Tron 2.0 E3 2003 Preshow Report

Buena Vista Games and Monolith will be exhibiting their upcoming action game, Tron 2.0, at this year's E3. Tron 2.0 is based on the 1982 movie Tron, which starred Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner. The original story centered on a man named Kevin Flynn who gets digitally sucked into the circuits of a large, sentient mainframe computer. There, he is forced to participate in gladiatorial combat as he attempts to find his way out to the real world.

Tron 2.0's story picks up in the future, where Bruce Boxleitner's character, Alan Bradley, gets abducted by an evil corporation called Future Control, or fCon. fCon seeks Bradley's special technology called ma3a, which turns humans into computer programs. When Bradley is abducted, the ma3a program automatically digitizes Jet Bradley, Alan's son, in an attempt to thwart the evil plot. Jet's job is to defend ma3a from digital wraiths (evil digitized hackers) and defend himself from antiviruslike programs called ICPs, which detect Jet's digital presence as a rogue program. The game features a star-studded voice cast, including Boxleitner, who returns as Alan Bradley, and actress-model Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who takes the role of the female lead in Tron 2.0

Tron 2.0's graphics are highly stylized, featuring special colored glow effects, similar to the visual effects of the original film. Its gameplay also closely reflects what was depicted in the original film and the early-'80s arcade games based on the film. You'll assume the role of Jet Bradley in the game and use four different weapons, each of which is highly customizable by applying special items called combat subroutines. There are three different levels of subroutines: alpha, beta, and gold. The better your subroutine, the less inventory space it takes up. Tron 2.0's weapons include a rod-shaped weapon used by lightcycle bots, a ball used by one faction of enemies, a net used by fCon's data wraiths, and the classic disc weapon used by Flynn in the original film and popularized by early-'80s arcade games like Discs of Tron. As you complete missions, you'll gain build points, which you can use to upgrade certain attributes like health, data transfer rate, and weapon efficiency. As your prowess grows, you will upgrade from Jet 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0 and so on.

Tron 2.0 is scheduled for release in late August for the PC. We'll have more information about the game from the show floor.