Tron 2.0
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tron 2.0 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Monolith Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Buena Vista Interactive |
| Designer(s) | Frank Rooke |
| Series | Tron |
| Engine | Lithtech: Triton (enhanced version of the Jupiter engine) |
| Version | 1.042 |
| Platform(s) | PC (Windows), Mac, Gizmondo, Xbox, GBA |
| Release date | (Win) NA August 26, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Media | 2 CD-ROMs or 1 DVD |
| System requirements | 500 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 2.4 GB hard disk space, 32 MB GPU |
| Input methods | Keyboard and Mouse |
Tron 2.0 is a computer game developed by Monolith Productions. It is a sequel to the 1982 motion picture Tron. The PC version of the game was released by Buena Vista Games on August 26, 2003. The Mac version was released by MacPlay on April 21, 2004.
The game is a first person shooter set "inside" a computer in the same sense as the original movie. It cheerfully uses and abuses computing conventions; players will find themselves in the flaming red environment of a firewall and the minimalistic white one of a PDA, battle viruses while fleeing a format, and wield a sniper rifle known as the LOL. A light cycle mini-game is included as part of the plot as well as available in multiplayer mode across a network. In the game, Bruce Boxleitner reprises his role from the original movie as Alan Bradley. Cindy Morgan, who also starred in the original movie, voices the new character Ma3a. Rebecca Romijn (credited as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) provides the voice of Mercury. A new Light Cycle design was contributed to the game by Syd Mead. The story is centered around Alan's son Jet, who is digitized at the start of the game, like Kevin Flynn was in the movie. As the plot progresses, Jet must rid the computer system of a virus, protect his father and Ma3a, and thwart the efforts of the evil fCon company and their human Data-Wraiths, all while constantly dodging the efforts of the computer protection forces to eliminate him.
In addition to the Mac, the game was also ported to the Xbox with significant changes to the single and, especially, the multiplayer modes. The Xbox version is entitled Tron 2.0 Killer App. Changes to the single player mode include optional jumping sequences, and overall console-tailored controls. The real changes were made to the multiplayer modes. Added is up to sixteen player multiplayer disc arena, light cycles, or overRide modes for system link or Xbox Live. The new overRide mode allows for first person mayhem with the ability to ride light cycles at any time. There is also a version of Tron 2.0 Killer App for the Game Boy Advance that has different story and gameplay from its Xbox counterpart. A version of the game was planned for the Gizmondo, but was canceled during development.
The idea of Tron 2.0 was originally explored as a movie concept, but it was eventually decided to focus first on making it as a game. The Tron sequel film has recently been announced, and production is expected to begin soon.
A four-issue Tron 2.0 comic book series based on the game was going to be released by 88 MPH Studios, but was cancelled before the first issue was completed due to licensing issues with Disney. However, Slave Labor Graphics is now producing a Tron comic book sequel series called Tron: The Ghost in the Machine.
Contents |
[edit] Story
Two decades ago, Kevin Flynn entered the world inside the computer by being digitized. With the help of the security program Tron, Flynn defeated the autocratic MCP. However, it was the MCP that possessed the digitizing process, and in destroying that powerful program, the ability to digitize human beings into the computer world was lost.
Now it is 2003. Flynn departed the company years ago, but not before coming up with many new video games, including the actual TRON arcade game. ENCOM is now run by Walter Gibbs' son. Alan married Lora shortly after the events of the movie and they had a son, who they named Jethro, or Jet for short (Flynn was named the godfather). Unfortunately, an accident in the digitizing lab later took Lora's life. Alan has been putting a lot of work into the development of a new artificial intelligence named "Ma3a" (pronounced "mah-three-ah"), which eerily has the voice and personality of his late wife. Jet is now a brilliant, but rebellious video game programmer. Since the death of his mother, he's had some trouble with the law, over computer-hacking, but he turned himself around and now enjoys a successful career in ENCOM's gaming department (including the development of Space Paranoids 3D).
