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Tron 2.0 Game

Conspiracy_Of_Doves writes "Gamespot has an article about the new Tron 2.0 game in the works to accompany the movie. It looks like they are being very true to the original, the new light cycles are even being designed by Syd Mead, the same guy who designed the old ones. You will get to visit locations from the movie, as well as play around inside desktops and PDAs." IGN has another article on the game. Watch out for the gridbugs.

32 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. It's About Time by blankmange · · Score: 2
    Us older gamers have been waiting for this, especially with all the sequels and reviving of classic titles... any mention of a movie sequel as well? Nah, that would be too good....

    ah, the life of a bit: yes... no...

    --
    ...we are from the government - we are here to help...
    1. Re:It's About Time by Relic+of+the+Future · · Score: 2
      --
      Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
    2. Re:It's About Time by ArsSineArtificio · · Score: 2

      any mention of a movie sequel as well? Nah, that would be too good...

      Why, yes... um... it's even mentioned in the story header.

      --
      All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
  2. Cool. by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Funny

    There once was a movie called Tron
    with blinkenlights flashin' off/on
    Bruce Boxleitner resisted,
    Jeff Bridges assisted
    Twas the triumph of brains over brawn

  3. For a free alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The game reviewed looks impressive, but if you can't wait, then try the free Armagetron
    (http://armagetron.sourceforge.net/)
    for a 3D light cycles game with "moviepacs" for making the players & grid look true to the orig movie. Network play is v.addictive.

    j

    1. Re:For a free alternative by Jodrell · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's also glTron, another Free light cycle game. Runs on *nix, Win32 and MacOS X. It's perhaps not as feature-full as Armagetron, but if you want a pure light cycle game, it rocks :-)

  4. Greetings programs! by Chicane-UK · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think the beauty of releasing a game like this now - with the way graphics cards & systems have advanced, you can actually make the in game graphics as good as (if not better than?) the original movie graphics.. should be a lot of fun :)

    --
    "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
    1. Re:Greetings programs! by matrix29 · · Score: 2

      And in another 20 years who knows? Perhaps the first true VR world will be modelled after Tron. Flat colors, black/neon color scheme
      I for one would go for the functional yet apparently bland world where you could interact with other people rather than a small room where you alone could interact with such amazingly modelled items like a desk, a lamp, a vase, and the dust which collects on everything.
      Use the mips for something fun, rather than a useless, yet realistically rendered, 10 by 12 room!


      Ah, but simple objects can be so much more in Cyberspace. A simple picture on the wall can be a doorway, a live viewing window, a slideshow, a control surface, etc...

      A nice lamp could also take on exotic properties such as changing into a guard unit. If you have an enviromental alteration utility in the game world you could draw an object in mid-air and turn that glyph into a fuctional object. You could use the texture transform controls to convert a simple rug into a frictionless surface, a water well, a white-hot stove burner, etc. You could alter the object's mass, composition, movement variables, destruction fracture properties, location, etc.

      Simply put, since the limitations of reality are no longer an issue and if there are proper memory usage optimization routines there is nothing beyond godhood that a person in control of the enviromental object properties can do. They can still squander system resources on infinite loops, complex math functions, and system consuming virals, fractals, and perfect rendering options. However a good Cyberspace would note when these things are occuring and choke the resources, memory consumption, and priorities available to bad processes so as not to slow the system to a bog. Only people with SuperUser priorities would be allowed to run these functions in a heavy-CPU tasking enviroment. It is not the rendering level that is key here, but what the story can say (and it is nice to see tidy animation once in a while without the boring steadycam single shot filmography of yesteryear in the rough birthing stages of 3D computer animation).

      --
      "Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
  5. Tron is a Disney product... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and we all know what Disney thinks of the rights of end-users, don't we?

    There are countless games out there worthy of your entertainment dollars/pounds/yen. Do the right thing, boycott Disney, and buy one of those other games instead.

