Tron 2.0 for GBA -- with Tron and Discs of Tron!

[SoulBlazer]

This came out a couple weeks ago. No one here has mentioned it, so I thought I would post a few comments about it, since I got it a few days ago.

Tron for the PC was a good but not major success FPS with a few mini games, like speed bike racing, thrown in. It captured the look and feel of the original movie very well, and a updated version is coming out for the XBox next month.

Tron 2.0 for the GBA is a spin off -- you can play either Tron or Mercury through a number of stages, trying to protect the ENRON computer from a mysterious hacker. It's a standard platform game but has some fun elements to it. Voice is used in the game, three save files, and you can play tank, speeder, and flying games (and also play them as mini games).

You can also play said mini games with friends if you link up to them.

But ALSO included with the game are ports of two arcade games that have NEVER gotten a home release -- Tron from 1982 and Discs of Tron from 1983, both by Midway.

The ports are dead on. My only small gripe with Tron is that to move your arm you use the L and R buttons -- not the best choices, as it can make some of the stages hard. But you can continue from where you left off by just dropping a 'quarter' when you hit start.

I never played Discs of Tron in the arcades, but comparing it to MAME I don't see any differences here either.

I love Tron in the arcades, and this saved me the desire of buying a machine someday. LOL

[Lady Jaye]

So, all in all, are you saying that Tron 2.0 - GBA is well worth it? I'd be interested in picking this up... Then again, I've yet to try out the PC version (the Mac port came out a few months ago... one of these days, I'll probably buy a copy).

[SoulBlazer]

I thought that was the impression I gave. LOL

If you have a XBox, pick up Tron 2.0 when it comes out next month. It will be a better version.

[Captain Wrong]

Awesome. I was hoping for a report on the ports from someone. Glad they're worthwhile.

[zmweasel]

The ports are dead on. My only small gripe with Tron is that to move your arm you use the L and R buttons -- not the best choices, as it can make some of the stages hard. But you can continue from where you left off by just dropping a 'quarter' when you hit start.

"Not the best choices"? Using L and R to emulate the TRON coin-op's dial control seems like the ONLY good choice. What would you have had 'em use instead?

Also, I'm surprised you didn't touch upon the squashed aspect ratio. It doesn't affect the gameplay as much as I thought it would, but it's still pretty ugly.

-- Z.

[Raccoon Lad]

Those aren't ports, it's actual arcade emulation. The guy who did the emulation sits a few desks away from me.
If you've got any questions, I'll make sure he sees this thread.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I am SO going to get this today.

[SoulBlazer]

Maybe I did'nt notice the aspect ratio cause I've been playing the game on my GameCube -- it has'nt gone anywhere NEAR my GBA SP. LOL In Full screen mode, it does look a LITTLE off, but nowhere near bad.

And when I said 'port' I should have said that I did'nt know if it was arcade emulation or not. Sorry. :)

What would my personal controller choice have been for moving Tron's arm? I would have gone with X for left and Y for right, or maybe the right analog stick. L and R just seems clunky to me. Small gripes, though.

[ubersaurus]

Maybe I did'nt notice the aspect ratio cause I've been playing the game on my GameCube -- it has'nt gone anywhere NEAR my GBA SP. LOL In Full screen mode, it does look a LITTLE off, but nowhere near bad.

And when I said 'port' I should have said that I did'nt know if it was arcade emulation or not. Sorry. :)

What would my personal controller choice have been for moving Tron's arm? I would have gone with X for left and Y for right, or maybe the right analog stick. L and R just seems clunky to me. Small gripes, though.

Except that on GBA, there's no X, Y, or right analog. X and Y are Select, and the right analog is the control pad, after all.

[SoulBlazer]

True, the GBA interface is kind of clunky. I guess it was a good compromise. :)

[Jorpho]

Those aren't ports, it's actual arcade emulation. The guy who did the emulation sits a few desks away from me.
If you've got any questions, I'll make sure he sees this thread.

Did he use MAME code, or did he start over from scratch?

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Rock ON! Man! I don't think I've spent more than five minutes with the "2.0" game yet. I'll admit, I got this one just for the emulated classics, and they are SUPERB. I can even live with the aspect ratio squishing. I've had no trouble adjusting to using the shoulder buttons for aiming either.

Excellent, excellent stuff.

