Ever had a game where the bonus features were the highlight? I can't think of a better example than Tron 2.0: Killer App for the GameBoy Advance. The angular, neon-laced artwork made this one of the most attractive video games based on Disney's cutting-edge film franchise... but the monotonous gameplay made it nearly as fun as defragging your hard drive (by the way, that's not a metaphor... you really
will be defragmenting data clusters in this game. Oh, the excitement!). As either a rebooted Tron or shapely newcomer Mercury, you ran through playfields with all the thrilling topography of a miniature golf course, flinging discs at rogue programs who refuse to die. Occasionally you'd need to hack a security terminal by building circuits. Finish your work in the time alloted and you were "rewarded" with even more mind-numbing terrain. I knew Sark was a nasty guy, but I never dreamed he was capable of
boring unsuspecting users to death!
Luckily, developer Digital Eclipse had the good sense to include two Tron games that people would actually enjoy. They're not even hard to find... just choose Mini-Games from the main menu and you'll be taken straight to the two Tron titles released in arcades by Bally/Midway. This was their first official appearance on a home game system, and they're in top form thanks to the ingenuity of Digital Eclipse's programmers. Emulation has always been the company's area of expertise, but it's outdone itself here, cramming every line of code from both games into the GameBoy Advance's tight confines. There are some signs of strain- the graphics are slightly compressed and Discs of Tron loses some of its panache without Sark's taunting voice- but the games are as faithful to the originals as you're likely to get on a system no larger than a Snickers bar.
So what are these games like? Well, the first Tron is a grab bag of simple challenges, each mirroring scenes from the original movie. You'll drive a tank through maze-like corridors, trap motorcyclists in walls of light, fend off huge swarms of bugs, and drill your way through the Master Control Program's brain... only to repeat the process at a higher difficulty. Discs of Tron pits you against Sark, the MCP's sadistic second-in-command, in a series of duels best described as dodgeball with frisbees. Get tagged with a disc or fall off the platforms hanging in mid-air, and your heroic program is history. Beat Sark and he returns to the arena, this time with the odds stacked against you.
Both games have their strengths. I personally love the mountain of variety in the original Tron, but others prefer the fast pace and hugely rewarding aiming in Discs. In the later stages, your only chance of taking out Sark is to nail him in the back with a carefully planned trick shot bounced off the arena walls. No matter what game you choose, it's likely to get played a lot more than the well-intentioned but terminally dull story mode. As many of the people who watched Tron Legacy will tell you, you just can't beat the originals.
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Linear Mode
