I love science fiction, video games, the Nintendo DS, Daft Punk and N-Space and this was still a disappointment.
I've seen TRON LEGACY in 3D in theater last year when it came out and I've listen to the amazing soundtrack more than any other film score in the last 10 years. I could not have been more ready to jump into the extended universe of Tron.
I've played more games made by N-Space than most people. I really liked their version of Call of Duty: Black Ops last year and World at war was not too bad either. I somewhat enjoyed Blood Stone 007 on the DS while my friends were playing it on the PS3. I've tried out Goldeneye also, out of nostalgia but it was not as sharp as their other first person franchise.
A year after TRON LEGACY came out I was still listening to the music and I got my hand on TRON EVOLUTION for the Nintendo DS. I was not expecting much and looking around the internet the general scores were pretty low, but I wanted to try it.
It's the first DS game I tried playing on my 3DS and it was obvious that anything after two weeks of Super Mario 3D Land would not be a landmark into gaming history.
STARTING THE GAME:
So with low expectation I put on the game to see the nice opening title with the evocative Daft Punk music that I already adore. You notice right away that the menus are a little bit awkward and they always look the same in most N-Space game, as if they are all on the same frame of programmed by the same person. Also, there's only one musical track taken from the movie soundtrack and it only plays on the title screen and while doing some sort of hacking puzzle, where you only hear the first 10 seconds, just before it starts being epic.
N-Space knows how to push the DS graphic wise, but they are pretty terrible at telling a cohesive story. The dialogues are always confusing and badly written. As simple as the intrigue can be inside this computer world you do not feel like there's any kind of danger or that you are part of some sort of interesting plot. I felt the same way while playing Blood Stone.
The character controls are not always responsive and the objectives are not very fun or challenging. I wish I was playing the home console version; even the PSP take on Tron looks more promising.
I did not finish Tron Evolution. I stopped playing because of a major bug. There's some Tank training level where after I complete the first objective it keeps looping back and makes me redo again and again level 1. I would have to start over the story mode to maybe have it unfreeze but I lost interest.
Even for a big Nintendo or Tron fan or a kid I would not recommend this title while there's so many life changing cheap new or old school game to buy or download.
Major disappointment, watch the film again and listen to the music with headphones on.