According to a story posted on Ain't-it-Cool News, the planned TRON sequel is now due out in the Spring of 2011 rather than 2009 or 2010.

This story also backs up the earlier rumor about the sequel being released in 3-D.


So it's 2011 now? Yikes. I hope that means they're taking extra time to do it right. But then again, this is Disney we're talking about.

So when will they do a greenlight announcement? This stops just short of confirming for sure that the sequel is a go.

Thanks to DaveTRON for the news!

So, the other shoe finally drops. Discs of TRON for the Xbox 360's Live Arcade will be made available next week on Wednesday, February 13th according to a press release from Disney Interactive.


Why the releases of the original TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON were delayed for so long, is a really interesting question. But they are finally both here.

The release mentions the 80 score that the game received from the US version of the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM), but naturally neglects to mention the 20 score from the UK version of the magazine.

Considering the lukewarm reception to TRON Arcade by gamers and fans, I'll be watching closely to see if Discs of TRON fares any better.

UPDATE: The negative reviews and fan disappointment continues with Discs of TRON. Can't say I'm really surprised. It seemed pretty clear to me from the beginning that Disney Interactive was putting minimal effort into the Live Arcade titles.

My favorite quote that sums up how people feel about the TRON Live Arcade games comes from Shane Monroe over at Retrogaming Radio.

Discs of Tron sucks balls. No sale here. Disney Interactive can SUCK MY BALLS for dicking us over TWICE with Tron IP. - Shane Monroe

I truly laughed my ass off when I read that. I've been critical of DI in the past, but never quite used strong language like that. Thanks for telling it like it is, Shane. Very well put. :)

Since I'm tired of seeing the same few search query terms in hits to this site, over and over: I'm going to answer the three most popular questions that people who want to play TRON 2.0, have.

LAST UPDATED October 21st, 2012

Q: Does TRON 2.0: KILLER APP for the original Xbox work on the Xbox 360?

A: No. And it probably never will. Microsoft has not added the game to its 360 backward compatibility list, and they are actually ending their backward compatibility updates. So, in other words, since it's not on the list already . . . it never will be.

If you're really anxious to play the game, and don't want to invest in a used Xbox: do yourself a favor, and pick up TRON 2.0 for the PC instead. The Single Player experience on the PC version is far superior. Trust me: I own both versions, and I'm speaking from experience. When BVG and Climax ported the game to the Xbox, many detrimental changes and sacrifices were made. The graphics on the PC are better, there are virtually no bugs once it's patched up (unlike the Xbox version, which has some irritating bugs), and things have not been cut or downsized in order to cram it into the Xbox's more limited 64MB of memory.

TRON 2.0 is an older title now, so it's not exactly considered a demanding game any more. Any PC bought in the last 2-3 years should be able to play it at maximum settings, without breaking a sweat.


Q: Does TRON 2.0 work on Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8?

A: Yes, to all three. I can personally verify this: since I have run TRON 2.0 on the original release of Vista, Vista SP1, Vista SP2, Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1, and Windows 8. The game even works with the 64-bit versions, which can sometimes be more problematic with compatibility than the 32-bit versions of Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 that some people might still be using.

If you are having a problem getting the game to install or run in Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8, it's not directly the fault of the operating system. You probably need to update one or more of your drivers, or download all the Windows Update hotfixes. Also make sure that you are running the game in Administrator mode. The game has been tested and confirmed to work on both the original release of Vista, and Vista updated with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Service Pack 2 (SP2).

And on Windows 7, the game runs better than on Vista or even Windows XP. Yes, I am serious. Windows 7 is incredibly good and I recommend it. There is little reason to hesitate upgrading to Windows 7, like was the case with Vista. Games like TRON 2.0 run faster and smoother on Windows 7 than they ever did on Vista.

However, I personally do not recommend upgrading to Windows 8 at this time. When it comes to playing games, stick with Windows 7 for now. If I change my mind on this, I'll update this Mini-FAQ. Despite the recommendation, TRON 2.0 does run even smoother on Windows 8 than it does on Windows 7. Believe it or not.

One bit of advice I can give if you're having any difficulty, is to try using the Unofficial Patch instead of the Official one. And this goes for all versions of Windows. Sometimes, in rare cases, the Official Patch won't install properly.


Q: Does TRON 2.0 support widescreen?

