My Official Review of All Things TRON

OK, so most of the TRON merchandise I've ordered has been received. So here's a basic rundown on what I think of the whole thing.

TRON: Legacy Mobile Phone Game
Better than expected. I've been let down by nearly every cel phone game I've ever purchased before that involved a platform style or console style game play. Reason being, most cel phones, and more specifically my cel phone, only allow for one input at a time. Meaning, speeding up while turning doesn't happen. Firing while jumping doesn't happen. This is why most games just have autofire and all you have to do is move. This game is on the light cycles. You keep moving forward at a constant rate. You can ease to the left or right with the cycle handles on the touch screen. Then you can fire your disc at baddies while riding. This is done by selecting which disc type then hitting the center fire button. Simple controls for touch screen. Graphics pretty decent, music not bad. Controls unusually responsive for a cel phone game. All-in-all it's decent. Keeping in mind that it is a $7 USD mobile game, don't expect too much. But what you get for the money isn't bad if you're a TRON fan.

TRON: Evolution PC Game
AWESOME. Beat the game in a day and a half, about 12-14 hours gameplay on normal difficulty. The story is good. It answers several questions about what happened after the first TRON movie and why things are the way they are in TRON: Legacy. Of course it brings up several more questions that can only be answered in the movie, mostly surrounding Quorra. Game features disc combat, tank combat, and of course light cycles from the TRON: Evolution generation, the next gen ones from TRON: Legacy AND the classic bikes from the original TRON all unlockable as you progress through story mode. The graphics are amazingly beautiful. The world is big, detailed, and runs smooth and seamless without lag or slowdowns. It features music and voice talents from TRON: Legacy with one notable exception that Kevin Flynn & CLU are NOT voiced by Jeff Bridges (but it does sound like him). While playing through the story mode you encounter disc stations where you can upgrade your character, stats, disc, and vehicles as well as being able to access the grid. The gaming grid is an online mode competition. If accessed from within story mode it will either toss you into an already formed match or create a new one using npc's for the other characters. If a real player joins the npc's are replaced by the real player so the game continues without interruption as real players come and go. From the multiplayer mode selected at the main menu screen you can either jump right into a random match or search by specific criteria for one to join. Or you can create your own match. There's disintegration, team disintegration, bit runner, power monger game play styles. Some maps allow for you to jump right on a light cycle or jump off for disc combat whenever you want while other maps are strictly disc combat. There's 3 game difficulties, casual, normal, and insane. And there's 41 badges you can unlock through the various modes. Character levels are referred to as your current version. I beat the game at version 21 but 50 is the max version level. Your character's stats, version, and upgrades carry over to online gameplay and if you choose to replay at a different difficulty level your character progress carries over but you lose story progress obviously. Game controls are simple, uses keyboard & mouse or Xbox controller for Windows. If you have a logitech gamepad you can easily map it to match the Xbox controller set up with more options than the actual Xbox controller. Probably the biggest issue with the game is that you MUST have and be logged into a Windows LIVE / Xbox LIVE game account and have a gamertag set up. I had lost my old account due to changing from EarthLink to AT&T I couldn't recover the info and the auto recovery process was not working. I had to make an entirely new account. I find this both annoying and ridiculous. IF you are NOT signed into a Windows LIVE account you can not gain achievements or even save your game or options! Microsoft really needs to get off their high horse and stop trying to control every aspect of people's online lives. But, anyhow, the game is amazing and definitely worth getting.

TRON: Legacy Original Soundtrack by Daft Punk
OK, I must admit, I had never even heard of Daft Punk before all the TRON hype. And I was surprised that most of the regular people I had seen interviewed were mostly excited about Daft Punk being in the movie and doing the music. I was wondering why for awhile. The soundtrack came out the other day and I managed to download it. It's pretty awesome. Some of the songs are really, really cool. There are a couple that are kinda bleh. And the rest are so so. A lot of them sound alike. But overall it's pretty awesome sounding.

Hurley TRON: Legacy Inspired Women's Long Sleeve Dress
Pretty, fits nice. My one big nag is that the blue "piping" is not UV sensitive. I was hoping that the TRON like lines would appear illuminated under a blacklight but that is not the case. The lines are modeled not after Quorra but after the Daft Punk suits from the movie. Although their suits were white on white because they're ISOs and this is blue on black because it's based off the BASCIS loyal to The User. It's a bit short but that's not always a bad thing. Definitely advise wearing this with boots. And should be able to mount the frisbee version of the identity disc to your back with black thread fairly easily if you're going for a costume look. Also, it's not so over the top TRON that it can't be worn again on a regular occasion making it worth the money just to have something that fits in my case lol.

