Tron 2.0
Classic sci-fi flick gets a reboot.

PLATFORM: PC

PUBLISHER: Buena Vista

DEVELOPER: Monolith

GENRE: 1st-Person Shooter

ESRB: Teen

SCORE:

One of the classically overrated films of all time has got to be Tron, the 1983 computer fantasy that featured one-time leading men Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner (the guy from The Scarecrow and Mrs. King) as good programs fighting bad programs – all inside a computer.

Every geeky fanboy has fond memories of this flick – among other ‘80s computer movies like Wargames -- but let’s be honest, they’ve all aged petty badly. Still, Tron has somehow overcome its own mediocrity and become a cult classic, recently treated to a full-featured special edition DVD.

Instead of the inevitable sequel, Tron is instead being resurrected as a PC game. This first-person shooter combines the unique look of the film with standard FPS scripted sequences, simple puzzles and varied weapons and enemies.

This time around, you’re Jet, the son of Bruce Boxleitner (who makes a cameo voice appearance), and you’re naturally sucked into the parallel universe of computers early on in the game.

The first level of the game is a long and involved tutorial. There’s lots of screens of instructions to read and many somewhat arbitrary game mechanics to memorize. Which would be fine if Tron 2.0 made some more interesting use of the game system and plot potential. But instead, the game quickly becomes a rote shooter, and gets repetitive very quickly.

Instead of exploring new and interesting areas of the computer world and meeting other programs, for the most part you just run down corridor after corridor, blasting bad programs with your blue discus.

The game looks great, with an eerie glow surrounding everything. There are cool areas of “data corruption” that spread throughout the game and must be avoided. There’s even a version of the classic lightcycles from the film. These leave a trail of energy behind them and your goal is to force your opponent to crash into your wake.

But despite the original touches and tons of potential for interesting situations, Tron 2.0 feel like a game you’ve played many times before. From finding keys and adding power-ups to hard-to-navigate jumping puzzles, Tron 2.0 doesn't live up to the modern standard of story driven shooters, set by games like Half-Life, Medal of Honor and Halo.

While sporting solid production values and generally competent game design, Tron 2.0 fails to deliver on its promise. Female characters are few and far between (you hang with one butt-kicking girl program for a bit), and honestly, all the overt computer jargon can grate on the nerves at times (it’s not a skill, it’s a “subroutine”). So unless you’re a huge Tron fan or a Bruce Boxleitner fetishist, Tron 2.0 is one upgrade you shouldn’t feel obligated to load up.