Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

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Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

Hi folks,

Well - as previously mentioned I am going to school for game art & design and HAD to do a report about one of the best games I know. Even better, it was a chance for me to plug this place, all of you and affiliate websites and forums. From the makers of User Error & Killer App to the simple mention of our various communities, our still existent multiplayer gaming no matter how periodic and a smiple reminder to heighten awareness and maybe bring in some folks. Not to mention a little stab at how the most recent game and movie were donkey turds in comparison in my opinion. Maybe someone of importance might be listening, one can dream.

If it seems a little basic to you keep in mind it is meant to be written from a certain point of view for purposes of the report.

Anyway - I hope you folks like my paper, so here it is.

"Hi folks,

Well - I know I mentioned it before, but I had to, I just had to. This game did not get the credit it deserves and neither did the movie (the originals on both - the new ones are crap honestly - ask anyone). I even started it again from scratch as it has been a while and lo and beholed there was a lot of content I did not remember, it's like I see something new every time. If you remotely liked Tron the movie - play this game and give it a serious try in my opinion. Forget Legacy and evolution - they totally lost it with those.

You would be surprised at how big this was at one time before BVG dropped game and multiplayer server support. I remember when we had to wait to que for a match and now - those left need to make in-between IRL appointments just to play on our own networks, but we are still here. I will preface this with an in famous quote from the movie.....

[Sark]"Greetings " ....- ...." you will each be given an identity disk. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disk. If you lose your disk or ail to follow commands. You will be subject to immediate deresolution. That will be all."...

Here goes:



Unsung Gold: Tron 2.0 for PC & Mac
I decided to report on a game that I absolutely worship, Tron 2.0. It was initially made for PC, then Mac OS X in 2003 and even for Game Boy Advance and Xbox in 2004 under the name “Killer App” with some differences in single player and online multiplayer game-play The Game was developed by Monolith Productions and Published by Buena Vista Interactive (Disney) and used the Lithtech(Jupiter) Engine which was initially developed by Monolith Productions in cooperation with Microsoft and later became Lithtech, Inc. Years later changing the name of the company to Touchdown Entertainment.

The PC version of the game received mostly favorable reviews with an average score in the mid-80%, but did not meet Buena Vista Interactive's expectations. Sadly BVG dropped support for the game within two years. It is surprising to me that this game did not receive more press which could have helped this and in an age where so many parents are worried about video game content, Tron 2.0 features combat and fast paced action without the spilling of blood. Only pixels, hence it has a quite accurate ERSB rating of : T for teen.

Fans of the movie will be nostalgically happy to hear the voices of Bruce Boxleitner (Alan Bradley, Tron) as well as Cindy Morgan (Lora, Yori & Ma3a in Tron 2.0) in this game which is an Action game in a FPS (First person Shooter) style that also features some Role Playing elements as well as Puzzle Solving. It features single player story mode, single player light cycle arena mode as well as mulch-player LAN & online combat disc arena / deathmatch and lightcycle game play. The transformation of a person into the micro-world of digitized computer programs is beautifully expanded upon in this game to extrapolate on the already ground breaking 80's movie.

There are several things that stand out in this game with regard to its game-play, look and feel that I think sets it apart from many other games in the same genre's. One unique challenge the game provides is in the process of discovery involves having different program permissions to access certain areas, operate certain world functions and archive bins which hold weapons, utilities and other needed resources. Sometimes these things can be found in the searching of the “core dump” or corpse of defeated, digital enemies.

These subroutines must be downloaded into your disc and added to current resources you are operating which gives you different abilities - some of these are utilities you use like virus scan and viral shield when your system becomes corrupted by a virus from infected, renegade programs or “y-amp” which makes you jump higher and even “fuzzy signature” which make your footsteps quieter so it is easier to get past guards. So, to effectively move about the world and achieve goals, one must change his programming with the environment.

This game makes a lot of use of y & z coordinate depth when exploring and often in combat and running around in the course of your adventures. You will most definitely battle with vertigo as you jump from small moving platforms to tiny ledges as well as being fired upon simultaneously and searching core dumps to heal your health and energy. Sometimes these must be completed within a short time frame to be accomplished, where the game normally flows in player adjusted real time, depending on the mode of play.