ENCOM has recently been the target of a hostile takeover by Future Control Industries (fCon), which is very interested in the ability to transfer humans to the computer world. Specifically, fCon intends to use skilled hackers called "Data-Wraiths" to infiltrate the global computer network and control banks and commerce. The problem is that digitizing humans still doesn't work properly; errors during the process corrupt and mutate people. Alan has come up with a new error-correcting subroutine to prevent this, but when he finds out about fCon's nefarious plan, he encrypts the correction algorithms and hides them within Ma3a.
Meanwhile, fCon executives Seth Crown, Eva Popoff, and Esmond Baza, who answer to fCon's mysterious and unseen CEO, bribe J.D. Thorne, ENCOM's chief of security, to steal the secrets of digitization from Alan and deliver them to fCon. After spying on Alan, Thorne comes to the incorrect conclusion that the correction algorithms don't exist, and that Alan made them up in order to get more funding. Believing the digitization process to be already functional, he demonstrates it to fCon by digitizing himself. However, without the algorithms, he is corrupted, and becomes a virus. He then begins to take over the computer by creating Rector Scripts, which spread the corruption, and converting innocent programs into Z-Lots, viral programs who are infinitely loyal to Thorne and carry out his every order, calling him their "Master User." Thorne is specifically after Ma3a; he wants to destroy the algorithms.
Mr. (Seth) Crown, Mrs. (Eva) Popoff, and Mr. (Esmond) Baza kidnap Alan in a futile attempt to get the correction code from him. Following instructions left by Alan before he was kidnapped, and possessing the error-correction algorithms, Ma3a safely brings Alan's son Jet into the computer against his will, and recruits his help in fighting the virus. Upon arriving in the electronic world, Jet is befriended by Byte, a flying polygon, (quite a bit more conversational and opinionated than the movie's Bit) who was sent by Ma3a to help Jet. Jet also receives his own Identity Disc, which he can use as a very effective combat weapon.
Byte helps Jet escape from a group of Z-lots attempting to convert him to their cause. The two make their way through the sector, with the ultimate goal of finding Ma3a in order to protect her from both fCon and Thorne. As they progress, Jet's presence in the system comes to the attention of the Intrusion Counter-measure Programs (ICPs). The ICPs, acting under the command of the merciless Kernel, are the standard military in the computer, and protect the system from viruses and hackers. Unfortunately, due to the corruption, an error occurs in the system scan, identifying Jet as the source of the virus instead of Thorne. Jet and Byte make it to an exit port and escape the sector, but the port unfortunately takes them right to the ICP server. Jet is immediately captured and separated from Byte. His Disc is confiscated and he is interrogated by the Kernel, who refuses to believe Jet's claims that he is a User.
The Kernel deems Jet incompatible and sentences him to be de-rezzed. A female program named Mercury steps in when she hears Jet mention Ma3a, and suggests that the Kernel have Jet race to the death on the light cycle grid, to which the Kernel agrees. Jet learns from other light cycle programs in the grid locker room that Mercury is the undefeated light cycle champion. However, during the final race, Mercury turns on the ICPs and helps Jet escape the grid. Mercury has orders from her User, (who she knows only as Guest) to find Ma3a and protect her, the same goal that Jet has. The two form a partnership, and are able to sneak through the sector, steal Jet's disc back, and escape from the ICP server, sneaking aboard a cargo transport.
