Xbox 360 - Tron Evolution

Tron Evolution by Propaganda Games

Format: Third person shooter / racing / climbing / fighting

Type: Movie Tie-In

Rated: Violence

Tron Evolution is a sequel to the original film Tron and a prequel to the film Tron Legacy. The story in this game fills in the gap between these two films. You play as the 'System Monitor' program (another type of Tron-like program). As the 'System Monitor' you are designed to seek out rogue code and destroy it. Note, while this game borrows heavily on concepts introduced in Tron 2.0, this game has nothing to do with Tron 2.0 or Tron Killer App.

Because this game is a movie-tie in, it really has 'crap' written all over it. Surprisingly, it's better than I expected for a tie-in. However, it is by no means perfect. If this game had had another year for development, this game could have been as good as any top-end game. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. It's too bad that movie studios don't insist on better quality games for tie-ins.

Story

You are System Monitor and are the nemesis of CLU and Abraxas. CLU and Abraxas have teamed up to wipe out the ISOs. You are there to stop this process as System Monitor. CLU has effectively turned rogue and you have to stop CLU and Abraxas from fulfilling their nefarious plans. Along the way you meet Quorra who occasionally helps you out.

Gameplay

The game play starts as you run around looking to do specific tasks. It starts with a small tutorial that leads into the larger game play. The trouble with this game is two-fold. The camera and the controls (both problems are really interlinked).

In many situations, the camera is way too active, moving around randomly and, by effect, causing control problems. Because the controls are based on the direction the camera is looking, it's easy to jump in the wrong direction. Combine this with way overly sensitive controls, and you end up derezzing over and over because System Monitor decides to jump off of a cliff or double jump into an abyss.

The style of many of the levels is to lock you into a space until you kill every enemy in the space. At that point, the blocking shield falls and you can move on.

Grid and Games

Unfortunately, I was expecting a lot more from the grid games and the game didn't deliver. I was hoping for actual grid gaming matches as part of the story. Instead, you're pretty much just fighting your way through each level on your own rather than on the game grid. The lightcycles part of this game is way too sparse. The few times you do get to use the lightcycle, it's unwieldy and uncontrollable. I was hoping for better here. The best part of this game is the tank. Once you finally get into the tank, you can start taking out Recognizers. Then the game almost takes on a feel like Flynn's very own fictional game 'Space Paranoids'. A game that we've never gotten to play, until Tron Evolution. So, once in the tank vehicle, the game feels like it would have to play 'Space Paranoids'.

Music

The music is probably the best part of this game (and, in fact, a great part of the film as well). Daft Punk put together a very strong soundtrack that makes this game work quite well. Unfortunately, the camera really holds back the quality of this game even as good as the music is.

Graphics

The graphics in this game are very good. I was hoping for slightly better graphics, but it still looks very good for what it is. That said, the cinematics are done with the Xbox 360 game engine rather than using pre-rendered animated cinematics. The game suffers graphically from this. While the Xbox 360 engine is good for gaming purposes, it's not outstanding for cinematics. I think Propaganda Games has made a bad design decision for not producing standalone cinematics to link the segments together.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer aspects are similar to most multiplayer games. There are some team games and there are individual games. On some levels, you play only with throwing the disc. On other levels, you can do both disc and vehicles (tank, lightcycle, etc).

I wasn't that impressed with the multiplayer aspect mostly because you either have to run the server on your Xbox 360 or you play it on someone else's 360. If that person shuts off their 360, then the game goes away. So, it's probably better to host the game yourself so that it hangs around as long as you continue to play.

Overall

The story is short and the gameplay can be, at times, tedious. This game suffers from lack of control and an extremely unwieldy camera. Part of the camera problems stem from being too far back behind the player. So, it's constantly trying to avoid bumping into things. Because they have tied the direction of movement to the camera view, it's difficult to control where the character ends up.

The multiplayer aspects are ok, but not great either. The levels are very expansive, depending on the map, so you there's a lot of space to roam. The multiplayer aspects just didn't grab me and make me think it was something great.

If you are a Tron gaming fan, this one is a buy. Otherwise, I recommend renting. The game is very short, so any price above $20 is too much for this game considering its major shortcomings and the overall length of the story. However, if you are looking to fill in the gaps between Tron and Tron Legacy, then you should get Tron Evolution for the story alone.

Score

• Sound: 9/10 (excellent soundtrack, effects are good)
• Graphics: 8.5/10 (characters look good)
• Gameplay: 7/10 (somewhat repetitive)
• Story: 8.5/10 (story is better than movie story)
• Bugginess: N/A (no bugs found)
• Controls: 4/10 (hard to control at times)
• Bang-to-buck: 2/10 (definitely a rent)
• Play Value: $20 (If fan, buy. If not, rent)
• Overall: 7/10 (camera makes controls frustrating).

Xbox 360 - Chronicles of Riddick - Dark Athena

Chronicles of Riddick:
Assault on Dark Athena from Atari

Game Style: First Person Shooter

Rated for Violence, Language

Dark Athena appears to pick up right after Chronicles of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay. There are references in Dark Athena to Riddick's time in Butcher Bay. However, if you haven't played Escape from Butcher Bay, you're in luck. Atari has included both games on this Xbox 360 disc. Even though Butcher Bay was released in 2004 for the older Xbox, Butcher Bay has updated graphics and sound for the 360 (including achievements).

The controls are inherited from the Butcher Bay engine, so both games play identically (with the the exception of a few additions to Dark Athena).