    If you have to buy this game for nostalgia reasons (hey, I have fond memories of wasting countless childhood hours playing the original Tron arcade machine too) then wait a month or so after the game's release and buy a second-hand copy.

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    1. Re:Tron is a Disney product... by D'Arque+Bishop · · Score: 3, Interesting
      ...and we all know what Disney thinks of the rights of end-users, don't we?

      There are countless games out there worthy of your entertainment dollars/pounds/yen. Do the right thing, boycott Disney, and buy one of those other games instead.

      Not to mention the fact that the game is being developed by Monolith, the people who made Blood, Shogo, et al. I basically gave up on Monolith after the utter fiasco that was Blood 2, which had a chance to be great... except that Monolith not only dropped the ball, they tossed it into a wasterpaper bin. Rather than reprint an entire rant as to why, go here to read something I wrote to PlanetBlood explaining why I would never play a Monolith product again.

      Just my $.02...

    2. Re:Tron is a Disney product... by D'Arque+Bishop · · Score: 2
      While Blood 2 was no doubt a stuff up, haven't Monolith since redemmed themselves with No One Lives For Ever and Aliens vs Predator 2? The former definitely was very fun to play and the latter was supported by a series of patchs and even a dedicated Linux server.

      While normally I would agree if it had been simple incompetence behind the events of Blood 2 and its point release, the entire scenario practically screams "FUCK YOU!" to the fans. I mean... the final point release for the game is released half-broken, and Monolith leaves it like that, telling the fans if they want it fixed they can do it themselves using the released tools. Excuse me? This is EXACTLY like the time I called Venture (when it still existed) and asked for the price of an item, and the clerk shouted at me to get my own price because he was the only one in that section on duty. I never shopped at Venture again after that.

      The point I'm making here is that while incompetence and mistakes can be forgiven, I will NOT forgive rudeness or deliberate mistreatment. Monolith permanently lost me as a customer after that fiasco, and there is very little they can do to change that.

      Just my $.02...

  6. Syd Mead is the vision of the future... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 2

    "Futuristic" as a style was practically created by Syd Mead. I understand he's pretty old, I'm glad he's still around and am realy looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    1. Re:Syd Mead is the vision of the future... by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2

      Oy, cultural amnesia. "Futuristic" as a style goes back way before that.

    2. Re:Syd Mead is the vision of the future... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 2

      What I mean was "futuristic" as a style in the late 20th and early 21st century...

      I'm not discounting previous efforts at all (and as an aside, I just picked up Metropolis on DVD the other day), but what we currently think of "futuristic" these days I believe is in large part because of Syd Mead's artwork. Let's face it "Metropolis" is stunning cinematography, but the future never looked like that and never will.

      It was funny going to Tomorrowland in Disneyworld in the late 1980's and seeing how dated and goofy it looked. "Futuristic" changes with the times. Things never really looked like Tomorrowland, and while it was a good crack at "futuristic" circa 1972, it turns out "futuristic" is as much a product current pop culture as anything else.

      Of course, Disney got smart and remodelled Tomorrowland in a classic "30's futuristic" look, which will always be cool (although I've never seen it in person). Something can only look "futuristic" (as in what things might actually look like) for a few years. Then it just looks kinda sad.

      I think there are a few exceptions to that trend of old futuristic looking dated. To me, "Blade Runner" looks as fresh today as it did in 198-wherever-it-came-out. "2001" with its look of spartan utility is still very convincing.

      Heck, I even consider "Forbidden Planet" (minus Robby the Robot) or the old Soviet-bloc classic "First Spaceship on Venus" from about 1960 as pretty timeless looking, but the first couple Star Trek movies (especially the first) look stylistically dated, not even bothering to mention the original series which screamed "1960's" at you in loud paisley letters.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    3. Re:Syd Mead is the vision of the future... by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2
      It was funny going to Tomorrowland in Disneyworld in the late 1980's and seeing how dated and goofy it looked. "Futuristic" changes with the times. Things never really looked like Tomorrowland, and while it was a good crack at "futuristic" circa 1972, it turns out "futuristic" is as much a product current pop culture as anything else.