Having arrived at Ma3a's doorstep, Jet and Mercury find the place crawling with Z-Lots trying to get to Ma3a, with only a small squad of ICPs standing in their way. They learn via an ICP announcement that in order to counter the corruption, the entire system is about to undergo a reformat, which will erase all programs in its path. The two split up; Jet goes to free Ma3a, while Mercury clears a path to the nearest exit port. Jet is reunited with Byte after rescuing him from a group of Z-Lots who were torturing him (ie. playing Pong using him as the ball). They then proceed to the sub-level where Ma3a resides. Jet frees Ma3a from her dock, and returns to the surface just as the reformat begins. Jet, Byte, Mercury, and Ma3a manage to outrun the reformat, but upon reaching the exit port, they are ambushed by more Z-Lots. Mercury sacrifices herself by holding them off so that Jet can get Ma3a to safety. Mercury is erased in the reformat, but Jet, Byte, and Ma3a make it safely through the exit port.
They now find themselves inside Alan's PC. Upon questioning by Jet, Ma3a explains that she was supposed to digitize Alan, but when Alan was kidnapped, she digitized Jet for help instead, with Jet being the son, or "newer version" of Alan. Jet watches a video archive of Crown, Popoff, and Baza interrogating Alan, who they locked in a storage closet in the ENCOM building containing old computers, modems, and a Tron arcade machine. He refuses to tell them where the algorithms are, despite several threats.
Jet and Ma3a are then contacted by Mercury's User, Guest, but Guest's connection is extremely bad, and his voice is distorted and filled with static. Guest asks for Ma3a's status, and Jet confirms that she is safe. Guest is only able to tell Jet to find and compile the Tron Legacy Code in order to protect Ma3a, and then his connection is broken. Jet searches the files on his father's computer and finds information about Tron Legacy. After Flynn's adventure in the computer, he and Alan both realized the dangers of users being able to run around freely inside the computer unchecked. Alan came up with a upgrade for Tron, but it was never compiled. The upgrade was the Legacy Code, and was designed to to terminate unauthorized users in the computer, forcing them to return to the real world. There was some sort of flaw in the program, but Alan never got around to fixing it. When it was learned that the ability to digitize was lost with the MCP, Alan was transferred to the digitizing department to help recreate the process, and the Tron Legacy project was shelved. The code now resides in EN12-82, ENCOM's old mainframe system, which has been offline for years.
Meanwhile, in the real world, fCon has completely taken over ENCOM. The entire building, including the digitizing lab, has undergone a makeover, changing the color scheme to fCon's purple, fCon's logo is plastered everywhere, new equipment is installed, workers have been laid off, and creepy fCon officials now patrol the hallways, looming over ENCOM's employees. Rumors are going around about the disappearances of Jet, Alan, and Thorne. The Data-Wraiths have completed training and are ready to be digitized and wreak havoc on the digital world, as soon as the algorithms are acquired. Alan has finally confessed that the algorithms are in Ma3a, and Baza releases snake-like Seeker programs of his design into the system to capture her.
Stowing away on a public passenger aircraft (built using Recognizers), Jet, Ma3a, and Byte fly across the Sea of Simulation and back into ICP territory. After shutting down the defense system, they infiltrate the Power Oculus. Ma3a roots herself into the system to bring EN12-82 back online, while Jet advances down into the sub-level of the building to reroute power to the mainframe. They succeed in restoring it, but at that moment, they are ambushed by a Seeker. Ma3a cannot run, as she is still rooted to the Oculus, so Jet attacks the Seeker to get its attention, and leads it into EN12-82. It follows, and upon entering the system, it immediately begins to malfunction, due to the mainframe not having enough processing power to support it. (Incidentally, Resource Hogs spawn when the Seeker stalls- they are the cause of the processor loss.) Eventually, the sector crashes around Jet, and he is rendered unconscious.
After a flashback of a fallout he had with his dad a few years ago, when he hacked into his school's computer system, Jet wakes up deep inside the mainframe and is befriended by an old program named I-no. I-no is impressed that Jet is from the "future," and helps him contact Ma3a and Byte, who are still outside of the system. Ma3a is also too powerful for the mainframe to handle, so Byte suggests over-clocking the system. With I-no's help (and after dodging a squad of Flynn's old game tanks), Jet accomplishes this, and Ma3a enters the system. After racing across a large game grid, the party arrives at the archive containing the Legacy Code. Jet is contacted by Mercury's user again, who is checking up on Ma3a. When Guest learns of Jet's identity, he suddenly becomes frantic. He is about to give Jet crucial instructions, but is cut off again before he has the chance. Jet and the others retrieve the code, but the entire system is crashing because of the over-clocking. I-no decides to stay behind so he can die in the place he's always known as his home.
