Tron-what was your first reaction?

[+thegoldenband]

Probably my favorite arcade game. Beautiful cabinet, and awesome sound. Sadly the gameplay is lacking if you can't play it on the actual cabinet due to the spinner. That said I still play it all the time on XBLA.

 

It's also my single most desired 2600 homebrew

 

I used to play it in MAME using a PSX-style controller. It's not ideal, but certainly more than playable.

 

It's my second-most desired VCS homebrew! The controls would seem feasible with an ad hoc arrangement of, say, a Wico Boss and a driving controller.

[marcfrick2112]

I was pretty blown away by Tron when I first played it. Great cab graphics, I liked the gameplay, I really LOVED the tank level, sadly never got very good at the game tho...

 

Tron is one of a very small number of games that I really NEED to get the actual arcade machine to play 'properly'...

Along with a 'The Shadow' pin .... someday, lol

[Tickled_Pink]

I have to admit I've never heard someone say that Tron had terrible game play.

 

I loved it and still do. Definitely on my want list for the home arcade.

Tron has terrible game play.

 

Or was it just that I sucked at it more than any other game?

[+Cafeman]

Tron is a collection of 4 simple games that everyone has played elsewhere - surround, breakout, run-n-gun stuff like Berzerk, and combat tanks. I think that today's gamers would groan over a game that did this.

 

But the way Tron was implemented (great unique controls, and quick & exciting rounds each with its own spin on its genre) makes each more fun and fresh. And, by applying the Tron theme for this game, 80's Tron arcade is more than the sum of its 4 parts. I disagree it has terrible gameplay because to this day I still love playing it. If any game could be a homebrewed port, it'd be awesome for it to be Tron.

 

anyway, my first reactions was "I MUST PLAY THIS GAME WOWWW!" di-di-di diiiii di-di-di diiii... *whistles the theme*

Edited December 23, 2011 by Cafeman

[retrorussell]

I fell in love with the cool controller and dial, and the good controls they gave you of your character. And the music...! Awesome!

I was never particularly good at it, but I still enjoy it to this day.

[jcleverly]

tron isn't a bad game. it just gets old after a while. DOT is significantly better due to the different pseudo 3d gameplay, etc. the four tron games with the repeating patterns just get tiring to me. i ended up trading mine for a tempest due to that.

[Madaracs]

For those of you who liked/loved the game play, have you tried the xbox live arcade version? This is what brought it back to my mind. It seemed pretty accurate. And looked pretty cool graphically, like the arcade game.

 

I'm a day late and a dollar short to this conversation, but since I own a Tron cocktail machine I thought I would chime in.

 

First the XBL version is crap. It's also slightly enhanced so it isn't true to the original. There is absolutely no way whatsoever to play Tron properly without a joystick with a firebutton on it and a spinner.

 

As for the original cabinet and my first impressions... I was about 10. Cabinets didn't much matter to me then (unless it was one you could sit inside) but even then it was one that drew my eye. I was _more impressed_ that the game was good and had good music--it was really exciting to play--and brutal. Also, what other games of the time offered you a choice of 4 different games?! Of course, Discs-of-Tron is another story... that environment cabinet was simply awesome.

 

Now that I've owned my own Tron machine for 10 years, I have to say as 80s arcade games go this one has so much to offer: A great score, exciting and challenging game play (and free now too!) and a sexy cabinet. My cocktail Tron machine is a bit different than the dumbed-down cabs that Bally/Midway produced. The cocktail models didn't have much flair. For instance there was a distinct lack of blacklights in the cocktail--even though the control panels were made with phosphorescent (blacklight reactive) dye. Mine has blacklights. Also mine has bright blue T-molding which lends to the feel of Tron more. Sadly, the underlay was not printed with photo-reactive/phosphorescent dye that the control panels were so even with an overhead blacklight it doesn't get much love.

 

It still looks great tho...

Edited January 9, 2012 by Madaracs

[Mr SQL]

I'm going to take that as a sign that I need to convince my wife that I need to get a Tron cab.

 

One of my friends had a Tron cab when I was in middle/high school. Frankly, it was awesome.

 

Still surprising that there isn't a decent port of the game for home consoles -- the only one I know of that exists at all, actually, is "Electron" for Tandy CoCo.

goldenband,

agree the 6809 port was well done! I enjoyed playing that version too

 

I'm surprised there wasn't an official 2600 port from the arcade.

[SoulBlazer]

I disagree strongly about the XBox Live version being crap, considering how much I play it (and Discs of Tron, which is a even HARDER game) but to those of us who can never afford the arcade machine it will do fine.

