Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

If there is a movie that I can continue to go back to over the years from my childhood, it is Tron.  My parents didn’t get it at all when they took me to see it, but as I watched it, I was fascinated by the concepts and technology that was being put on the screen in front of me.  It was part of the reason I got into computer programming and management for my paycheck.  I am a blatant defender of the Tron lore, and have played just about every Tron game that has come out.  I am even an apologist for Tron 2.0, which I found to be an amazing game, regardless of what the critics said.  So I came into Tron Evolution: The Video Game with high hopes.  A game that is based off of a movie that focuses on the GameGrid and other digital concepts would be easy to migrate into a top notch game.  Unfortunately, that is not the case, and you will find yourself struggling to want anything to do with the title by its end.

Tron Evolution is designed to bridge the gap between the 1982 film and the events that take place in Tron Legacy.  Normally with most movie tie-in games, you expect a wafer thin story that either mimics the movie story, or creates some sort of bridge or tangent timeline that explains the addition of more characters and combatants.  The story in Tron Evolution is not a throwaway piece of fiction.  If anything, it becomes the strongest point of this title, as it weaves together a rather deep narrative.  It seems that the Iso’s have been persecuted by the system and are ready to be accepted by the general systems in Tron City (yes Tron has a city named after him).  Clu 2.0 is the man behind setting up this acceptance, but behind the scenes, he actually has a deeper plan, as he feels the Iso’s are a cancer upon the system mainframe.  He wants them out of the picture, and it ends up that your character, a faceless System Monitor and Quorra, a pivotal character to the movie sequel, have to try and bring Clu 2.0’s deception to the masses.  Sure, it sounds a bit convoluted, but everything about the story, from the cut scenes to the recorded dialog, to the plot twists are handled so well, and become the only piece of glue that keep you hanging in for the end of the game.

Unfortunately, to follow the story, you actually have to play the game, and this is where Tron Evolution fails on just about every conceivable level.  I mean, when you enter the world of Tron, you immediately fill your mind with visions of neon blue and red lighting, flying discs and of course, badass light cycle duels on the GameGrid.  What you will not picture in your feverish dome, is the antics of Prince of Persia skulking around in neon cosplay.  Yes, my friends, you will spend most of your time in Tron Evolution, wall-running, wall jumping and, wait for it, more wall jumping.  The game makes no qualms over being a Prince of Persia clone with color coordination.  Some might think I am kidding, but if I was a good enough modder, I could easily take the skin from this title and put it on any of the last four or five Prince of Persia titles and you would never know the difference.  Note to developers – we want to play the cool parts of the Tron movies in a Tron videogame, not the wall running from completely difference series from a completely different developer.  How does a developer screw up this basic fact?  But you may say – “you at least get to ride light cycles, right?”, and to that, I would say, yes, but not in a very fun or enjoyable way.   Sure, you ride them down generic looking vector lined canyons and freeways while avoiding falling debris in several segments.  They are completely uninspired in any way, shape or form and defeat the coolest part of the Tron universe.  Sure, you can use the light cycles on the GameGrid, but that only happens in multiplayer, but we will get there soon enough.

I will say that the developer did get two items after the story somewhat correct.  First off is the audio mechanics in the game.  From the use of the official Daft Punk soundtrack from the movie, to the derezzing of programs upon death, the audio effects and sound of Tron Evolution are amazing.  Many times, I found myself just sitting on the main menu listening to “The Grid” from the soundtrack.   The sound producers really went all out with capturing the sound of the movies in this video game.  It also helps that most of the voice work is solid.  While we do not get Jeff Bridges voicing the main character of Flynn or Clu 2.0, we do get a great performance from Olivia Wilde as Quorra, and even the supporting characters fill out the cast rather nicely.  The lines are delivered with feeling and never feel like someone is just getting a paycheck.

The other item would be the visuals, which do show off the new world of Tron quite nicely.  Sure, some will say it is simple to say, “It’s just a level that glows”, but there is a subtle way that it has to glow with that neon coloring.  But it goes beyond that.  All of the main characters look very comparable to their real life counterparts.  Unfortunately, while the characters, vehicles and other moving parts are visually appealing, heading through the same generic levels over and over is a bit of a downer.  Many times, you will walk into a room and get déjà vu all over again for the sixteenth time.  Many rooms and level layouts are reused endlessly, and it really takes so much away from the game.  You become bored with each passing level, as you know the first few rooms you encounter in a new area of the game will end up repeating over and over until you hit the boss for the level.  It is flat out lazy, and shows a lack of commitment from the developers. 

The game will pass by in a breeze, depending on what control scheme you are using.  I started with the keyboard and mouse and found the game at every turn.  It is definitely an Xbox 360 title squeezed into a PC frame.  This goes right down to the fact that Games for Windows LIVE is used in the game, as well as the fact that the game becomes monumentally easier when using a gamepad.  I spend three hours getting through two levels with the mouse and keyboard.  I finished the other four to five chapters in less than three hours with the gamepad, and no, the levels were equally long across all six to seven chapters.

So with a less than challenging game in the single player mode, you would hope that the multiplayer component would be solid to keep you playing for a bit longer.  Well, that may have been true when the game launched, and I did get into a few games at that time, but now, the landscape is pretty bare.  Sure, you get a few matches here and there, but I had a complete lack of interest in the modes offered.  Sure the light cycles are there, but they never feel all that fun, and if you cannot find a slate of people to play with, you will never play the light cycles multiplayer mode.  It feels tacked on, and it is never all that fun. 

Wrapping it all up in one nice DMP file, Tron Evolution misfires on just about every point.  The story is the only glue that will keep someone sticking through to the end of the story, as it is a very compelling story.  But fighting the terrible gameplay from start to finish will leave you void of any type of satisfaction as the credits roll.  Only the most diehard Tron fans need apply for this game and even then, you might end up disappointed at the 4-6 hours you spend getting through the main story.  Tron Evolution gets a 1 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Check out Tron Evolution The Videogames and other PC  reviews at Test Freaks