Ma3a takes Jet to the Internet, a huge, colorful city with no visible boundaries. As they search for a program who can compile the Legacy Code, they help the citizens and the ICPs fight off a group of Z-Lots attacking the city. Further into the city, Jet unexpectedly runs into Mercury. As it turns out, the reformat did not kill her, but merely reloaded an earlier version of her. As a result, she no longer remembers Jet. She merely tells him that her User needs to speak to him, and that it's urgent. Jet responds to the signal, and Guest franticly gives him the instructions "Do not..." but before he can say any more, his connection is broken once more. Ma3a has found a compiler program at the local "Progress Bar". They enter the bar and do business with the compiler. It is agreed that Ma3a should be the host of the code, since she's the one it needs to protect. As they start the compiling process, Jet receives another signal from Guest, and goes to investigate. This time, there is a video connection and Jet sees Mercury's User for the first time. It's none other than Jet's father Alan, using various pieces of old hardware in his storage room. Alan finally gets his message to Jet: "DO NOT COMPILE TRON LEGACY CODE!"
Realizing Ma3a is in danger, Jet rushes back to her to stop the process, but just then, Thorne bursts into the bar to destroy her. Jet manages to fend off Thorne and the Z-Lots, but during the fight, the compilation is completed. The Legacy Code takes control of Ma3a and transforms her into a giant, armored monster. As explained in an earlier email, there is a bug within the TRON Legacy code resulting in the program being unable to discern between authorized and unauthorized Users within the system. With the Legacy, Ma3a easily defeats Thorne, and thoughtlessly kills Byte. However, she is able to fight the legacy code's programming long enough for Jet to escape. Jet jumps on to his light cycle and speeds through the city, with Ma3a in hot pursuit. Just when she has Jet cornered, another Seeker attacks from behind, and Ma3a is finally captured by fCon.
Jet contacts Alan once again, though the connection is still distorted. As Ma3a has the algorithms, they need to rescue her in order for Jet to return to the real world. However, she is being held deep in the fCon system, which is sealed off by a firewall. Alan sends Mercury to help Jet. With her assistance, he uses the ENCOM security network to unlock his father's closet. Alan then tries to sneak back into the digitizing lab, but is caught by Baza. Crown decides to use him as a test subject, and the fCon members digitize Alan. He arrives safely in the computer, and is then quick to take action. Now that he's in the computer, his connection with Jet is much better. However, Alan has landed inside Thorne's internal partition. Alan and Jet realize that the only one who can help them get into the fCon system is Thorne.
At this point, the ICPs are finally able to identify Thorne as the virus, and Jet is pardoned. The ICPs storm Thorne's internal partition with the intent of destroying him. Jet follows, desperate to get to Thorne before the ICPs do. Despite warnings by the ICP officers, Jet moves to the front lines and fights alongside the ICPs as they plow through an army of Z-Lots and Rector Scripts. The battle is a massacre for both sides, but Jet is reunited with Alan. When they make it to the core, they find Thorne about to be finished off by the Kernel. Jet intervenes, and the two face off in a duel, in which Jet is victorious and the Kernel is de-rezzed. Thorne repents for what he has done, and reveals that the dial-up number to get into fCon is stored on his PDA. He then allows himself to die, simply wanting the pain of his condition to end. The system is now virus-free, but now fCon has begun digitizing Data-Wraiths into the computer.