A: Not properly, no. That is not to say that the game won't work at all at higher widescreen resolutions, of course. It's just that if you run the game on a widescreen monitor, the picture will become distorted. TRON 2.0 only properly supports resolutions with a 4:3 aspect ratio, while widescreen displays use a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio.

However, the TRON 2.0: KILLER APP Mod v1.1 solves this problem. One of the features in this release of the mod, is proper widescreen support in the game. Here is a video trailer demonstrating widescreen support at 1280x720 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

As I was visiting some of my favorite web sites today, you can imagine how unexpectedly — and pleasantly — surprised I was when I discovered that Rock, Paper, Shotgun had an article remembering TRON 2.0.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a site that specializes in news and discussion about PC games. That they'd remember, or even mention, TRON 2.0 in a million years is quite heartwarming to yours truly. The author of the article, Jim Rossignol, basically republished a review he did of the game for PC Gamer UK, back when the game was released. But he tweaked and updated it, to reflect upon the game today.

The review is positive, overall. He cites many of the weaknesses of the game, which I admit are there and should be taken into consideration. But he also rightly points out that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, to borrow an old cliché.

If you haven't seen or tried the game, and would like to: there is a demo of TRON 2.0 that has a couple of Single Player and Multiplayer levels from the full game. It works on just about all versions of Windows: 98, Me, 2000, XP, and even Vista. Naturally, the full game also works on all these versions of Windows. But the Multiplayer component of the demo isn't compatible with the full version of the game, unfortunately.

According to Surfer Girl, the upcoming TRON sequel is apparently going to be released in     3-D. As in, the "you will be wearing 3-D glasses and the film will leap off the screen", type of 3-D. This news is also suggesting that TRON will likely be re-released in theaters, shortly before the new film premieres.

Who is Surfer Girl? That's a good question. Apparently, nobody really knows. But "she" seems to be an insider in the entertainment business. She's posted many rumors about films and video games, and the majority of them have come true.

As crazy and far-fetched as this news may sound, there may be a grain of truth to it. It's a known fact that George Lucas wants to re-release the Star Wars films in 3-D, theatrically. The technique for making 3-D films has improved dramatically, in the last decade or so. Lucas apparently had a short test segment done for Star Wars a while back, and people were blown away by it.

Also, Disney has announced plans to theatrically re-release Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3-D right before Toy Story 3 premieres (also in 3-D).

I personally think that redoing films in 3-D is gimmicky, and serves solely as a cash grab by film studios. It's true that certain films like Star Wars may benefit from it. But Toy Story? Come on. And I'm not really sure that a TRON sequel would benefit from this treatment, either.

No matter what anyone may think of this news, what's most interesting about it is that it implies the TRON sequel is a definite go. So this should mean we'll be hearing a "greenlighted" announcement soon?

Thanks to Steve for the news!

The Starz Entertainment network has been airing the pilot episode — for a potential new series — called Hollywood Goes Gaming, in repeats for the last couple of months.

Among the people interviewed, is TRON Director Steven Lisberger. In fact, he is apparently the first person interviewed in the episode.

I have not watched the show, because I don't receive Starz. But according to a couple of reviews here and here, Lisberger speaks at length about how well the TRON arcade games did compared to the film. And about how they pioneered the idea of the video game tie-in to go with a Hollywood motion picture.

He also discusses, again, how TRON was denied an Academy award for special effects because — at the time — the Academy members felt he had "cheated" by using computer graphics. Which, as one of the reviews I linked to states, is a laughable notion today.

If you receive Starz in your channel line-up, you can catch this hour-long episode again on Thursday January 24th, 2008 starting at 10:50 PM Eastern Time on Starz Edge (East).

Thanks to tron_fanfare for the tip.

The release of TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON on the Xbox 360's Live Arcade is finally imminent, after an extremely long delay and a lot of guessing games about release dates. But it's not entirely clear to me if Discs of TRON is being released together with TRON Arcade at the same time. It would appear the releases are separate, going by the post on Major Nelson's site.

If this is correct, then each should cost 400 Microsoft Points when released. Which comes to about $10 U.S. for both.

Why the games have been delayed for so long — after their original announcement last year in May — is an open question. In this forum post, a representative from Disney Interactive Studios responded to a customer and claimed that they were "currently working on" Discs of TRON, as of this past December. Why they still needed to "work" on the game, considering the completed version had already been reviewed last year in the July/August timeframe . . . I'd really like to know.

Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me. Unless, perhaps, it had something to do with the fact that OXM UK slammed both games. Maybe DI decided to spend a bit more time polishing the games for release? Nah, this is BVG DI we're talking about.

Whatever the reason, for those of you who own a 360 and have Xbox Live: enjoy the games. I have no intention of purchasing a 360. If I'm desperate for an old-school TRON fix, I can always play the games on MAME. So for those of you who check out the games . . . let me know how good (or bad) they are. Was OXM UK justified, when they gave these games the thumbs-down?

UPDATE #1: Team Xbox has posted their review, giving TRON Arcade a score of 6.8. Reactions from fans are decidedly mixed so far: as can be seen here, here, and here. Most cite the game as having inaccurate sound, poor control, and flaky multiplayer that doesn't work very well.

UPDATE #2: Shane Monroe of RetroGaming Radio has started a petition, in the hope of getting Disney Interactive to fix the problems with TRON Arcade. Does any of this seem familiar to you?

UPDATE #3: Several more reviews of TRON Arcade have appeared at Metacritic. The reviews are almost uniformly negative. According to Major Nelson's site, TRON Arcade debuted with sales in the #3 spot and dropped to #4 in the following week. Also, Metacritic lists Discs of TRON with a release date of June 1st, 2008 right now. Looks like the second TRON title is not coming any time soon.

The site Chop Shop has a couple of TRON inspired shirts, as seen above. The shirts range from $20-$25 bucks U.S., and are available in several different sizes. They have some very cool designs. Thanks to Sketch for this info!

And over at the site Instructables, Greg Madison has posted instructions for a do-it-yourself project, on how to create your own TRON-style lamp: with circuit-like patterns, that appear to glow. Nice!

The web site for the channel IllusionTV has posted an interview with Syd Mead, where selected questions that viewers submitted, were asked.

As you might expect, some of the questions covered TRON. Syd answered them, and provided some details about his involvement in the film that I don't think have been mentioned anywhere else before. Particularly, how he went about designing the TRON electronic world.

On a side note, the documentary on Syd called Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead by Director Joaquin Montalvan is now available on sale in Japan, so Japanese fans of TRON and Syd's other works can now purchase the DVD in their country.

For fans in North America and Europe, the DVD can be purchased directly from Syd Mead's web site.

You can read my review of the DVD in this previous article.

April 16th, 2010 UPDATE: This article is out of date. The Killer App Mod v1.1 has been released.

The KILLER APP Mod has been postponed until January 18th, 2008. All of us on the team really wanted to release it in time for the holidays as a gift to TRON fans, and to release it during the year of TRON's 25th Anniversary. But it's still not ready for release just yet. Our apologies.

We hope to reward your patience in the New Year, which is only a short time away now.

The site Tom's Games (part of Tom's Hardware) has an interview with TRON Director Steven Lisberger, discussing his upcoming film Soul Code. (See this previous article for more info on Soul Code.) It also touches upon the possibility of production commencing, on the TRON sequel that was announced a few months ago.

It's definitely a worthwhile read. Though it's a bit saddening, to hear Lisberger a little downbeat about the possibility of a sequel being made. But I completely understand where he's coming from: considering that plans for a sequel have materialized and then fizzled again, many times over. Disney just doesn't get TRON, and they have no clue what to do with it. It's been frustrating for Steven, and TRON fans, alike.

Thanks to Cyberwolven for the news!

Fellow LDSO member Zook_One has just created an awesome machinima video using TRON 2.0, called Sark Gets Skooled.

If you want to watch his video, click on the picture to the left, or click here.


If you like the video — and frankly, I think it's freaking awesome — then please vote for Zook's video, and help him win the Blackbird Machinima contest! Click the large green plus "+" button to vote.

Yes, another asking-for-votes-to-win-a-contest post. Come on, you know you want to vote and help out! Zook's video is too cool not to win. ;)

According to Metacritic.com, both TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON for the 360's Live Arcade have new release dates of February 1, 2008. But considering the tradition of Live Arcade games only being released on Wednesdays, this date is again suspect. February 1st in 2008 is not a Wednesday.

Well, so much for releasing these games "in honor" of TRON's 25th Anniversary. You guys at Disney missed the mark (and the point) by a country mile. Maybe that's Microsoft's fault, but either way: these games should have been released around the same time as the Anniversary for maximum impact. That opportunity has been lost.