The single player story expands quite well on the book and movie plot and I personally learned a thing or two about how the inner workings of computer systems operate from it. One will find themselves smiling at the mention of computational inner workings and terms like “handshaking” as the name for a small world section or chapter of the game where you travel into the mainframe of a user's PDA as much as tired programs relaxing at the “progress bar” inside the “city hub” (the net) withing the single player storyline plot.

The multiplayer games allow for up to 8 to 16(Xbox) players to combat against each other in a lightcycle arena, where they must ride at full throttle to encase each other in walls of light left by their bike passage or force them to crash into their own and vice versa.. Disc arena multiplayer battles allow players to run and jump within multi tiered arenas hurling their disc weapons at each other in a survivalist fashion. Deathmatch arenas allow for the use of multitudes of other types of weapons that the game programmers expanded upon.

It is fascinating to play and to watch, even for those who are not die hard Tron fans and can be quite challenging at many points even on the easier modes of play. The game mechanics are well executed and do not betray the world plot or story in any way, but expand on it. The environment the character moves about in varies so much and also extrapolate on what is already expected and known in the Tron universe, but brings it much further than expected. Many who reviewed this game and even the writer of the movie have been quoted as calling it a “sequel” to the movie decades before the more recent sequel disaster we are all more familiar with.

The game had spurred for many years a healthy online community following which still lives to this day, even in the light of the recent actual movie sequel and followup game, which by all accounts failed miserably and pales to the like of the original Tron 2.0 game and the preceding movie. A level editor was made available which allowed users to make their own custom maps for multiplayer gaming and has been utilized quite impressively.

Most impressive is the making of the Tron 2.0 “Killer App” Mod for the game which features new character skins, new lightcycles and a plethora of enhanced graphics effects. Even more impressive is the two part expansion “User Error” of the Tron 2.0 game made by the most dedicated among the LSDO team. True lovers of the movie and game gathered their talents and resources and extrapolated upon it to make something quite compelling that even received reviews and coverage from several gaming sites and even positive feedback from a Monolith employee.

To investigate this phenomena further, the most infamous websites for the cult following of the game are http://www.ldso.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; “Living Dead System Operators” which features Tron news on all gaming fronts as well as the movie franchise, new, old and potential future endeavors. Also http://www.tron-sector.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which even covers the Tron arcade games as well as home console games going back to Intellivision and others. Possibly on of the most dedicated websites that can be found would be http://tronfaq.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which is run and hosted by Tronfaq, a member of the LDSO team.

Clearly, this game was taken very seriously by quite a lot of people and had it received better marketing at the time of its release, could have been much bigger than it was previously. However, that is the mark of a true diamond in the rough as it were, something that stays for decades and only pales to certain eyes. Tron 2.0 is an excellent game more people young and old should be aware of and should be built upon to celebrate the original movie.

Citations:

http://tronfaq.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Template originally by MukkaMu and JackBook — Modified by TronFAQ | Digicons by Sketch, Favicon by FusionAddict NA. Web 4-26-12
http://buenavistagames.go.com/product/tronPC.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; © DISNEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. web 4-26-12
Developer: Monolith Productions Publisher: Buena Vista Interactive Copyright 1996-2012, IGN Entertainment, Inc. web 4-26-12
http://www.moddb.com/engines/lithtech" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; NA. © 2002 - 2012 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Friends: gamrReview. 1917 modders. web 4-26-12


http://www.tron-sector.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; NA. Tron-Sector is copyright ©2012 Mythric Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Web 4-26-12
http://www.ldso.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Copyright © 2012 Living Dead System Operators. All rights reserved.
LDSO template by Load"*",8,1; Mor.Evil-1; Zook_One; Xistence; TronFAQ web 4-26-12
Tron 2.0 User Error team:
Load "*",8,1, Meatsack, Mor.Evil-1, TronFAQ, Win3K, Xistence, zook_one
Tron 2.0 Killer App team:
9VoltChicken, Avi, Jademz, Jumpy, Kain-Xavier, Layer, Load "*",8,1, Mangler, Mr. Anderson, Mor.Evil-1, Myria, Raven, Shock, Tetsue, TheReelTodd, TronFAQ, Void, Vman, WhiteRabbit, Win3K, Zook_One


- end of line - "
Techro |___| __o-o

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"that which does not kill us makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by deeahchur »

Very nice. Great content overall. Tc)

This is a great way to bring attention back to Tron 2.0 and the modding community, and hopefully _someone_ is listening and will enbolden the way toward future support for the game.