Jet makes a quick trip to Thorne's PDA, who turns out to be a female personality. The PDA is very hostile toward Jet, and she refuses to help him, until Jet threatens to drain her energy. She then complies, and sends Jet into fCon's system, in which Jet finds that Data-Wraiths are already terrorizing programs. Jet combats the Wraiths and, using his hacker skills, brings down the firewall, allowing his father access into the system. Meanwhile, as Jet derezzes DataWraiths, due to the safety system installed by fCon, Data-Wraiths start returning to the real world, reporting that an independent user is defeating them. The fCon team realizes for the first time that someone other that Alan must be in the computer.
After fighting more hoards of Data-Wraiths and yet another Seeker, Jet and Alan make it aboard fCon's Mobile Server, a huge airship that can transport Wraiths to anywhere in the digital world. Ma3a is being held there. Alan begins decompiling the Legacy Code to turn Ma3a back to normal, while Jet takes up the task of crashing the server. The server has its own light cycle grid, and on his way to the control deck, Jet finds himself trapped on it, strongly outnumbered. However, using data from Ma3a, Alan is able to restore Mercury's memory, and she rezzes in to race along with Jet. Thanks to Mercury's help, Jet survives the grid. Alan finishes restoring Ma3a, and frees her from the server. In the lab, Crown, Popoff, and Baza are furious that they haven't been able to locate Jet, and decide to track him down themselves. Unfortunately, they all digitize themselves at the exact same moment that Ma3a is freed, and thus, without the algorithms. They are corrupted and grafted into a massive, twisted, three-headed, viral monster.
Jet reaches the control deck and sets the ship on a collision course. The entire ship begins to crash from the front. Jet also learns from Alan that the fCon monster is on board. Evading both the monster and the disintegrating ship, Jet, Alan, and Mercury run to an exit port on the server, which Ma3a has connected to the digitizing stream to take them back to the real world. Alan jumps into the stream, and after saying goodbye to Mercury, Jet jumps in, too, but is followed by the monster. Alan tells Jet that they must be removed from the digitizing stream if there is to be any chance of saving them. Ma3a halts the process, suspending them in the stream, and Jet does battle with the monster. One by one, he removes Baza, Popoff, and finally, Crown from the stream. Ma3a then completes the process, and Jet and Alan return safely to the real world.
The server shuts down entirely, and Mercury and Ma3a made it off. fCon's plan has been foiled, and ENCOM, and the world, have been saved. Alan has the three mutated executives stored in a contained memory case so he can repair their code later. The mysterious CEO promises that he'll be back, Jet and Alan dismiss his threats. Alan begins disinfecting the fCon team, and Jet downloads a copy of the Mercury progam onto his laptop (saying he needs a good screensaver).
[edit] Gameplay
[edit] Single Player Campaign
The single-player campaign takes place entirely inside the computer world (though some cutscenes are shown around the ENCOM research laboratory). The goal of each level is generally to complete tasks and find keys ("permission bits") which allow access to the next level. Some conventions which don't make much sense in other first-person shooters, such as the ability to carry a half-dozen weapons or to heal instantly with a medkit, are much more appropriate to this setting.
The design of the game's levels is linear; there are no choices about how to proceed or about what to say during the interactions with other characters. The levels are abstract as the ambiance seen in the movie, not to say surreal: they feature energy bridges and gates, neon-glowing contours, vibrant colors, floating boxes and tiles, teleports and deep chasms. However, some conventional physics apply: Jet will be harmed if he falls from a height (or killed if the height is great enough). He can also be crushed by certain moving objects in the digital world.
Jet starts out with the same disc weapon seen in the movie. In time, he obtains other weapons (not surprisingly similar to the ones found in other titles): a shotgun, a submachine gun, a sniper rifle and grenades, each reworked to fit the computer world reality. Ammunition for these new weapons is energy, which Jet can collect at various points during the game (an exception is the disc, which uses no energy in its basic form). The in-game names for these weapons are, respectively, rod, mesh, ball. The other weapons are upgrades of these basic weapons (called "primitives").