[SoulBlazer]

Glad you're enjoying it, PDF. You're one of the people I posted that review for. :D

Give the main game a try also -- as far as GBA games go it's quite good.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I also like how, for the first time since the movie came out, we finally CAN play freakin' Space Paranoids (aka Recognizer Battle Mode)! LOL That took long enough!

[kainemaxwell]

If I had a GBA, I'd buy this..doubt the PS2 and XBox versions won't have these classics.

[Raccoon Lad]

Those aren't ports, it's actual arcade emulation. The guy who did the emulation sits a few desks away from me.
If you've got any questions, I'll make sure he sees this thread.

Did he use MAME code, or did he start over from scratch?


He used to contribute to mame, but got fed up with the mame team's desire to add as many games as possible instead of making sure they were all emulated properly.

... so he started writing his own emulators from scratch, in pure assembly.

that, and you could NEVER port mame code to the GBA.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yep...I've noticed time and again how the Neo Geo chime tends to sound DIFFERENT in various games...durr...anyhow, I'm not at all surprised to find out that's why he left. It's fun to play a billion +1 games in MAME, but having them *work right* and within acceptable processing limits is beyond their abilities in the schedule they've set. Oh well...

[calthaer]

Soul...so are you really trying to save the ENRON computer? Wasn't the fictitious company from TRON called ENCOM?

The opposing people were FCon or something like that...the big question being "who is the CEO of fcon?

[SoulBlazer]

Did I mistype the computer name? Sorry if I did. :embarrassed:

Gee, first I play the game so much on my GC controller I forgot it's a GBA game and now this.....

At least PDF is happy. :D

[deadtech]

I bought ythis game about a week ago, and finally had the chance to finish Tron's mission yesterday. I had a lot of fun with it, and the inclusion of the arcade games made it a definate purchase. Anyhow, I continued my game with Mercury's story, and I have found her levels to be VERY, VERY, VERY frustrating. I may not finish due to this frustration. I think lots of instant death precision jumping parts in a isometric view game with slightly twitchy camera was probably not the best idea. :( Overall, I like the game very much, just skip Mercury's story is my advice. :/

-deadtech

P.S. is there any code or something to change the screen format for the arcade games, the squashed screen throws me off a bit. :P

[kingpong]

He used to contribute to mame, but got fed up with the mame team's desire to add as many games as possible instead of making sure they were all emulated properly.


Wow, that's an incredibly misguided view of how MAME development works, at least over the past few years. I can't recall any MAME dev ever saying anything was more important than accuracy. In fact, all the big devs frequently complain about people whining about new games instead of wanting to see better accuracy on hardare already emulated. From the timing system rewrite to the discrete sound simulations to the current FD1094 encryption work, the amount of effort that has been spent on correctness of late is staggering. Heck, even the early Namco drivers (Pac-Man era) saw recent changes for the sake of accuracy. Perhaps the best example of changes in favor of accuracy, the biggest benefit of the new watchdog implementation (not sure if it made it into .88u2 or not) will be to make Ms. Pac-Man go haywire at level 131 like the real thing does. If that's not accuracy, I don't know what is (at least given what is currently feasible - all emulation is somewhat crude until it is done at the gate level anyways).

If your co-worker hasn't paid much attention to MAME lately, it sounds like he should start. It would be a shame to see someone with obvious talents that could help the project not contribute due to a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the prevailing MAME dev mindset.

[ddockery]

I'm wondering if this is really due to not agreeing what accuracy means. MAME trys to emulate the hardware as truly as possible. Because of this, they reject solutions that will often times make the game APPEAR more accurate because it plays more like the real thing, but in the background is hacking a fix and bastardizing the driver. A lot of people tend to get pissed when they won't implement feature X, which would fix issue Y in 20 games. They do this in hopes of finding a REAL solution, and once a hack is implemented in a lot of cases the motivation to find a proper solution dwindels.

[DaBargainHunta]

Do you have to unlock the two old games or are they available from the get go?

[zmweasel]

Do you have to unlock the two old games or are they available from the get go?

They're immediately available.

-- Z.

[SoulBlazer]

And thank God for that. ;)

Lucasarts just a couple weeks ago FINALLY released the code to allow you to unlock and play the arcade game Return of the Jedi on Star Wars Rogue Squadron III for GC -- a YEAR after the game came out! :roll:

[calthaer]

So wait - does fCon return in this storyline, and more importantly: do they give you any hints as to who the CEO of fCon is?