In lieu of writing my thesis and looking for a job, I chose to spend the weekend feeding the bomb to TRON 2.0, and let me tell you, it was worth it. While this isn’t the best FPS I’ve played, actionwise, it more than made up for it with graphics, storyline, and a kickin’ techno soundtrack.

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ps. I got GameCam to work afterall - I take back some of the bad things I said about it.

The most flattering thing I can say about any game is that I simply can’t stop playing it. TRON 2.0 falls solidly in that category having prevented me from going to bed at a reasonable hour for almost a week now. This FPS has you play the role of Jet Bradley, son of reknowned programmer Alan Bradley (voiced by the original TRON, Bruce Boxleitner) and godson of the first digital pioneer, Kevin Flynn. Apparently, getting sucked into a computer runs in the family as you find yourself inside the company mainframe battling a particularly pernicious virus of unknown origins.

This game is very heavily story driven following in the footsteps of Halflife and System Shock by presenting a game in which you’re just a nerd trying to survive some very freaky business. The plot is very cool and has some surprisingly complex twists to it, for an FPS. This was most often why I couldn’t stop playing - I just had to find out what happened next. The other thing that drew me in was the graphics. This game is so pretty it almost hurts.

Ahhh, the internet…now show me the porn.

The world inside the computer is unlike any other FPS out there and in true TRON fashion, everything glowed. Allow me to now issue a public service announcement: stock up on Visine, you’ll need it. Despite the heavy graphics requirements, I found the game to run very smoothly without any of the hiccups or slowdowns I’ve seen on other games (Deus Ex: Invisible War chief among them), although admittedly a digital world doesn’t require much in the way of grainy textures. The best part, though, was the attention it paid to the original TRON and all of the things you remember about the original Disney nerd fest are back.

Eat hot disc, servwatch.exe.

It’s much bigger in the real world.

On the downside, game play was, well…okay, it was just average for a FPS. Weapons (outside of the disc) were pretty standard issue wrapped in fancy lighting, enemy AI was mediocre but persistent, and it had a lot of everyone’s favorite game, jump from platform to platform. The other thing that got to me after a while was the nerd jokes. Yes, TRON 2.0 is a game about a programmer sucked into a computer hitting on digital women, but did you have to give the baddies the battle cry “long live C drive”?

He’s in charge here, so that makes him the kernel. Get it? The Kernel? Cause he’s in charge! Ha!

I should slap you for this nonsense.

These are minor complaints though and don’t take much from the game as a whole. Now that TRON 2.0 is on the $20 rack, definitely pick it up. Even if you don’t like the FPS aspects, trust me, lightcycle racing is where it’s at. And the soundtrack is surprisingly good, thanks to DJ.exe.

Drop phat beats, DJ.exe