I recently played through Tron: Evolution. I also recently saw the movie Tron: Legacy as well. I think I will put down my thoughts about them in the order I consumed them.

So the game comes first. If you are sensitive to spoilers for either the movie or the game, don’t click through.

I am going to predicate the whole review by saying I played through the entire thing from start to finish, and am contemplating doing so again. This is not however, an endorsement of the games quality.

In a word, the game needed “focus.” Lots and lots of it, as it turns out.

Now this isn’t just a fanboy coming back into a universe that I was exposed to long ago and have rose colored glasses about. The game really needed to figure out what it was, and do that thing very well. I would have liked to see them stick to the platforming and parkour, with combat intermixed. Let us see what they could have trimmed to get things more fun.

No multi-player right off the bat. In a month, nobody is going to be playing multiplayer Tron, as fun as it might be. People will go back to multiplayer Halo, or CoD or whatever. Point being, resources were spent to make a multiplayer game, that should have been spent elsewhere because ultimately there wasn’t any residual value in multiplayer tron. What are people going to remember this tron for? Not the multiplayer I assure you.

No light tanks OR light cycles. Sacrilege I know. A Tron game without light cycles. Why cut the light cycles? Because this isn’t a light cycle game! It seemed to be nothing more then a tech-demo eye candy for luring in people at conventions. Cut the crap and get on to making a game that people care about!

Now how do we do that… How do we make a game that people talk about long after they put the controller down? Make characters that the audience cares for, and develop them over the course of the game. Use the hardships they will be put through to show development and change.

They had a great back drop for the entire narrative built in from the start. What the writers of the movie eluded to, the developers of the game had full reign of fleshing out fully. Here. Let me give it a try.

Flynn descends from the real world to create a digital world from his own imagination. It is stark and empty, so he created a copy of himself to help re-shape and build it into his own image of nirvana. This mirror image of himself is more then happy to be the prodigal son of the creator and the world is harmonious. Here we have the Father of the system (Flynn), the Son of the creator (Clu), and the Holy Spirit from the Old system (Tron). The “grid” is in right angle heaven.

Enter the “special brew” people. They are special. Nobody likes the new guys. They mess up the chi. Genocide goes on. Massive amounts of violence against innocent life. Last one has to get the fuck outta dodge before the sky comes down on her very pretty head. There is no god damn way she can do so without the help of others around her, on both sides of the conflict.

She gets out, but everyone that has helped her, has been sacrificed to the purge.

The digital Deity comes to the rescue when all other hope is lost or spent. Striding to the beaten and battered program with back-lit splendor, he can say something heroic and philosophical and perfect.

Roll credits.