A case when high tech graphics are a bad thing: I got the chance to play Tron 2.0 the other day, and I was looking forward to playing the light cycles since I like those snaking wall games. But I think the game''s 3D graphics make it much less fun than the 2D version of the game. 1) The walls are paper thin, so it is incredibly difficult to see some walls coming from certain angles. Plus, the floor is a grid with even more lines to make the walls hard to see. 2) The camera angle is behind the bike at an angle, which gives a nice-looking perspective for a 3D environment, but it deters the main focus of the gameplay. A camera directly overhead would be much more beneficial because it would be easier to plan your route. Of course, since the walls are paper thin you wouldn''t be able to see any of them from overhead... (The game does let you change the camera angle, but its max value is less than overhead.) The camera is also slightly to the side, which doesn''t help any. 3) The levels have pillars and other walls in them, which can and will block your vision of where you are driving at times. If the camera were overhead, this wouldn''t be a problem. 4) The grid on the playing field has no real meaning. Your path is not restricted to the green grid lines. The only reason it is in there is for a Tron-ish art look. If the lines were removed, things would be easier to see. In conclusion, I had more fun playing Nibbles on my graphing calculator. I posted this here in the Game Design forum because I wanted to make a point that fancy graphics should not take priority over gameplay. Unfortunately, the makers of Tron 2.0 probably felt that it had to look "professional" and hide the fact that the core gameplay elements haven''t changed in more than 20 years.

Long before Tron 2.0 came out friends and I were playing the Light Cycles game in 3d on a lan. It was fun until me and another friend had a four hour duel in it. That made me sick of it for life.

Anyhow, its freeware, very small, OpenGL and very fun. Its called LightBikes. Google for it and have fun.

There are about 2 million versions of that game. GLTron is the often cited one. I would look for that if I were you...

quote:Original post by superpig
Of course, the greatest sin is that they had none of those hovering stamper-things (''sentinels''?). It''s not lightcycles without them!

Actually, the Sentinels (according to the movie, at least; never was good at the arcade game, so I can''t speak about that...) weren''t part of the Lightcycle game--they were from the Tank game (which is named in the movie, but I can''t think of the title at the moment). The sentinels only became involved after the three left the arena.

quote:Original post by superpig
ry. .ibu cy. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu

I''ve been meaning to ask--what the hey is this? (Feel free to e-mail me the answer, if you want, since this forum''s not really the right place to discuss this...at least, I don''t think it is...)

-Odd the Hermit

I remember recognizers from Tron: Deadly Discs on my Intellivision in the 80''s. That was an awesome game. If the connections weren''t so corroded, I''d get it out today and play it.

I don''t remember seeing it in the movie, except when they introduce Tron himself, and he''s annihilating all those bad guys. But that was years ago, and I just remember snippets of the movie.

Wow. Intellivision. That rocks. I also played a lot of Snafu. It was a rip on lightcycles, but a very good one, with different play types, etc.