I enjoyed this game alright. I think a fair comparison to it would be Jedi Outcast, in how the game feels to play.
I feel like this game's story captured my attention better than the original TRON movie. In the movie, the computer world felt too disconnected from the real world, that there weren't any stakes, and that nothing affected the real world (I could be wrong about this, this was just my impression). Here, they do a much better job at linking what's going on in the digital world in the real world. I also liked the corporate espionage angle.
The art direction in this game is absolutely on-brand. It takes the idea of TRON and runs with it only a little bit, but otherwise just nails it. I think that TRON: Legacy's interpretation was a good evolution of the aesthetic, but this game works very well.
One thing I liked was picking up tidbits of backstory through emails. It's like the Metroid Prime logbook entries (though that game executed those way better, I loved reading those).
Gameplay felt very...stiff. Here's where I'll make comparisons with Jedi Outcast. JO and T2.0 have a very, almost eerily similar gamefeel, from what I recall of the former. Kind of stiff, feels like the game is fighting against the engine to do what it wants to do. Both games are very slow in terms of movement, even sprinting, but I feel like JO's level design mitigates this issue. T2.0's level design has a lot of scope, scale, and interest, but a lot of them had, from what I recall, a lot of travel time. A faster sprint and/or a tightening of the time taken to backtrack or get to the next point would have fixed this.
I found the levels where I couldn't get the required permissions to open certain doors, turn on certain panels, etc, to be quite frustrating. I understand it was probably intended as a way to hint that there could be more to the world, while not actually making it, but it felt like a key that I should have been able to get, but couldn't.
The memory system was quite interesting, but the means to obtain or upgrade subroutines to higher levels were few and far between. I wasn't able to explore all the features I wanted to, because I was trying to keep my loudout economical.
Speaking of loudout, the weapons. They were kinda there, I guess. I found it annoying how any weapon outside of the basic disk drew from your energy pool as ammunition. If they were going to do that, have the energy pool recharge on its own. Going to find energy recharge spheres in the middle of a combat section using the Mesh.Blaster, Rod.LOL, or even Disk.Sequencer really breaks up the flow, and leaves you vulnerable. I get that the main draw is the disk weapon, but since they included other weapons at all, I feel like they should have been accommodated better. Either that, or just keep the disk weapon on its own, and refine its gameplay mechanics. The disk didn't have any tactical capabilities outside of maybe headshots doing more damage, and maybe, if you're lucky, getting one ricochet into an enemy. Yeah, I know, it's 2003, but Halo had been out for two years by now, and it had bouncing grenades.
Also, more attacks should have been blockable by the disk, especially with the Power Block subroutine.
Also. Fall damage. Fall damage is either just a scratch or instant death, no in-betweens. Most annoying thing about level traversal.
However, these criticisms are nothing compared to the lightcycles.
The lightcycles were awful.
Their implementation was identical to both the TRON game and the movie's depiction of them. On that level, I appreciate them.
But holy cow, it did not translate well to good gameplay. Or maybe it wasn't executed well. And I'm gonna contest any accusation of skill issue here, because there are like 3 or 4 times where you go on lightcycles, and it was so hard for me to get through all of those levels. The controls weren't logical in the slightest. I feel like a major improvement could have had the acceleration button be on the space bar or the mouse buttons, and have the WASD/directions be absolute instead of relative. So many times I made a wrong turn because I was facing the lightcycle from the front, and I wanted to turn left, but ended up going to Jet's left instead of stage left. So either they be absolute directions, or act relative to the camera.
Or, you overhaul the system entirely and make it like Legacy (I know it didn't come out yet). That would have been a lot more fun.
Oh, and they take away the beautiful, iconic, sleek 1982 lightcycle away and replace it with an objectively awful design that I can't believe Syd Mead actually made. It actually almost looks out of place in the world, and is only saved by the telltale TRON elements. I don't even care about its better specs, I want my 82Cycle back! >:(
I'm ragging on this game a lot, but only because I care. I did enjoy it, but it has a several flaws that I wish could be amended. I respect and appreciate the love and admiration this game has. A TRON game that not only shows love and respect for the IP, but is also an FPS? Absolutely fantastic! I just found that the execution kinda stumbled occasionally. This game is definitely enjoyable, and the criticisms I have of the game are just my personal opinion, but only because I care about this franchise too.