If you have not presented/submitted this essay, here are a few tips for polish:

Some grammar checking is needed, but nothing that is horrendous as some are just typos, which your spellcheck should catch.

You may want to mention for the Disc Arena duels soemthing relating to derezzing the floor or barriers protecting opponents.
Ti| / / S C A N N I N G
Tz) / / Incompatable Program detected
Tk| / / Initiate Yggdrassil Conscription Potocol
T=| "Appropriation is the highest form of appreciation."
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it. Yes, I did realize most of the spelling error or misstypes and a minor sentence mixup which I fixed before submitting. The last part you mentioned - well - Live and learn. Still I think I did pretty well and I am expecting a good grade on this as I got 100% on my first two assignments and I am maintaining a 4.0 overall in my mixture of courses. Whoohoo! T-]

Looks like in the weeks to come we are getting into more interesting things and will startdesigning our own game story and user interface. This will be cool.

Be well
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"that which does not kill us makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by deeahchur »

That's great! Keep us posted! Td)
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by TronFAQ »

Nice work on that essay. And thanks again for mentioning the fan sites and our projects.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with you about the sequel. To be honest, I was either expecting it to be brilliant or a complete disaster. Instead, we got something in-between. It wasn't completely awful, but it wasn't exceptional either. Just . . . okay. Too bad the final film wasn't more like the very first test trailer. Much changed from that initial trailer to the finished product. It lost a lot on the way.

But when it comes to the game? Yeah, we're in complete agreement there. It's a highly polished turd, that's very pretty to look at. But underneath, it's still a turd. Pretty graphics can't save mediocre gameplay mechanics. Constantly falling to your death, and pounding buttons to frantically kill swarms of enemies, is an exercise in boredom. It's like I said in my preview of it (which can also count as a review). It has none of the charm of Tron 2.0.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Cryogen »

Nice! Techromancer! :-D im also currently studying the same thing (Bachelar of interactive tech and games design) at james cook university qld! :-D halfway through the year now! all the best with your study mate!! T~o
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

TronFAQ wrote:I don't know that I necessarily agree with you about the sequel. To be honest, I was either expecting it to be brilliant or a complete disaster. Instead, we got something in-between. It wasn't completely awful, but it wasn't exceptional either. Just . . . okay. -----It has none of the charm of Tron 2.0.
Your completely right, maybe I did word that a little too harshly. It was a "good movie" - but in some ways it wasn't, just Tron. It was something else. The graphics were really nice also. It lacked a certain spirit that the first movie had sadly. I actually saw a rather long video of some dude on youtube ripping it to pieces and he did make a lot of valid points like how Sam Flynn just jumped right into the disc fighting game with no training, etc. I thought that was a litle far fetched.

He also acted quite calm about the whole "woah - i'm in the grid thing." no period of adjustment.

Still, it was decent. I actually meant the Game itself, the second one was an even bigger dissappointment. So much they could have done.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

Cryogen wrote:Nice! Techromancer! :-D im also currently studying the same thing (Bachelar of interactive tech and games design) at james cook university qld! :-D halfway through the year now! all the best with your study mate!! T~o
Cool! - good for you. Thanks for commenting on it. I wish you all the best of luck with your studies also.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by TronFAQ »

Techromancer wrote:I actually meant the Game itself, the second one was an even bigger dissappointment. So much they could have done.
If you're ever asked to come up with your own idea for a project in your class, it might be interesting for you to do a comparison between Tron 2.0 and Tron Evolution. Where you think each game went right, and where each went wrong. It would be even more interesting if the rest of the class was allowed to participate too, asking their opinions. Which one they think, overall, is the better game.