      Of course, Disney got smart and remodelled Tomorrowland in a classic "30's futuristic" look, which will always be cool (although I've never seen it in person). Something can only look "futuristic" (as in what things might actually look like) for a few years. Then it just looks kinda sad.

      Yeah, I agree completely. In fact, the original Tron itself is interesting as part of the past of the history of the future. I've sort of got a guilty fondness for the utopian yearnings of the Disney theme-parks, and I thought the move to retrofuturism was both aesthetically satisfying, and at the same time part of the ongoing capitulation of Disney's (occassionally twisted) dream of creating a model for living to the realities of Disney Inc.

      I'd love to see "First Spaceship to Venus" - the only Soviet science-fiction I could find on DVD was Aelita, Queen of Mars. Is it available anywhere?

  7. Return of a tech cultural phenomenon by hillct · · Score: 2

    It's slightly disturbing that geeks have their own cultural phenomenons. It's even more disturbing that I'm old enough to recall their introduction. What a blast. I'm not usually a fan of games based on movies but this one looks to be interesting, not so much as a game but as a precursor to a vary promising movie. It looks to be a blast.

    --CTH

    --

    --Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
  8. The name of the sequel has been leaked out! by Alike · · Score: 3, Funny

    Naturally: "troff"

    ...Specialist from the Visual Basic department at Microsoft didn't want to respond on the announcement on slashdot.

  9. Discs of Tron by bbum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tron was a cool arcade game, but Discs of Tron was, perhaps, one of the coolest games ever made.

    Discs of Tron was basically taken from the movie scene with Tron fighting Sark in the arena with balls of energy. They each stood on discs of energy and the goal was to knock your opponent off.

    Some called it 'the frisbee game'.

    The arcade game was amazing. First, the controls. On the right (or was it left?) you had a joystick with a trigger button and a thumb button. Trigger throws an energy ball, button goes into blocking mode.

    On the left, you had a twisty knob that spun freely and used an optical sensor to detect motion. It could also be pulled up and pushed down. It was used to aim your energy ball throw.

    Aiming was incredibly precise. Combining the two, you could do strafing shots unlike anything possible in a FPS -- by spinning the knob in time with moving the joystick, you could set up a set of three energy balls in the air that crossed sark's disc in a gridded fashion.

    You could also set up amazing rebound shots off the wall and, in later levels, the ceiling. As well, in later levels the discs would move and, if hit by a blob, disappear.

    The whole implementation of the game was freakin' perfect. It was so well done.

    There were 1,000 of what was called the 'environmental unit' configuration of the cabinets made.

    You literally stood inside the environmental unit. It had six channel surround sound-- stereo front, stereo rear, a center channel near the control deck and a bass channel in the rear of the cabinet that you were leaning against.

    Totally immersive, especially for 1985 or so.

    The implementation was interesting; two Z80s + a totally custom TTL based video computer to handle the 3D vector style (it wasn't truly vector and not everything was vectorized--- there were filled areas) graphics.

    Totally kicked ass.

    1. Re:Discs of Tron by cvd6262 · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can get Discs of Trom on MAME from classicgaming.com.

      It's amazing how well the twisting joystick transfers to mouse/keybord controls.

      And yes, it's still fun.

      --

      I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.

    2. Re:Discs of Tron by sean23007 · · Score: 2

      Yeah, and the only problem with the machine was that it only took $10 bills as payment. For some odd reason...

      --

      Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
    3. Re:Discs of Tron by mbadolato · · Score: 2
      You literally stood inside the environmental unit. It had six channel surround sound-- stereo front, stereo rear, a center channel near the control deck and a bass channel in the rear of the cabinet that you were leaning against.