I don't know if I'll play it again, but if the next update for the Killer App mod comes out soon, I just might.
I feel like this game's story captured my attention better than the original TRON movie. In the movie, the computer world felt too disconnected from the real world, that there weren't any stakes, and that nothing affected the real world (I could be wrong about this, this was just my impression). Here, they do a much better job at linking what's going on in the digital world in the real world. I also liked the corporate espionage angle.
The art direction in this game is absolutely on-brand. It takes the idea of TRON and runs with it only a little bit, but otherwise just nails it. I think that TRON: Legacy's interpretation was a good evolution of the aesthetic, but this game works very well.
One thing I liked was picking up tidbits of backstory through emails. It's like the Metroid Prime logbook entries (though that game executed those way better, I loved reading those).
Gameplay felt very...stiff. Here's where I'll make comparisons with Jedi Outcast. JO and T2.0 have a very, almost eerily similar gamefeel, from what I recall of the former. Kind of stiff, feels like the game is fighting against the engine to do what it wants to do. Both games are very slow in terms of movement, even sprinting, but I feel like JO's level design mitigates this issue. T2.0's level design has a lot of scope, scale, and interest, but a lot of them had, from what I recall, a lot of travel time. A faster sprint and/or a tightening of the time taken to backtrack or get to the next point would have fixed this.
I found the levels where I couldn't get the required permissions to open certain doors, turn on certain panels, etc, to be quite frustrating. I understand it was probably intended as a way to hint that there could be more to the world, while not actually making it, but it felt like a key that I should have been able to get, but couldn't.
The memory system was quite interesting, but the means to obtain or upgrade subroutines to higher levels were few and far between. I wasn't able to explore all the features I wanted to, because I was trying to keep my loudout economical.
Speaking of loudout, the weapons. They were kinda there, I guess. I found it annoying how any weapon outside of the basic disk drew from your energy pool as ammunition. If they were going to do that, have the energy pool recharge on its own. Going to find energy recharge spheres in the middle of a combat section using the Mesh.Blaster, Rod.LOL, or even Disk.Sequencer really breaks up the flow, and leaves you vulnerable. I get that the main draw is the disk weapon, but since they included other weapons at all, I feel like they should have been accommodated better. Either that, or just keep the disk weapon on its own, and refine its gameplay mechanics. The disk didn't have any tactical capabilities outside of maybe headshots doing more damage, and maybe, if you're lucky, getting one ricochet into an enemy. Yeah, I know, it's 2003, but Halo had been out for two years by now, and it had bouncing grenades.
Also, more attacks should have been blockable by the disk, especially with the Power Block subroutine.
Also. Fall damage. Fall damage is either just a scratch or instant death, no in-betweens. Most annoying thing about level traversal.
However, these criticisms are nothing compared to the lightcycles.
The lightcycles were awful.
Their implementation was identical to both the TRON game and the movie's depiction of them. On that level, I appreciate them.
But holy cow, it did not translate well to good gameplay. Or maybe it wasn't executed well. And I'm gonna contest any accusation of skill issue here, because there are like 3 or 4 times where you go on lightcycles, and it was so hard for me to get through all of those levels. The controls weren't logical in the slightest. I feel like a major improvement could have had the acceleration button be on the space bar or the mouse buttons, and have the WASD/directions be absolute instead of relative. So many times I made a wrong turn because I was facing the lightcycle from the front, and I wanted to turn left, but ended up going to Jet's left instead of stage left. So either they be absolute directions, or act relative to the camera.
Or, you overhaul the system entirely and make it like Legacy (I know it didn't come out yet). That would have been a lot more fun.
Oh, and they take away the beautiful, iconic, sleek 1982 lightcycle away and replace it with an objectively awful design that I can't believe Syd Mead actually made. It actually almost looks out of place in the world, and is only saved by the telltale TRON elements. I don't even care about its better specs, I want my 82Cycle back! >:(
I'm ragging on this game a lot, but only because I care. I did enjoy it, but it has a several flaws that I wish could be amended. I respect and appreciate the love and admiration this game has. A TRON game that not only shows love and respect for the IP, but is also an FPS? Absolutely fantastic! I just found that the execution kinda stumbled occasionally. This game is definitely enjoyable, and the criticisms I have of the game are just my personal opinion, but only because I care about this franchise too.
I don't know if I'll play it again, but if the next update for the Killer App mod comes out soon, I just might.