[Waterborn]

tron isn't a bad game. it just gets old after a while. DOT is significantly better due to the different pseudo 3d gameplay, etc. the four tron games with the repeating patterns just get tiring to me. i ended up trading mine for a tempest due to that.

 

I too owned a TRON UR in my collection and was unbelievably stoked when I got it. I played the crap out of it, but once I got good enough to get to level 10, I quickly got bored with the gameplay. I sold it to purchase another one of my "holy grail' machines, Sinistar, and haven't regretted it. I have limited space in my basement arcade and can only keep 8 games at any given time. With all that said, if and when we move to a bigger house, TRON will be of the first machines that I would buy again. I am a HUGE fan of the original movie (saw it on opening day at the Contemporary Hotel Theater inside the gameroom there at WDW) and think that any arcade looks much better with a TRON and Satan's Hollow in it.

 

[Lord Helmet]

I disagree strongly about the XBox Live version being crap, considering how much I play it (and Discs of Tron, which is a even HARDER game) but to those of us who can never afford the arcade machine it will do fine.

 

The XBLA version is fine up until around level 4. Once you need to really be able to use the spinner the game becomes impossible.

[ledzep]

Tron is a collection of 4 simple games that everyone has played elsewhere - surround, breakout, run-n-gun stuff like Berzerk, and combat tanks. I think that today's gamers would groan over a game that did this.

 

I agree with this assessment. It's the Tron movie game version of Gorf.

 

My first impression when I first saw it was "No way!" and I immediately wanted to play it (love the movie) but I did not like how "un-movie" it was. But I will admit I'm not the typical arcade fan, all my favorite games except for Xevious are vector games (Tempest, Space Duel, Space Wars, Star Trek, etc.) and I'm one of those guys who wants the thing I'm being sold to match the name. So I was kind of expecting/hoping for some sort of actual Space Paranoids type game or a first-person perspective version of the tank and light cycle levels (Battlezone). The grid bugs bored the hell out of me and the MCP part was bland.

 

I don't like how the joystick feels squishy, like it's so big that it's not really obvious that you've moved it to the right directional spot as good as some other games feel. Love the spinner. But, game-wise, why is he on the ground shooting at grid bugs? That wasn't in movie (to be fair, the grid bugs themselves were basically not in the movie, either). I would have expected Sark to come at me during the MCP part instead of having the MCP shields move down like Space Invaders. And the shields are wrong, they shouldn't be stacked, they should be complete squares like in the movie (basically a single-ring-of-Star-Castle defense) to say nothing of having Tron basically firing an energy weapon at the shields vs. using his disc. "Like in the movie" was the thought that kept bouncing around in my head as I got more and more dissatisfied with the game. I still played it, I still liked the tank and light cycle parts (though the cycle part was way too small, should have been a scrolling playfield with faster cycles) and I liked that a cool computer movie got a game (two, counting Discs Of Tron). But the game play wasn't anything like in the movie. They could have wiped out the grid bugs part completely and spent more time and memory on the other three levels.

 

Ya ya, boo hoo, I was spoiled, I got to live through the '80s, the greatest arcade era of all time, I own an Atari VCS, an Atari 5200, a Vectrex, and some arcade cabinets, weep for me. Still, you asked.

[Master Phruby]

It's one of those arcade cabinates I would love to own. The lighting was amazing and the game play was great. It's just not the same playing without the paddle controller on Mame.

 

By the way, has anyone played Space Paranoids? Disney California Adventure had one cab at Eletronica last year. Interesting game since you have to use a track ball to control the tank's turret. Does anyone know if that machine is in production or was that just something special for Eletronica?

[racerx]

First time I played Tron was for free at an Aladdin's Castle. I was just a kid, but it was set up outside in front of the arcade and there were some sort of people (Williams employees?) that were taking surveys and getting feedback on the game.

 

Not the greatest game of all time, but the gorgeous cabinet and spot-on soundtrack put it on top of by bucket list of machines to own.

[+Nathan Strum]

But, game-wise, why is he on the ground shooting at grid bugs? That wasn't in movie (to be fair, the grid bugs themselves were basically not in the movie, either).

 

They were in the original script, however, but the scenes were never shot. There was supposedly a whole sequence of them being attacked by grid bugs as they were approaching the I/O tower to communicate with Alan. But once that was cut, the grid bugs were only added to the movie solely to tie back into the game, which still featured them. It was a pretty last-minute addition, which is why the grid bugs are hand-animated, not computer-animated, and are only referred to in a voice-over by Cindy Morgan.