      Totally immersive, especially for 1985 or so.

      Yup, the environmental DoT as that unit was called was very impressive. There was also a "regular" machine style of the game, which is far more rare. Both are pictured here. I know someone that managed to score a beautifal enviro version of DoT about 6 years ago, for around $1500. Then some asses robbed his house one night...it wasn't enough to just rob him, they had to trash the place too. They couldn't very well leave with the behemouth of a machine, so they knocked it over, smashed it to shreds, etc.

      For classic game collectors, such as myself, it's hurts knowing these things are so limited, and when they are found, idiots just trash them

      But DoT is a very cool game, as is the regular Tron game (which I own). It will be interesting to see Tron 2.0. It will also be interesting to see the movie when it finally gets released. For now, we have to subsist on the 20th anniversary dvd that just came out of the original :)

  10. Oh sweet irony by levik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think it's kind of ironic that when the movie was made, they specifically limited the environments inside the computer to a few basic colors - greys, blues and reds - and to simple geometric stuctures (mostly), to make it a "believable" computer interior. And now with the game coming out trying to mimic the movie, the designers will have to stick to that style, even though it is well within the capability of todays games to present a much richer and more detailed world. So it's like an old, perceived, limitation of the computers that is coming back to haunt them.

    --
    Ñ'
  11. No Mention of the Sequel by Relic+of+the+Future · · Score: 2

    No mention of the movie sequel? I mean, come on, it's Disney... why would they be invovled if this wasn't part of a movie tie in, right?

    --
    Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
  12. More on Syd Mead... by wct · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Syd Mead also was responsible for much of the design of Blade Runner, and did some work as an artist on Aliens. He has produced work for a couple of video games too...I think Beneath A Steel Sky and one of the Wing Commanders...

  13. 2003! by SVDave · · Score: 2

    Wow. So, not only is Tron 2.0 (aka Tron Killer App) going to be in out in the fall of 2003, but The Matrix Reloaded (aka The Matrix 2) and perhaps The Matrix Revolutions (aka The Matrix 3) will be as well.

    2003 is going to be a kick-ass year for geek movies.

  14. I spent many a quarter on Discs of Tron by Greyfox · · Score: 2
    Though I haven't seen it recently, I played the game a lot up through the mid '90's, which was the last time I was able to find the game in an arcade. Its graphics are still not dated and its gameplay is still better than most of the stuff on the market today. I got pretty good at the game, too, and could play for about an hour, hour and a half on a quarter.

    I had some trouble getting it to work with MAME last time I tried, maybe it's time to try again.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  15. Re:Linux? by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2
    I just looked at all the articles, and I don't think it tells us what platform(s) the game is going to be released on at all. Playstation? Xbox?

    It's being put out by Disney Interactive. It looks like it will have FPS elements in it, which will be weird coming from Disney (yay, MickeyHunter 3000!). Just what platforms does Disney usually develop for?

    Hey, wait a minute, isn't Disney evil? Oh, that's right. Shiny.

  16. Really cool Tron games by BlindSpot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anybody else remember the Tron games for Intellivision? They were some of the best ever games for that system.

    Tron Deadly Discs was my favourite. It wasn't like the arcade game Discs of Tron, instead you and the enemies ran around a playfield throwing discs at each other. Eventually the Recognizer would come and you'd have to hit it in just the right spot to disable it. It was pretty easy but still lots of fun.

    Tron Solar Sailer was the coolest Intellivoice game. It was a pretty weird concept that I can't really describe too well, but it actually had quite a bit to do with the movie.

    There was another game, Tron Maze-A-Tron which I didn't think was very good. Basically you just ran around a maze doing stuff.

    Of course the arcade games were a lot of fun too but for a youngster with very little money it was a lot nicer to have something to play at home.

  17. Poor Light Cycle Re-creation by wo1verin3 · · Score: 2

    It's already been done, the best light cycle redition BY FAR can be seen here.