Spin Master - Identity Disc: Sam Flynn
What can I say, it's a frisbee. It does nothing. It's made of a softer pvc plastic so it won't crack if you throw it at something. It looks nice, a bit bigger than the normal sized disc. Good item to mount on your back if you're doing a costume thing. The blue lines are a bit lighther than they really should be but all-in-all it's not expensive so it's worth what you pay.

Spin Master - Deluxe Identity Disc: Sam Flynn
Nice. If you buy one collectible this should probably be it. It has 2 light up modes, one that just lights on with sounds for a second or two just as a quick display and one that goes through a programmed series of lights and sounds. My big disappointment with this though was that there is no constant on mode. You can't just light it up like in the game and movie and keep it lit. It does the power on sequence, then does a flickering malfunction sequence for a bit and flashes then eventually does the power down sequence. You can press and hold the on button to keep the inner ring lit but that also causes it to spam repeat the power on sound which gets annoying fast. And while the button is easily located and accessed it's not very easy to keep it depressed for more than a second. It has a really lame display stand as well, stand mostly pointless as this clearly needs to be hung on the wall for display.

Spin Master - Light Cycle Launch Baton
OK, first off, this thing is not easy to get. It was a Target limited time exclusive that is long since sold out at all Targets. You can get it second hand from comic and sci-fi collectors and resellers for more than it was. It was $15 USD at target. Most online shops are selling it for around $30 USD. Some are around $28. I found one site though, Entertainment Earth (Google it if you're interested). They had it for $17 with shipping and tax it came to $25 total. As for the item itself. It's the Light Cycle Launch Baton, the staff that they wear on their hips that turns into their light cycles. Quorra is said to be an expert at baton combat using it as a weapon. It's pretty, it extends and has nice design and buttons. My surprise was the fact that not only is it a roleplay style item but it does in fact launch a small replica of Sam Flynn on his light cycle out of the end of the baton! There's a button that releases a hatch at the end and out pops Sam on his cycle hehe. I didn't even know it did that when I ordered it.

Disney TRON: Legacy Screensaver, Avatar Icons, Wallpapers, Posters
Available from the official Disney TRON site. The Screensaver isn't bad. Mixture of both animated and still shots. It loads up fast unlike some screensavers and it has sound. The avatar icons, very small, very poor quality imgaes. Wallpapers, several of the links on the site for these are broken. The first 4 or 5 wallpaper links don't work at all, the rest do though. They have various size wallpapers including iphone and ipad ones. Posters, nice pics, worth getting I guess though I don't know what you'd do with them.

