Review by: Michael Barnes

Tron: Evolution, a movie tie-in coinciding with the release of the 30-year late sequel to Disney’s neon-blue cult classic, is not a very good game along critical lines. Essentially, the game is a somewhat clunky third person action-adventure with heavy platforming that calls to mind the last-gen Prince of Persia titles but lacking rather severely in the grace and polish departments.

Quality is uneven throughout the game with Hollywood-class voice acting clashing with doughy character models and a fantastic visual style abrading against choppy animation. Control is far too loose and the level design often leaves you wondering where to jump next and failure to figure it out in a split second results in far too many accidental deaths. The story is somewhat cryptic, fitting in somewhere between the events of the first film and the new one and the campaign is short by today’s standard.

In sum, Tron: Evolution is just about what anyone savvy to the low-budget, rushed production, short-term shelf life expectancy world of movie tie-in games would expect. We’re clearly not in AAA territory here, and the game isn’t anywhere near as good the excellent Tron 2.0 first-person shooter from a few years ago. Give it a couple of months and you’ll see this game in almost any bargain bin where frankly, it probably deserves to be.

With all that unpleasantness out of the way, I have to admit two things. One, I am a huge Tron fan. I saw the first film when I was six years old and it changed my life. I own Tron toys, books, posters, and even a pair of Adidas sneakers they did in honor of the movie’s 25th anniversary. I also have to confess that I actually really liked this game despite a rogue’s gallery of faults that would have sent another title careening into the C or D level of Gameshark’s report card marks.

A large part of my enjoyment of the game has to do with the fact that I simply love just about anything to do with Tron. When I was careening away from an exploding building in Tron City with Daft Punk’s ridiculously awesome “Derezzed” blasting away or blowing Recognizers out of the sky in a Light Tank, I didn’t really care about all of the snooty video game critic issues or the fact that I was essentially playing a marketing tool. I was having fun. Tron fun.

The campaign is brief and relatively painless, although I found it surprisingly difficult. Your character is Anon, a systems monitor that gets caught up in some intrigue involving returning characters Flynn, Tron, and Clu as well as newcomer Quorra and other characters from the upcoming film. It’s tough to follow, but a nasty virus named Abraxas shows up and starts making “Infected” (don’t worry, they’re not really zombies) and there is a political situation in the System regarding the appearance of ISOs, independent programs that seem to be more evolved than the “Basics”. The story takes you through lots of new locations that expand the world of the films and collectible items provide some fun fan service-ish background to what you’ll see throughout the game. The Tron visual style is on display in full force with its Syd Mead/Jean-Giraud Moebius-influenced visuals, clean lines, and of course all that neon.