When we came up with XBLA in Brief, it was never our intention that it would be this brief, but here we go. We spent a little time with the trial version of Discs of Tron today, and we do mean a little time. The demo offers up two levels of play, and that's it. Of course, there are only twelve levels, so it's not like Disney Interactive could give away much more.
Getting down to brass tacks, the game is pretty simple. It's a one-on-one duel between Tron and the evil Sark in a Frisbee battle to the death. Aiming with the right stick, you can fling your disk directly at the enemy, or you can utilize the walls in the hopes of foiling your foe with a tricky ricochet. With the ability to chuck three discs at the same time, the air can become crowded very quickly. Throw in the fact that Sark also has weapons called Seekers -- guess what they do -- and it gets even more hectic. Honestly, that's about all there is to it. The game controls well and it's actually reasonably fun. The trial version is a bit lacking though. For instance, it's beyond us why the developers decided to force players to use the original graphics instead of the new high definition graphics. It's hard to consider high definition graphics an incentive to purchase the game if you have no idea what they look like.
The question remains, is Discs of Tron worth 400 MS Points? The full version offers new gameplay modes (co-op and versus) as well as the aforementioned high definition graphics and new music. Whether or not that's worth it to you is relative to your fondness of Discs of Tron. For many the game marks a nostalgic treat, but for others it will be simply another retro seat-filler. Honestly, the price seems hard to justify when there are plenty of other 400 point games that offer better gameplay and more content.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2008 @ 4:49PM
Chase said...
NO MORE TRON
(Unless it's the old Mac multiplayer racer with avatars and the ability to choose different colors for one's trail)
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2-13-2008 @ 5:14PM
Tony said...
The game was slightly better than I expected, although considering I expected it to be terrible that's not saying much. It's playable, but I felt like I was playing a portion of some larger game. I just can't justify $5 for it.
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2-13-2008 @ 6:32PM
Ambivalence said...
I used to rule at this game..back in the day. Granted i lived in a town with 1000 people.. so the gene pool was pretty thin. But it won me several pizza's from the local pizza parlour.
I'm interested to see how the managed the controls since they get more complicated as you get deeper into the game.... or they did....
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2-13-2008 @ 8:03PM
Shogan said...
Discs of Tron is still an awesome game, even today. The XBLA version of the game is a pile of complete crap. Bad controls, HORRIBLE sound emulation (same with Tron), and completely unacceptable lag and/or slowdown in Multiplayer.
This game is for nostalgia, period. DO NOT let the VS Multiplayer modes fool you, it's a damn lie. There's no real VS mode at all, you play and some other person plays... same with Co-Op. Pathetic.
The Enhanced Graphics... you get the addition of the background from the arcade machine, and even crappier sound effects. NOW IS IT CLEAR why these were disabled?
Microsoft clearly doesn't test these games before release, or they don't care that their customers are paying for broken versions of games that were emulated perfectly on MAME for FREE 10 years ago.
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2-13-2008 @ 11:04PM
Trekster_Gamer said...
They should a sequel to Tron 2.0 and have the XBL stuff as mini-games.
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