First Person Shooters have evolved significantly in ten years, but they've been mostly mechanical advances. The scripted events of Half-Life, the immersive environments of Call of Duty, and the light sabres of Jedi Knight did little to alter the basic gameplay. Doom 3 may have a story, but the plot is no different than the one in the original Doom, except now the details have been filled in. With the exception of Thief and those shooters that add RPG elements (System Shock, Deus Ex), only the presentation has changed over the years. Tron 2.0 does nothing to alleviate this; in fact, it's probably the epitome of style over substance.
The only thing noteworthy about Tron 2.0 is its graphics. It's not just that the graphics are good (they are), but that they're very original. It's far too rare that a game has a truly unique design, especially when so many FPSs go for the gritty, realistic look. Taking place inside a computer, Tron uses the setting as an excuse to present vibrant, bold colours. Like Warcraft 3's over-the-top colour scheme, Tron manages to get close to gaudy without stepping over the line. The only drawback is that the lack of textures makes judging distances difficult; sometimes you have to guess whether it's a one meter drop or a 100 meter drop.
The story is very basic. There's a father and son that have to reconcile their differences. And an evil corporation is in there somewhere. But most of the missions involve clamping the server's diodes to enable the routers to connect...something. For somebody who doesn't know his DRAM from his RAM, the excessive computer jargon is aggravating. Though each goal does come with a help file, and the levels are straightforward enough that if you just run around and push buttons, you'll eventually accomplish what you were supposed to.
Article comments
1 - jadester
actually, although i may well get people arguing against me about this, FPSes that add RPG elements don't really add all that much to the play experience either. the reason is because they try to give the player far more freedom (Deus Ex, I'm looking at *you*), but unfortunately the average pc gamer's setup just doesn't have the clout to run an FPS that really has a good level of freedom of gameplay. This then leads to the realisation that actually the game you're playing is not much less restrictive than a standard fully-on-rails FPS, and through this, disappointment.
The best game, freedom-wise, that i have played so far is GTA 3 but there's still a long way to go. Hopefully, though, the technology will continue advancing at near-light speed and so it won't be that many more years before we see truly immersive games.