 

The disparities with the game vs. the movie are pretty simple to explain - the game was being programmed while the movie was still in development. The final effects shots, editing, etc., weren't finished before development on the game was being done. They had a game to make, and couldn't wait for the movie. I'll admit, the differences between the movie and the game bothered me some as well, but not enough to keep Tron off of my all-time-favorite-arcade-games list.

 

I loved the game. I think the joystick+spinner combination is one of the best control schemes there is (see also: Mad Planets). The graphics were far and away better than most of the other raster games around at the time. (There was a rumor circulating back-in-the-day that Soviet spies were attempting to smuggle a Tron machine back to the USSR, because it was more advanced than their computers. But I take that with a very heavy grain of salt.)

 

That said, I was never all that good at the game. I got up to the Recognizers a few times, but that was about it. Not that I didn't dump enough quarters into it though. I suppose if it hadn't been a tie-in to the movie, I might not have given it as much attention. But to this day, it's one of my favorite arcade classics. (But then again, so is Gorf. )

[GameGirl420]

Dang I remember first seeing Tron around 1983 I think(or was it early '84!?) when I was a little girl.

 

My first reaction? I thought it was loud lol and the blacklight really tripped me out,but I remember being

blown away by the light cycles and remember feeling how intense that part of the game was. I remember also thinking it was really hard and liking the music more than the actual game.

 

Now my first reaction to Gauntlet 2 is a different story. I was in complete awe of the Gauntlet games when they first came out.

[ledzep]

But, game-wise, why is he on the ground shooting at grid bugs? That wasn't in movie (to be fair, the grid bugs themselves were basically not in the movie, either).

 

They were in the original script, however, but the scenes were never shot. There was supposedly a whole sequence of them being attacked by grid bugs as they were approaching the I/O tower to communicate with Alan. But once that was cut, the grid bugs were only added to the movie solely to tie back into the game, which still featured them. It was a pretty last-minute addition, which is why the grid bugs are hand-animated, not computer-animated, and are only referred to in a voice-over by Cindy Morgan.

 

The disparities with the game vs. the movie are pretty simple to explain - the game was being programmed while the movie was still in development. The final effects shots, editing, etc., weren't finished before development on the game was being done. They had a game to make, and couldn't wait for the movie. I'll admit, the differences between the movie and the game bothered me some as well, but not enough to keep Tron off of my all-time-favorite-arcade-games list.

 

Wow, I didn't know any of that. Thanks!

 

That does change my view of the game/movie discrepancies a bit. Still, it wasn't one of my favorite games even considering that it was connected to one of my favorite movies. But I have a huge vector graphics bias, hahaha.

 

I loved the game. I think the joystick+spinner combination is one of the best control schemes there is (see also: Mad Planets). The graphics were far and away better than most of the other raster games around at the time. (There was a rumor circulating back-in-the-day that Soviet spies were attempting to smuggle a Tron machine back to the USSR, because it was more advanced than their computers. But I take that with a very heavy grain of salt.)

 

I liked the controller combo, too, I was just never a fan of the feel of that giant joystick. Same goes for Solar Fox and a few other games that used it. It always felt squishy to me, like the joystick moved not just for direction but also because it was bending inside, like it was made out of rubber or something. I can't explain it better than that, I just never felt confident that the stick was really accurately interpreting my movements. I didn't get that from other joysticks in other games, just that one. Needless to say, I was never that good at any of the arcade games that had that joystick as the controller.

 

That said, I was never all that good at the game. I got up to the Recognizers a few times, but that was about it. Not that I didn't dump enough quarters into it though. I suppose if it hadn't been a tie-in to the movie, I might not have given it as much attention. But to this day, it's one of my favorite arcade classics. (But then again, so is Gorf. )

 

Hey, I love Gorf, too. It just seemed odd to me that "Holy shit, a Tron game!" would hand me a new Gorf, I was expecting something more than that. An actual Space Paranoids game, actually, that's what I really wanted, I wanted Disney to put out those games that Flynn said he'd designed (Matrix Blaster, Vice Squad, etc.), I didn't want a game that half-assed the plot of the movie. But then I've never been a fan of that type of arcade game scenario. I thought Discs Of Tron was a better direction to go in even though I sucked at that game. I always felt that story plot games should be on PCs, not arcade games.

 

I know what you mean about dumping quarters into a game. When Xevious first came out I spent ten bucks on it over two days trying to get good at it. And this was back when arcades would give you more tokens if you bought more than a dollar at a time. I think this place I was at would give over 35 tokens for five dollars. Man, did I play the hell out of that game!