Metacritic also has pages for both game titles, with scores and quotes from the first reviews. For TRON Arcade, the US version of the Official XBOX Magazine (OXM) gave a score of 70. For Discs of TRON, the US version of the magazine gave a score of of 80.

But the UK version of the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM UK) gave both TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON a score of 20, slamming both titles. OXM UK declares TRON Arcade "a train wreck", and says that for Discs of TRON "without even a two-player mode, this won't last you ten minutes". Ouch. Harsh words. Who to believe?

Here are the links to the two relevant Metacritic pages:
TRON Arcade at Metacritic
Discs of TRON at Metacritic

April 16th, 2010 UPDATE: This article is out of date. The Killer App Mod v1.1 has been released.

ModDB is holding their annual Mod of the Year contest for 2007 right now: and we at the LDSO team working on the TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod, would be very honored if TRON fans out there would vote for us if they like what they've seen of the mod so far.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, see this earlier article that previews the TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod.

Voting is easy, just click on this link or the image to the right. You don't need to sign up or be a member of ModDB to vote. Then scroll down the KILLER APP Mod page until you see the large grey button, and click on it.

I don't think any of us on the team hold any illusions that we're going to win anything, or make it into the Top 10 choices. But that's not what we want, anyway. If we can make it into the Top 100, ModDB promises that news of these 100 mods will be "widely syndicated" across the web. This would, hopefully, mean that TRON 2.0 for the PC would garner some attention once more. Reminding people that this game exists, and that there's a great new mod for it. That's all we want.

The voting ends on December 20th, 2007, so please vote before then. And tell all your friends and other TRON fans, to vote as well!

UPDATE: The voting has been extended until December 22nd. So if you thought it was too late: please vote, if you haven't already!

Thank you, from the LDSO team.

The site Collider.com has an article featuring an interview with TRON star Jeff Bridges (who played Kevin Flynn in the film), where Bridges sounds upbeat and enthusiastic about doing a sequel.

"But the reasons to do it and the reason I did that one (the original TRON) was because it was so innovative and I understand that they’ve got a whole new batch of stuff like that . . . innovations that they want to use on this so that could be kind of fun." - Jeff Bridges

Bridges is also quoted as saying "I hear they’re going to pitch me one (the sequel) pretty soon so . . .", but the tone of his speech indicates that he was joking when he said this. Or was he?

An MP3 of the interview that you can listen to, is available from the site. The interviewer asks Bridges about a TRON sequel, at approximately the 7:45 mark.

I noticed that the interviewer misinterpreted Bridges as saying "dancebell". What he actually said, was "dancebelt". Bridges was referring to the belts the actors had to wear, that were part of their "electronic world" costumes. The belts were uncomfortable for the actors, and Bridges was joking about them as perhaps being a reason not to do a sequel.

Thanks to Auric at TRON-Sector for the news.

TRON: The Ghost In the Machine co-writer Landry Walker has recently been posting quite a bit of preview artwork for issue #5 of the comic, if you know where to look.

   


A number of people seem to be confused about the status of the comic, so let me take this opportunity to clear things up.

There will be six issues. Four have been released, so far. Issue #4 came out in July. The release date for #5 is unknown at this time. According to the latest schedule update on SLG Publishing's site: it will not be out by January 2008. However, this could very well change. If the date becomes known, I'll post an update.

UPDATE: According to Landry, issue #5 may be released in December.

You can expect both issues #5 and #6 to be released by August of 2008, because that's when SLG's license for their Disney comics expires.

As some of you may have noticed, I still haven't written my review of issue #4 yet. Well, it's still to come. I haven't forgotten. :)

Well, almost.

It's taken a lot longer, and been a bit more difficult, than I expected. But the upgrade for this site is very close to being complete. I'll be fixing any other minor problems that remain, over the next few days.

Hope you like the new look and features.

Note that the site looks a lot better in Firefox and Opera, than it does in Internet Explorer. I'll try my best to improve the appearance in IE, but no guarantees. I'd recommend switching to Firefox or Opera, anyway. :)

Mike Bonifer, the publicist for the film TRON, has posted an article on his web site where he recounts the work he did for the film.


He discusses how even today, when he mentions that he worked on TRON: people's eyes light up at the mention. Bonifer also remarks that revealing he worked on TRON has become "a special badge of honor".

A short biography on Bonifer can be found on this page at TRON-Sector.