    The light cycle portion is about 1:30 in.

  18. Re:Tron? In A Game? by prockcore · · Score: 2

    " Essentially, the plot could be summed up in three sentances:
    1. Man goes into evil computer
    2. Man fights evil computer's minions & evil computer itself
    3. Man wins"

    That's 2 more sentences than the typical movie/game.

    Let's try, shall we?

    " 1. Unsinkable Ship Sinks" (Titanic)
    " 1. Ugly chick removes glasses, gets the guy" (50% teen movies)
    " 1. Guy tries to get beautiful girl, ends up with girl next door after realizing beautiful girl is ugly on the inside" (the other 50%.. 100% if the girl next door removes glasses)
    " 1. Kill monsters" (All Quake games)
    " 1. Kill nazis" (Wolfenstein)
    " 1. Kill aliens" (Alien1-3, Predator 1-2, AvP)
    " 1. Drive fast" (GT1-3)
    " 1. Drive fast in a stolen car" (GTA1-3)

    So I think a 3 line plot isn't too bad.

  19. Tron - not as good as you remember by cryptochrome · · Score: 2

    The original Tron wasn't even that good. I liked it as a kid. Then again, I also liked Airwolf and a lot of other shows that I realized were extremely crappy when I saw them as an adult. Tron was corny and predictable - Tron 2.0 will almost certainly be that, as well as sickeningly sanitized to suit the bland modern Disney.

    --

    ---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

  20. Re:At last.. by matrix29 · · Score: 2

    I remember seeing the movie Tron, and I thought, how cool it would be if I had computergraphics like that in my computer (an Amiga 1000 at that time). And now, with the advancement of tehcnology, I can have.. without the need for a Cray Y MP! Sometimes technology is so beautiful, it brings tears in my eyes..

    We're getting DAMN close.
    [From this website]
    http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/top500/reports/rep ort95/Architectures/node3.html
    1.1.2 The Cray Y-MP T90 (Triton)
    Machine type: Shared-memory multi-vectorprocessor.
    Models: Y-MP T90.
    Operating system: UNICOS (Cray Unix variant).
    Compilers: Fortran, C, C++, Pascal, ADA.

    System parameters:

    Model Cray Y-MP T90
    Clock cycle 2.2 ns
    Theor. peak performance:
    Per processor 1.818 Gflop/s
    Maximal 58.2Gflop/s
    Main memory 8 GB
    Memory bandwidth:
    Single proc. bandwidth 21.8 GB/s
    No. of processors 2-32

    Performance:

    19.5 Gflop/s
    28.8 Gflop/s

    Note: The and values as given above stem from a 16 processor T90 (T916).

    The T90 is the successor of the the Cray Y-MP C90 and in almost all respects the machines are similar. As in the C90, the number of arithmetic vector pipe sets is four. The performance of a full T90 CPU is slightly less than four-fold that of a maximal C90 system. This is brought about by lowering the clock cycle from 4.1 to 2.2 ns and by doubling the number of CPUs from 16 to 32.

    The machines from Cray Research Inc. are at this moment the only ones with a memory bandwidth as seems optimal for vector processors: two operands can be loaded and one result can be stored in one cycle for each pipe set. For the C90 this meant that the relative bandwidth to the CPUs had to be doubled from 24 to 48 bytes/cycle. This has indeed been accomplished and observed results indicate that for the C90 the performance scales up with the clock cycle and the number of functional units.

    The Cray Y-MP T90, C90, and M90 systems do not have separate scalar processors but scalar- and vector code have to share the same functional units. Theoretically, the absence of separate scalar processors might impair the throughput speed, however, in practice the drawbacks seem rather limited.
    [end of line]

    The interesting thing was CRAY was selling a "CRAY on a chip" back in 1988.

    Intel 860 (1988). 'Cray-on-a-chip'. Scary!
    http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/jbayko/cpu5.html#Sec5P art2

    --
    "Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.