545th played so far
Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1982
Developer: Bally Midway
Publisher: Bally Midway
I was listening to a podcast yesterday that talked about movies made from video games, and movies made concerning video games (even if they’re not real) and somehow Tron didn’t come up. This is the videogame of the film, but that’s a development that’s natural, considering a lot of Tron already feels like a video game.
So we’ll certainly see some light cycle racing in this game, and whatever else comes up. My main question is – how do they put in the elements you expect and make them work together.
Our Thoughts
Tron is, in essence, a minigame collection. There are four games repeated for each level (each level increasing difficulty). The famous light cycle race is in there, top down but working pretty much as you’d expect. There’s a battle to defeat the MCP (the big bad guy) by breaking through shields, which is faithful enough for a video game. A tank fighting minigame… not as much, but that’s the way it is.
A few years earlier these would have been four different games. What’s impressive here is that these additional games are involved, not sharing much with each other, but linking to create something that feels like you’re part of the movie for a bit. Not as much, perhaps, as you’d expect now, but you can see how it would work great as a tie in at the time, covering more than just a single bit of it (again, the light cycle race would probably been the most obvious section to port).
Final Thoughts
Each of the Tron minigames are simple – not as much as a Warioware minigame, but not too complex. They work together nicely, however, to create a feel for the game, randomly determining what you’d face. Not something I’d stick with for ages, but enoug as the diversion it would be. Just not as good as the film, really.