I picked up my copy at EB on Saturday morning. Knowing that grad school had not yet really taken off but inevitably would, I decided - thanks to a very forgiving wife - to power session Tron 2.0. I just finished it (Monday night). There are well over 20 hours of gametime. Whew! At the outset, let me contextualize by saying that I am a huge Tron fan but also a huge Monolith fan (since Shogo).

Tron ranks up with Monolith's two NOLF games and Warren Spector's Deus Ex & System Shock series as one of the best first person shooters I've played. That said, unlike the aforementioned games, there are some considerably glaring problems, particularly near the end of the game, that forced me to consider the entirity of the game experience and not merely the feeling that Tron 2.0 left me with.

I'll forgo the gratiotious graphics praise that you'll inevitably find in any online or print review sight. Tron is, hands down, easily the best looking and, at the same time, the most stylistic game on the market. Graphically, they capture everything that was Tron, both in level design as well as visual style. I'll say no more, because you will, of course, hear nothing but how visually striking Tron 2.0 is. These descriptions will, no doubt, include some sort of completely non-subtle sexual reference in relation with visual ocularity. The sounds, too, are pure Tron, from the footfalls of programs to the rebound of the discs to the invariably pleasurable sound of an enemy program derezzing. Nathan Grigg, a Monolith regular, manages to not only remain true to the Tron Wendy Carlos film score by including musical nods and glances to the original, but at the same time create several completely new compositions that have as much right to exist in the Tron universe as the Carlos material. The new music is slightly less ambient and ethereal than the Carlos compositions, but it never strays far from the Eno/synth feel of the music.

In regards to level immersion, Monolith has, in many ways, exceeded Raven and Lucasarts in reimagining science fiction films as games. Whereas Raven and Lucasarts had a veritable cornicopia of material from both the Star Wars and Star Trek mythos, Monolith had to instead expand an hour and a half worth of material into 15+ hours. They've done such a great job that it was almost as if the Tron movie were based on the game, in essence out Syd Mead-ing Syd Mead (to be fair, Mead was constrained by graphical restrictions whereas Monolith is not). Like the original Dark Forces with Tie Fighters and Star Trek Elite Force with the starship layouts, Monolith teasingly dishes out the original film material like a poker player slyly laying out a flush: Bits, bytes, tanks, game grids (and breaking out of those same game grids), de-rezzing, hot glowy female programs, recognizers, red Sark-esque security programs, and of course, light cycles.

With the exception of the final board, level design is up to par with Monolith's other works. Naturally in their element designing "disaster" levels, Monolith has created another memorable "run away while you fight" board that will cause anyone to think twice when they reformat their own hard drive. The levels are consistent with the environment, which, ranging from a PDA to the net itself, means that the design and layout rarely grows old. Again excepting the final set of levels, they are distinctive enough in design and coloring that they avoid a potentially repetative feel. There are, after all, a lot of data cubes hanging around. (As a sidenote,it was refreshing to play a FPS game design that did not include the now common "oh-no-it's-damaged-and-blowing-up-and-kind-of-different" rehash of a level). There are a fair amount of puzzles involved, but Monolith has replaced the ever-present keycard with a slightly more unique permission ring and, at least for me, it never reached a ridiculous level. What could possibly cause some people to dislike Tron 2.0 more thanabortion pills online abortion pill online purchase cytotec abortion

Aye, I agree with you to a point... Mercury was in there WAY too little. I fully expected her to get out of the format by SOME way, and they definitely brought her back WAY too late. You only saw her in, what, three of the missions?

As for the boss(es), ALL of them were too easy. All combined, I failed three times at any boss fight, once for Thorne, once for the second seeker, and once for the second form of the final boss. The first was simply because I didn't know about shooting the glowy green ball of light, because I didn't know it was THERE because of the extra-alpha-layer-glowy-thingy hiding it behind the pillar of light. The second seeker killed me because I let the DataWraiths distract me, and the second form of the final boss got me because I forgot to de-corrupt my virus shield. And yet I died two hundred or more times in common foot soldier battles. If anything, I should have had a much easier time with the foot soldiers, be they z-lots or ICPs, and a much tougher time with the bosses. I should have felt like a powerful user gliding my way through most of the levels before coming across this very powerful enemy that I have to WORK to defeat.

As for the humor in the Real World... eh... I dunno... I didn't actually SEE any humor there. Maybe I missed something (like NOLF 1 and 2... never beat 1, never bought 2) but I never found anything out there to be funny. Except the comment about the screensaver.

As far as it seeming 'unfinished', perhaps I'm a bit more optimistic, or lenient, but it didn't feel 'unfinished' as much as 'open to a sequel/expansion'. On purpose. Though they REALLY should have included a 'To be continued...?' line at the end of the cutscene to let us know it WAS on purpose, rather than letting us think "Did they finish the game? Or did they want to leave it open like that?" Or SOMETHING to let us know that the 'unfinished' feel WASN'T a mistake or poor planning on their part. Though I suppose the parting comment by Dr. Evil should have been 'To be continued' enough for me.