In my experience, only the most hard-core fans (especially younger ones, who didn't know about Tron until Legacy showed up in theaters) defend Evolution as a good game. It's the whole "if it's Tron it has to be good, and you're not a true fan and a hater if you don't like it" false dichotomy going on with them.

There's being irrational when disliking something (hating it for the sake of hating it), or being objective and having constructive criticism (I don't like it because of X, Y, and Z). Most of the fans I know that don't like Evolution, fall into the latter camp. As do I. Sorry, but just because something has the Tron name stamped on it, doesn't mean it automatically gets a free pass.

If I think it's terrible, I'll say so. Tron Legacy was okay. Not great, not terrible. Just okay. Kind of mediocre, even. But not a disaster. Tron Evolution was awful, period. Unless you count the graphics. Which are, admittedly, well done. But a pretty game does not a good game make. Tron Uprising? A bit too early to say. But the enivronmental and character designs look good (except for the fact that the characters remind me too much of Aeon Flux), and the story is already more interesting than the entire two hours worth in Legacy.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by SweatyPyro »

Not to mention we have to remember that Evolution was essentially the "game based on the events of the movie". History has shown that those types of games almost never perform well. It's definitely no Tron 2.0.

However, it also wasn't completely terrible. I mean, we could have played a decent Light Cycle match through it, which is a huge plus. ...But the rest? Arcade. That's the best way of describing it.


As for Legacy....I wasn't expecting a Bladerunner or similar epic of story from it, and I'm glad it performed very well for another film. I did have qualms with it too, but that was mostly with the plot sequences.

And then I realize I'm watching a film about a guy that gets digitized into a computer, so those qualms are moot.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

TronFAQ wrote:
Techromancer wrote:I actually meant the Game itself, the second one was an even bigger dissappointment. So much they could have done.
If you're ever asked to come up with your own idea for a project in your class, it might be interesting for you to do a comparison between Tron 2.0 and Tron Evolution. Where you think each game went right, and where each went wrong. It would be even more interesting if the rest of the class was allowed to participate too, asking their opinions. Which one they think, overall, is the better game.
Not a bad idea - thanks for the input - will keep that in mind.
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

TronFAQ wrote:
Techromancer wrote:I actually meant the Game itself, the second one was an even bigger dissappointment. So much they could have done.
There's being irrational when disliking something (hating it for the sake of hating it), or being objective and having constructive criticism (I don't like it because of X, Y, and Z). Most of the fans I know that don't like Evolution, fall into the latter camp. As do I. Sorry, but just because something has the Tron name stamped on it, doesn't mean it automatically gets a free pass.
Quite true indeed ...


TronFAQ wrote: Tron Evolution was awful, period. Unless you count the graphics. Which are, admittedly, well done. But a pretty game does not a good game make.
Well put indeed.
TronFAQ wrote: (except for the fact that the characters remind me too much of Aeon Flux), and the story is already more interesting than the entire two hours worth in Legacy.
!YES! (LOL)
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by Techromancer »

SweatyPyro wrote: As for Legacy....I wasn't expecting a Bladerunner or similar epic of story from it, and I'm glad it performed very well for another film. I did have qualms with it too, but that was mostly with the plot sequences.

And then I realize I'm watching a film about a guy that gets digitized into a computer, so those qualms are moot.
Another good point, see for me (and only a not-so-select few) I actually WAS expecting it to be taken more seriously by the ppl who made it. You know how everyone jokes about Peter Jackson with LOTR..? HE KNEW he better not *&%$!# it up or he would be hung out to dry. I was actually thinking this would be halfway that seriously taken by the powers that be. Then again, look how BVI/Monolith they dropped 2.0 support / hosting / site and IMO didn't advertise it well enough.

Gee - I am not a little bitter about this am I? T%o
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Re: Tron 2.0 School report-game design ldso & others

Post by SweatyPyro »

For fans of this series, I think it's okay to be a little bit bitter, especially we Tron 2.0 players.
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