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makes the
levels drag on. They aren't also all that intelligent, but they
make up for that with a horde mentality, which is offset by frequent
power-up stations - a cool offshoot of those being you can trade
energy to non-playable characters for chips, then just go refill
to continue the journey. That doesn't strike me as the best way
to balance out the difficulty, which would also help to explain
why I would tire of this portion so quickly.
The developers must have known that the stories weren't all that
entertaining on their own because they spruced the game up with
quite a bit of features. One of the more immediately noticeable
is a chip feature. Spread throughout the stories are around two-hundred
chips, twenty of these will have a direct impact on Tron or Mercury's
ability to hack systems, attack, defend, jump, and so on. Each will
carry whichever enhancers they have, but only up to four at a time
can be used. This gives the game a bit of a Pokemon feel
because the collected cards can actually be traded with linked friends.
There are also cards that enhance the vehicles, like giving stronger
attacks for the tank or breaks for the light cycle, as well as non-enhancing
goods, like cheats. As you may have noticed, there are also portions
of the game where the player will need to use vehicles. There are
light cycle, tank, and recognizer segments, with the latter two
pushing the crude 3D-esque capabilities of the Game Boy Advance
as far as it can go. Despite the tank and recognizer segments being
slow and a difficult (despite there being a radar, some enemies
seem to pop out of nowhere - because they do), they are still interesting
diversions, and light cycles plays like Nibbles with power-ups,
which is always a good thing. The game also has a battle mode that
allows for all of these three to be played with up to three friends
or against bots, and the chips found and tracks beaten in single
player unlock them for battle mode.
Vehicles aren't the only means used to spruce up the gameplay. Throughout the stories both characters
will have to get around firewalls, security systems, and defragging.
These are usually done to gain access to new areas, particularly
cracking security systems to get keys that lower laser barriers.
Getting around firewalls entails moving a target up and down while
destroying layers of walls to get to sentinels that guard data ports,
allowing with power-ups there are also power-downs that come as
a result of destroying the walls; the challenge comes in avoiding
the power surges that run through the circuitry, so the attacks
come on defined paths that aren't straight, and this is generally
fun. Defragging involves putting six of the same color blocks together
while working around obstacle blocks that pop up. Hacking security
systems is frequent and can be one of the most annoying things about
the game. It's played out on a board of pieces with a starting point
and an end point (later on there will be multiple starting and end
points), with the computer giving out pieces of different shapes,
the goal being to link the starting point to the end point before
time runs out, while voiding the time penalties and trying to get
the time bonuses in the process. The problem with these is that
it is one of the main ways the game plays out; the player has to
track down these stations, which is mostly the premise of them needing
to travel, and these systems can have multiple boards, and it's
completely dependent on what the computer gives as to how easy or
hard it is. Now, there are security upgrade chips which make these
puzzles easier, but if the computer gives nothing but bad pieces
and surroundings the player with penalties, not connecting them
in time means security forces come and have to be fought off before
trying over again. Some walls need seven keys to continue, so even
if you really enjoy this style of puzzle, it gets fairly old after
the first hour or so of play.
While the basic chunk of the game did little for me, what I did
enjoy were the included arcade versions of Tron and Discs
of Tron. The original has its own multiple games, including
tank battles in 2D mazes, Robotron-styled shooter portions,
and a more basic light cycle mode. The latter is a game I would've
expect to see someone play on one of the Star Treks because
it comes off as a weird Duck Rogers kind of futuristic, with
the player battle pc opponents with discs, avoiding and shooting
oncoming discs while jumping from platform to platform and controlling
where their own disc will bounce off the wall. It's very addictive
and made an excellent addition to the title. These are in the mini-games
mode, and here there are also the three games found in story mode:
firewalls, security systems, and defragging - and these are a bit
more enjoyable because there is no back tracking looking for stations
or hordes of enemies to worry about.
The older games are true to their glorious pixelly graphical roots,
while Tron 2.0 manages to convey a more dulled sense of the
world. Without all the glitzy neon-fantastic light shows going on,
an emulate affect of it makes the game more often come off as blurry
and not all that interesting. The 3D portions aren't bad, considering
what they were working with. The animations are fairly limited in
all portions, but I was surprised at how nicely animated the opponents
are when hit in Discs of Tron. The music is like sped up
elevator music put through some sort of generic techno filter, with
the voice-overs - of such people as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos - sounding
like they are coming through on a walkie-talkie in the middle of
a thunderstorm. I would chalk most of this up to lofty ambitions
and limited hardware resources, though. I still tended to play with
the volume low.
Overall: 5.5/10
It isn't that the stories of Tron and Mercury are bad, it's just
that, coupled with difficult controls and repetitive combat, it
just wasn't interesting. None of its faults are deal-breakers, but
they certainly don't help in such a case as this. The supplemental
features are where it's at. With the ability to play all the in-story
games without the hassle or worry of needing to fight off or track
down what to do next, as well as an incredible battle mode with
all three vehicles that can be played with up to three players or
bots, and the inclusion of the original Tron and Discs
of Tron, there is plenty to hear to actually like. It's odd
that the best part of the game is chunks from the main portion.
The additional games work in a Wario Ware sort of way with
the abundance working to keep them interesting by giving the player
so much to do. While not all that exciting of an adventure, the
perks make the game almost worth it.
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