Story

Dark Athena opens with you laying on a beach. You wake to find that you're on a planet and you must wander around trying to find a way out. But wait.... this is a tutorial. Riddick wakes up in a completely different place (on a ship). It's about to be towed in by Revas on the Dark Athena (a big mercenary ship). Once on the ship, you are tasked with finding a way off of the ship, Dark Athena. In that process, you run into a number of people who will give you assignments to help you. Some of the assignments are side quests, some are part of the main story. After you complete all of the required on-ship assignments, Riddick uses an escape capsule to get off the ship and ends up on a planet (much like the tutorial dream sequence), where you have to find your way back to the ship to get off the planet. For whatever reason, Revas has decided to land on the planet. So, this gives Riddick the opportunity to get back onto the ship and finish what was started.

I was disappointed, though, that the 'voice' that guides Riddick and who appears in Butcher Bay (and the films) wasn't present at all in Dark Athena.  I felt that this presence is what guides Riddick in some ultimate outcome.  But, for whatever reason, the game developers felt no need to add her into this game.  To me, this left the story overall feeling a little hollow.

Tutorial

The tutorial on this one is smartly designed. It gets you into the game fast and, at the same time, gets you used to the controls, the guns, running, jumping, etc. You do it without any consequences because it's a dream sequence. It's long enough to get you into the game fast and lets you understand the controls. So, in this way, that's smart. The games that take you through a tutorial on an actual first level don't always work well to achieve the intended goal. In many cases, the pausing of the screen to give you information is enough to get in the way of a gun sequence and actually gets your character killed. In Dark Athena (and Butcher Bay) this didn't happen.

Gameplay

There is not much to say about this game that's overly outstanding for the way the game play system works. It's a fairly standard first person shooter. There are a few exceptions, though, like Riddick's shined eyes (see in the dark) and the mech suits you get to occasionally use. So, you pick up weapons and you can switch between them with a wheel selector. However, I found that the best weapon for this game is the tranqualizer gun. The tranqualizer gun never runs out of ammo and is effectively silent. So, you can shoot it without anyone hearing it or seeing you. It's great for putting out lights and helping you create cover in the areas. It stuns any non-armored people. So, it can help you get close and finish the job... especially when there are three or more people ganged up together.

There were also times where you end up on a level with large mechs. Because the game gives no direction, you don't know if you need to try to kill the mechs or do something else. So, you first run in guns-a-blazin' trying to kill the mechs and waste a lot of time. Instead, you find that you need to do something entirely different. If the game would at least give you some form of direction on what it wants you to do, the gamer can avoid these time wasters.

Controls

As with any game, controls can be difficult and tedious at times. But, for the most part, the controls work well. And really, most of the problems stem from the enemy AI than the controls. The main issue with the controls is that you can't change your weapons fast enough. So, when you want to get to a weapon and use it against a specific enemy, the AI for that enemy is so fast and accurate that Riddick ends up dead. So, the controls could be better to help you get to your weapons faster (or at least pause while you do). For most of the game, they are fine. When you're in a tight spot, they fail badly.

As far as the AI goes, the enemies are like most enemies in first person shooters... accurate and fast at any distance.  So, they can see you no matter where you are (including through walls). They can even shoot you through walls at times (bad collision detection).  At one point there are some spider robots that crawl on walls.  These things are 100% accurate no matter the distance and their bullets can kill you with only a few shots (even with a full health bar).  I find this totally ludicrous for these stupid little robots.  Even the heavy armored mechs aren't this accurate or powerful.  To set these annoying little robots up with this level of firepower and accuracy is just stupid.

Music

Dark Athena's music is, for the most part, cineamatic. So, whenever you're encountering an enemy, the music swells to let you know you're close and they are aware of you. The music swells louder and more intense the more the enemy becomes aware of you. So, you can gauge just how aware they are based on the soundtrack. This is actually a very nice feature. In most games, the soundtrack is just a soundtrack. It makes it quite easy to remain hidden (of course, darkness helps... so shoot the lights out often).

Graphics

The graphics of the environments are very well done (texture maps). The graphics could have been better in places (up close), Riddick's Hands, but even still the game's graphics definitely help the atmosphere. The one thing I would say, though, is that every light should be shootable. Unfortunately, you can only shoot specific lights out. I would have prefer much more realism in this area.

Riddick's character is reasonably well done, but there have been better characters done for older games (Mass Effect and Star Wars: Force Unleashed).

Environments

For most of the game, you are stuck inside Dark Athena. So, you're limited to the ship's environment. For the last third of the game, you are on a planet. The planet's environment (ocean and grounds) are done well.

Overall

I liked Dark Athena as a whole game. The puzzles were better on the planet than on Dark Athena. I did like that the game does make you think to finish the level. But, in some cases, I felt that it left you hanging on exactly what to do. Every once in a while it would pop up a hint, but I really didn't need that hint. I needed a hint on where to go... not what to do. I can figure out how to manage the physical environment. What I can't always figure out is where the game wants me to go (the actual location). So, I end up wandering around the entire level. In some cases, the game makes you backtrack all the way back. In some cases, you're going forward.

Because of the backtracking (which isn't really a good idea), it can make it difficult to determine where you need to be. So, you're not sure if you need to go forward or backward. If the game had a real map of the level with places you've been that's been uncovered, you'd at least know where you haven't been. That would have helped with moving the game forward.

Score:

• Sound: 8/10 (average)
• Graphics: 8.5/10 (textures are well done, Riddick could be better)
• Gameplay: 8/10 (straight forward gameplay)
• Story: 7/10 (good, but not outstanding)
• Bugginess: 2/10 (crashed once, couldn't get out of game loop)
  
• Controls: 8/10 (works well in most places, doesn't work in tight spots)
• Bang-to-buck: 8/10 (2 games on one disc)
• Play Value: $25 (worth it, but the game is a bit short)
• Overall: 7.5/10 (not an RPG, but definitely an 8 for a shooter)