Jet's abilities are customizable. He acquires new abilities, and also the aforementioned weapons, in the form of "subroutines" held in "archive bins" scattered around the levels, and he has a limited number of memory slots in which to "install" these subroutines onto his person. Subroutines start out as alpha-grade software, but can be upgraded to beta and gold statuses, which both take up less space in memory and become more effective.
As he moves through the levels, Jet must engage many lower-tier enemies. Although none are particularly powerful, they usually show up in gangs, making them more of a threat. Among the regular levels, there are some with boss enemies that add to the thrill of the game.
Interspersed with the first-person-shooter levels are several light cycle races. As seen in the movie, these races are actually arena duels in which each light cycle attempts to destroy its opponents by driving them into its jetwall. The arenas contain 'improvements' (such as speed zones that affect the cycles' speed), more complex layouts with walls and other artifacts (instead of the "empty box" as seen in the movie), and power-ups that can be collected during races. In addition to Tron's regular light cycle, Jet can also gain access to the super light cycle that sports a more modern design and offers more speed. Tron 2.0 initially required the player to win the light cycle races in order to advance the campaign. Consumer feedback revealed that many felt the computer-controlled light cyclers were impossibly precise in their controls (turning at angles a human could not, for example), forcing players to wait for the enemy lightcycles to destroy themselves. As a result, the vendor released a patch eliminating this rule.
[edit] Single Player Light Cycles
This mode contains no campaign; instead, the player is presented with a choice of several light cycle arenas.
[edit] Multiplayer
Tron 2.0 offers some multiplayer scenarios, both in campaign mode and in light cycle mode. Internet and LAN play are available, although the vendor does not recommend that the light cycle mode be used over the Internet due to its generally high lag.
[edit] Easter eggs and trivia
 |
Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
In the opening video, an ENCOM worker asks Jet if he can eat some of his dad's popcorn. Jet says no problem. In the original Tron film, the same worker asks Alan the same question.
The coin-op Tron arcade game is being played by Jet in the opening video. In emails, it is revealed that Kevin Flynn based the arcade game on his experiences during the film version.
In the level Packet Transfer, the player must jump onto a regulator tug in order to escape. This tug is a retrofitted Recognizer.
In a cutscene of the game, the captured Byte is being used as a game ball between two corrupted programs. As Byte flies through the air, it makes a comment about a comparison between that scene and the classic Pong.
[edit] References to Marathon
The designers of the game paid homage to the popular Mac game franchise Marathon. In the most "corrupted" sections of the computer the player plays in, the name of a corrupted program often is either Durandal or Ra*mpa*^ncy. Also, the corrupted system often shoots out a strange error message: Fr0g bla#st the v@ent cor^e!. These notes are especially pointed for Marathon fans, as the typical color of corrupted programs is Green—the color often used by Durandal in his messages, and the color of all simulacrum (corrupted) BOBs [1].
[edit] Legacy
Despite several positive reviews, Tron 2.0 failed to meet sales expectations. As a result of not meeting sales expectations, both a possible expansion pack and a sequel (which was, apparently, tentatively titled Tron 3.0) were cancelled while still in the planning stage. It is rumored that one of these additional games would have been set in the early 1980s, when the storyline of the original motion picture Tron took place.
Some attribute Tron 2.0's failure due to Buena Vista Interactive insufficiently supporting the modding community, slowness at releasing patches, and shutting down the game's official website sooner than other contemporary games' sites.[who?]
[edit] External links
- Tron: The Ghost in the Machine comic book by Slave Labor Graphics (SLG). Issue #1 was released on 4/26/2006
- Tron 2.0 Community Links
- GameSpot review
- GameSpy review
- IGN review
- Frictionless Insight review
- Gamasutra technical article about the glow effect
- Tron 2.0 retrospective
|
|||||||||||||||||
