Tron: Evolution is here for Xbox 360 and PS3 to flesh out the somewhat incomprehensible narrative of Tron: Legacy with a prequel back story, and lots and lots free running. Shameless cash in? Genuinely good game? Read our Tron: Evolution review and find out.
What would a Disney movie launch be without a tie in, cross platform console game to with it? A bad one, and Tron Legacy most certainly isn’t that. Unfortunately, while the movie can coast on looking cool, the controls of this prequel game mean this isn’t quite the sort of title that stands on its own, away from the name, GoldenEye style.
In case you’re not in the loop on Tron lore, and we wouldn’t blame you, it being 28 years since the first film, Tron Evolution takes place between the two films. You play a System Monitor in The Grid known (or not) as Anon, out to stop Clu (Evil Jeff Bridges) from seizing control. Along the way, you’ll jump around lots, and maybe find out what happened to Kevin Flynn (Good Jeff Bridges).
Visually, Tron: Evolution should be awesome, and it just about is. Everything is a pill popper’s disco nightmare, with throbbing lights, scary dancers, but just another sanity to keep the bad guys colour coded. If you ever played Rez on the Dreamcast or Xbox, it’s shade like that, except that people will lob discs at you for funnies or deathsies.
The PS3 version (which we tested) also supports 3D. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a 3D TV to hand to test the stereoscopic version at the time of review, but we had a chance to don some goggles at a preview event earlier this year, and we thought it looked pretty spiffy then, so if you’re lucky enough to have one already, it’s well worth trying out.
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Sadly though, the cracks soon start to show: player motions look jerky, hot female characters look like unrealistic humanoids straight out of Oblivion or Fallout 3, and well, the whole disco thing never ever lets up. Play Tron: Evolution for an extended period and something akin to neon snow blindness sets in.
It’s a shame too that the gameplay lets the side down a little. As we noted in our preview, developer Propaganda Games is clearly imitating the likes of Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed with all the free running and leaping. And indeed The Grid seems like a perfect setting for it. But leaping around is frustrating when the camera will trick you to your death on a regular basis, and driving the light tank is like skidding on ice in slow motion.
Combat is a tad frustrating as well. The focus on deadly disc chucking makes it play differently to the likes of Assassin’s Creed, but it’s repetitive, and sometimes feels like a case of hope-you’ve-got-enough-health-to-survive-these-unblockable-throws.
The multiplayer, while a blast, only serves to show up what Tron: Evolution’s single player is missing: proper light cycle racing, not on rails nonsense. For this reason alone, it’s worth hopping online for a quick challenge or deathmatch. People flash by you, and only those on some form of substance will be able to cope with everything going on at once: which is surely what a Tron game should be like. Certainly if you’re an Xbox owner without a Gold subscription, you’ll be missing out on the funniest part of the game.
Verdict
If you’re a hardcore Tron fan, you really are going to love scurrying around the The Grid in Tron: Evolution, and might even appreciate the absurd backstory. For everyone else though, this is a rental only. The gameplay and setting might just hook you, though the sloppy controls were enough to put us off. Try the Tron multiplayer, see if you like it and go from there.