April 16th, 2010 UPDATE: This article is out of date. The Killer App Mod v1.1 has been released.


Download the KILLER APP Mod Preview Trailer


Download the KILLER APP Mod Test Footage

The TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod is either one of the best or worst kept secrets in the TRON 2.0 PC gaming community right now. And as of late, it seems to have become the latter. Because recently I've noticed hits to this site, with search terms like killer app mod download.

I didn't want to announce or advertise this project (which is the one I was referring to in this earlier post) here on this site, because I prefer to announce things when they are done and ready. Announcing projects early, usually leads to less enthusiasm when it's released. It's always better when something is an unexpected surprise. Also, sometimes even with the best of intentions: unforeseen circumstances can arise, and the project can run away from you. This is definitely what has happened with the KILLER APP Mod.

But since I am seeing people searching for information about the mod, I've decided to post some info about its current status.

The KILLER APP Mod is almost complete, and will be privately beta tested by the contributors to the project. Most of whom are members of LDSO. Contributors to the mod are Zook_One, Kain-Xavier, 9VoltChicken, Raven, win3k, Mor.Evil-1, Load"*",8,1, and myself.

Some of the major features of the KILLER APP Mod are:

• New Multiplayer Characters such as Sark, Thorne, the DataWraith, etc. by Zook_One
• New Multiplayer Skins by Kain-Xavier, which are improved versions of the skins from his earlier KMX Skins Mod
• New Rod Primitive and Energy Claw Weapons in Multiplayer Derez
• New Light Cycle Colors by Raven, Kain-Xavier, and myself
• Enhanced Light Cycle Trails and New Flashing Wheel Spokes
• Fixes to Single Player Text and Level Design errors

The KILLER APP Mod is a merger of Kain-Xavier's KMX Skins Mod, Raven's Light Cycle Colors Mod, and my own Orange Light Cycle Unlock Mod, but with plenty of additional enhancements.

The mod is currently not available for download anywhere, and won't be until it's complete. The release of the mod will occur in December. I won't go into all the various factors that are responsible for the slow progress on the project. But suffice to say, the mod is nearly ready and will be released before the year's end. The team is committed to completing this project no later than Christmas, and probably earlier than that.

Before I conclude, I'll just add that the preview trailer for the mod was made many months ago and does not accurately represent the current state of the KILLER APP Mod. Many improvements and additions have been made since that time. Some of the Light Cycle colors have been revised to look different, new colors have been added, and the Multiplayer Character skins have since been improved.

If you'd like to find out some more information on the mod, and see more up to date screenshots, then visit the following links:

ModDB KILLER APP Mod page
LDSO KILLER APP Mod forum section

Back in May, it was confirmed by Disney Interactive that remakes of the TRON Arcade game and Discs of TRON would eventually appear on XBOX Live Arcade for the 360. The games were to be released "in celebration" of TRON's 25th Anniversary. Yet here we are in October, and they still haven't been released. Way to miss the point, Disney.

So when are they going to be released? In July, I discovered a page on the MSN Games site that listed both TRON Arcade game and Discs of TRON as having a September 30th release date, which has come and gone. Since then, I've learned that Live Arcade games are only released on Wednesdays. And since the 30th was a Sunday — that, plus the fact that the 30th was the last day of Q3 2007 — leads me to believe that the date was simply a placeholder in absence of concrete information.

Various gaming sites and even the Disney Interactive site itself, have listed the release dates variously as Summer 2007, Q3 2007, and now finally "TBA". On Major Nelson's site (he's a member of the XBOX Marketing team at Microsoft), it shows that this Wednesday's (as of this writing) Live Arcade release is neither of the TRON games. So apparently, the date from the MSN Games wasn't even good as a rough indicator of when we could expect the games. So basically, at this point, we have no real idea as to when the games will be released.

Perhaps there's a slim chance the releases are being held up, due to the fact that Microsoft is preparing a version of Live for Windows that will bring it up to par with what XBOX users expect from the service. At the moment, Live can only be used in Windows games that are Live-enabled (Shadowrun and Halo 2). Microsoft is planning to break Live out of the games and make it a separate application that can be run at any time, independently. They also plan to bring a version of the service to Windows XP, rather than keeping it Vista-exclusive as originally intended. The improved Games for Windows Live is supposed to make its appearance in November. Maybe Disney Interactive is preparing Windows versions of the games as well, and will release both 360 and Windows versions simultaneously? Who knows.