing the game in the arcades and even owning the action figures. My fandom once had my parents track down Bruce Boxleitner at a Western Americana convention so he could sign my TRON DVD since I was stuck at work. Young me loved the idea of being inside an actual video game even with all the dangers. The most dangerous of course was the light cycles; man what I would have given to get my hands on one of those and race everywhere. With this TRON interpretation, TRON RUN/r, I found a fun and challenging platformer and racer, light cycles included.
There really isn’t a story to the game other than you are a program attempting to escape the grid, which makes you a “runner.” With such little story, the developers used the extra time to add some nice touches; it asks you if you want to “enter the grid” and that “program XboxLive name” is ready to play. I love these throwbacks to the movies and unfortunately some gamers may not catch them but man did they pull my nostalgia cord. At first I was disappointed with my characters skin, which was taken from Tron: Legacy (A movie that I enjoyed but I’m a bigger fan of the first installment). On a mission to find retro Tron nods I started to tinker with Customization menu before entering a level and I found my Holy Grail. Not only could I change the color of my character, I could play as classic characters which blew my mind. I, of course, picked Tron and began my quest to escape the grid.
There are three game types in this game; Tron City (where you run to escape to the portal), Whiteout (where you drive the light-cycle to freedom before the timer runs out) and Stream which combines everything and has you play as long as you can. I thought that my favorite game type would be Whiteout with the light-cycles but I was wrong; the Tron City portion of the game is some of the most platforming fun I’ve had in a long time. There are sixteen levels in Tron City and Whiteout and I blasted my way through a majority of the levels in Tron City in one sitting. Yes, the concept gets very repetitive which can be dragging but the speed at which you have to think and hit the buttons makes up for the repetitiveness. Whiteout was fun, but I’ve never liked being timed in games for anything, and that is the whole premise for those sixteen levels. Stream is a blast when you’re just running, but then you get that surprise you’re on a light-cycle, don’t run out of time and it suddenly loses its luster.
The controls are easy and you can master them very quickly, which you will need to do. The levels challenges come at you at such a fast pace, you barely have time to think as the grid changes around you. In Tron City “A” is jump and if you hold it you fly for a bit. The LT and RT triggers are disc throws: both are insanely invaluable. You can jump over objects or destroy them with your disc both of which gain you points which helps you out in the long run. As you beat more and more levels, (discs) you learn more tricks to survive. Hitting “B” or pulling back on your RT stick allows you to slide under obstacles. Hitting “X” when you are alongside a wall is wall-run, which allows you to get past huge gaps in the grid. When playing Whiteout, the controls are a bit different; RT Trigger is accelerate and LT Trigger is drift so you can take those turns pretty fast. In addition, pushing “X” is cycle attack; that helps you fight off other light-cycles who are trying to keep you from gaining time.
Disney really nailed the look and feel of TRON in this game with the merging of old and new. The graphics really make you feel like you are fighting alongside Jeff Bridges to save everyone. No expense was spared as they created the colorful vertigo inducing levels or when they chose the colors in the customization area. A majority of the colors come directly from the original movies and those were the colors I played the most in, especially Green. In the original TRON, they drink from a lake and Tron’s blue color turns to a bright vibrate green and playing as that brought back memories of my childhood. Music in the game is pretty good as well; it fits the levels and the pace with which you play. Sadly not a single Daft Punk track was available for me to jam out to, but the soundtrack is still worthy of being in a TRON game.
I really enjoyed playing this game; gathering bits in game can help you earn better scores by replaying the level with a companion who has a special skill. Those bits make me nervous though. Hopefully Disney won’t make you buy them with real money in due time; that would be sad. The replay value is slim; I could only play certain levels a few times before I got bored of them and wanted a new challenge. I would suggest this game to TRON fans out there and to people who miss a good speedy platformer. That is where Disney hit the nail on the head; the tougher platformer parts are a joy to beat and a joy to fail. Disney didn’t add any “gotcha” parts to make you fail. You have to be fast and know your controls and your obstacles so you can get the very best score once you make it to the portal. So if you’re looking for something a bit different and love to run and jump in a linear fashion, give TRON RUN/r a good look, you won’t regret it.
An Xbox One code of TRON RUN/r was provided by Disney Interactive for the purpose of this review.