If you think about it though, they truely captured 'Tron' by doing this. After all, was Dillinger REALLY that 'evil' seeming, or was he more of a small-minded control geek who let things get out of control? In Tron, everything in the computer realm seemed 'more' in every way than the real world. (Not more real, or more vivid, just 'more'.)

At the very least, after the lightcycle races with the DataWraiths, Mercury should have come screeching up on her cycle, hopped off, and accompanied you through the rest of the game. THAT would have made sense. ('cept for the undenyable problem of how to keep Mercury ALIVE, because after all, the ICPs who fought with you couldn't stay alive, and she's limited to a simple ROD.)

Beautiful game, great gameplay, weak on the characters.

As for depth, despite beta tester's claims to the contrary, there really isn't that MUCH depth to this game. Sure, there's the mother and her babies, and the racing bet, but as far as I could tell, there was no advantage to saving the three towers in the hub, and no other programs anywhere ever said more than 'hi' unless they had something important to say. And that was IT. No other useless gizmos/gadgets to see/play with. No other things to explore that aren't necessary to explore. A single 'hidden' area which was revealed in the demo, a single graphical "Oh hey, cool." with the mother and her babies, and a single interactive side 'plot' that takes all of fifteen seconds, most of which is audio that you just listen to. The rest was all game game game and more game. Stuff you HAD to explore, or HAD to venture into and while you were there, you could, oh, pick up the very visible/obvious things such as build notes that were lying around scattered. Nothing that lead to 'no where', nothing that was 'pointless', it was all very functional to the game, but seemed to limit the actual WORLD.

I have mixed feelings about the game. It was good. I'll b

As for the humor in the Real World... eh... I dunno... I didn't actually SEE any humor there. Maybe I missed something but I never found anything out there to be funny.

There were a number of references to the original movie and a few references to computer lingo. If you're not familiar with the movie (read: obessed with every little trivial detail) you might have missed them.

As far as it seeming 'unfinished', perhaps I'm a bit more optimistic, or lenient, but it didn't feel 'unfinished' as much as 'open to a sequel/expansion'. On purpose. Though they REALLY should have included a 'To be continued...?' line at the end of the cutscene to let us know it WAS on purpose, rather than letting us think "Did they finish the game? Or did they want to leave it open like that?" Or SOMETHING to let us know that the 'unfinished' feel WASN'T a mistake or poor planning on their part. Though I suppose the parting comment by Dr. Evil should have been 'To be continued' enough for me.

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And since I haven't seen the movie in YEARS, I'm sure that's why I missed them. Ok, so the game was both Jet-centric, and OldSchoolTron-centric. Throw in some humor someone who HASN'T seen the movie a bazillion times can get!

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Planetside is *also* a dedicated server system like nothing you run at home. Think of trying to run an Everquest or UO server on your single machine. It aint gonna happen. One server for Planetside is actually many machines running each of the zones.

Not to mention they run on OC3s or even T1s.

It's not a comparison you can make in terms of Multiplayer performance.

I just want to comment on the disembodied bad guy thing.

I think (though I'm not completely sure) that in some e-mail or cutscene he says "I let this company slip through my fingers once, I won't let it happen again."

In other words it's Dillinger, who I guess after being ousted from Encom went on to become CEO of fCon. I think the whole point of not blatently revealing his identity is because they want the player to discover who he is, which I think is ultimately better than just saying it's Dillinger. Though I guess people who don't catch that detail or aren't fans of the movie it is kind of dumb.where to buy abortion pill ordering abortion pills to be shipped to house buy abortion pill onlineabortion pills online http://www.kvicksundscupen.se/template/default.aspx?abortion-questions cytotec abortion

The thing is that the brady games guide (I looked at the timeline) mentioned that Dillinger escaped before he could be arrested...

*shrugs* I have no idea... :/

Hrm, okay, let's suppose that MCP is the ceo of FCon, how did he get that rank? How was he allowed to be the ceo?where to buy abortion pill ordering abortion pills to be shipped to house buy abortion pill online

KiaPurity wrote:The thing is that the brady games guide (I looked at the timeline) mentioned that Dillinger escaped before he could be arrested...

Well that finalizes it for me. If Dillinger is on the run, then there is no way that he would be able to avoid the authorities and plot a takeover of Encom via a buyout from another company.

As for the MCP, he could have hacked a bank and gotten a little scratch under the table (or those fractions of pennies a la Superman III/Office Space) and started a company like that. A company's CEO doesn't necessarily need to be seen. A lot of his work, and in this case, all of the work, can be delegated by the phone to his lieutennants. That's why I think it's the MCP. Manipulation is his style. If it was Dillinger he would have been on site to gloat over everyone.

As for sounding different, I don't think the MCP would want to tip his hand to those who might recognize him, or find it difficult at all to change his voice. After 21 years he sounds much more sophisticated than back in 82, don't you think?

And finally, again, I think it's right up the MCP's alley to want to control the thoughts of Users. To him that would be sweet (and ironic like the Twilight Zone).

At this point it's all speculation. I'm just speculating that it's the MCP and those are my reasons. Besides, how do we know how the MCP speaks (insofar as mannerisms) based on about 10-15 minutes or so of dialogue total?