Disney TRON Online Games
There have been several online flash type games released. First off is the classic arcade game. What they don't tell you is that the one they have up is the second version of the game. I know this because I played the first version of the arcade game almost every day at the drugstore that was half a block from my house for about 8 or 9 years they had the arcade machine. In both version you are presented with 4 directions to go, it's initially unmarked as to which direction is which game. You have 10 seconds to choose. The four possible games you get are the light cycle race (derezz all your opponents), the tank battle (derezz all enemy tanks), the grid bugs (make it past the bugs to the I/O beam tower), and the breakout clone (destroy the bricks to get your disc and you into the heart of the MCP). In version one you just played the games beat all 4 games and got new round with 4 tougher versions until eventually it became too hard and you die. This second version they have up adds a dark mode to one of the four games starting at level 2. Meaning, 1 of the 4 games looks different, is harder, and everything is dark, I don't know why exactly lol. None the less it's classic arcade goodness! Also available are replicas of the games written by Kevin Flynn. There's Space Paranoids, the game he's seen playing at the beginning of the first TRON where you're in a light tank blasting recognizers in an old school first person shooter format. Then there's Light Cycles, a 3D ish version of the classic light cycle game.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Action Figures
These come in 2 basic styles with a 3rd style for one or two of the charactes. First there's the 3 to 4 inch little basic action figures. These don't do much besides look cool. And as opposed to Hasbro or other large toy companies Spin Master has their stuff reasonably priced! Then there's the 6 inch ones. These come in several styles based on which character it is. Some are basic 6 inch figures, that don't so much, but look very nice. Some are what are called "impulse projection" figures. These are really nice. First off, they don't have the usual crappy plastic face replica of the actor. These all have the light cycle helms on but when activated their suits light up just like in the movie and a 3D lit up projection of the actual actor's face is projected inside the helmet. This is such a simple yet ingenious idea. I can't imagine why no one ever thought to do that before. No plastic wannabe faces, but the actual actor's face in 3D light inside their helmet! Then there's at least one figure that talks. CLU, the program written by Kevin Flynn that took over TRON City and The Grid. And, not only is it an impulse projection figure but it speaks in the REAL Jeff Bridges voice. It is in fact real clips of Jeff Bridges speaking taken directly from the movie. Not like those 1998 1999 Star Wars voice chips which were voice actor impersonations.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Vehicles
Lots of these too. I like the little die cast 3ish inch ones myself. But there's larger ones for the 3 inch figures and even bigger collector deluxe ones. All pretty cheap compared to other toys and collectibles. The list includes the usual, light cycles, Kevin Flynn's retro civilian white enclosed style cycle seen in both the movie and ridden briefly (before you trash it lol) in the game. There's the standard movie version cycles in blue for Sam and yellow for CLU. There's a recognizer playset for the bit stuff and die cast mini for the little stuff. There's also in the die cast set CLU's command ship seen in both the game and movie. And of course, Quorra's Light Runner car / buggy.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Zero G Light Cycle
OK, I don't have this one yet and what I've read about it makes little sense. First off it's remote control. So, naturally it's inproportionate due to real world physics it's wider so as to not topple and such. All the reviews and ratings I've seen are pretty bad on this item. What gets me though is the description. It "claims" that this thing can run up your walls and upside down across your ceiling... yeah I'm like huh? Last time I checked the human race had not yet figured out anti-gravity. Part of me wants to buy it just to see what the heck it does but the reviews and ratings are all so bad that I'm torn what to believe.

TRON: Legacy Electronics
Several of these, not sure I'm qualified to judge as I love my logitech stuff. However, there are keyboards, mice, gamepads, xbox and ps3 controllers, wii remotes, ipad docks, light cycle usb drives, speakers, even gaming chairs and more made by Razor and Monster and others.

TRON: Legacy Clothing and TRON Inspired Clothing
There's a lot, too much to mention. Naturally Disney has a line of t-shirts, jackets, hats, hoodies and such. But Hurley, Adidas, Reebok and Nike all have sporting clothes lines inspired by TRON from shorts to shoes to dresses. And there is, coming soon, officially licensed, street legal motorcycle suits based off Sam's and Quorra's cycle suits including jacket, pants, removable skirt, boots, etc. And there's even costume replicas if you have $1000 to spend.

Other Random TRON Stuff
Well, there's an online app that makes a video of you riding a light cycle by projecting an image of your face into the helmet and then manipulating it so it looks like you're talking and stuff. It's kinda goofy. There's also some that make pics of you in a disc battle and other stuff.

I think that's about everything worth mentioning. One week until the release of the movie, can't wait! I'm going to add links to stuff after I post this so if anyone is interested in finding out more about any of this or where to get it I'll direct you in the right place. It may take a bit to get all the links up though so check back if you don't see a link to what you're looking for. Not that anyone but me even reads this! lol I think I'm just talking to myself anyhow...



MUST Check Out Links for TRON Fans
Flynn Lives (hint...click on everything)
Hello Flynn? I'm not sure what this is yet but check it out! Login and enter the following codes: 139378391318, 675469546194, 356343532556, 273143722135, 329363554862, 485926738343, and most importantly - 698478232862.
ENCOM
Flynn Frontier
PopTech75 (weird)
Hydecker Designs (more weird stuff lol)
Wellminster Academy
Amazon Capoeira
Dumont Shipping
McClaskey Airstrip
Perfect Parachutes

Official Links
Official Disney TRON Site
Create a Program
Ride a Light Cycle
Posters, Wallpapers, Buddy Icons, Screensaver
Soundtrack by Daft Punk
Official Facebook Page

Toys and Collectibles
Spin Master Website
Entertainment Earth Online Store

Video
TRON YouTube Channel

Game Links
Classic TRON Arcade Game Online
Classic Discs of TRON Arcade Game Online
TRON: Legacy Light Cycle Online
TRON: Legacy Disc Battle Online
TRON: Legacy Digital DJ Online
Space Paranoids Online