Born for Wii: Discs of Tron (page 3)
The original arcade game had a fairly novel and cool control system for its time -- in addition to a joystick for movement, a knob could be rotated to control the angle at which discs were thrown. It could even be pushed down or pulled up to change the height in later levels. This design was pretty accurately translated onto the Xbox controller in the arcade re-release, with one joystick handling movement and the other changing the disc's trajectory. But a new Discs of Tron needs to do it better.
On the Wii, a nunchuk and Wii remote control scheme would be the best way to emulate the separate functions of movement and attacking. The nunchuk's control stick would handle player movement, while the Wii remote would handle the throwing. To reflect attacks, simply adopt a Wii Boxing-like stance with the nunchuk and Wiimote held in front of your face.
Discs of Tron would still need a lot of work to make it worth purchasing. The XBLA release had a few decent concepts thrown into multiplayer that easily deserve to be put to better use. Powerups absolutely need to be utilized -- extra lives, faster traveling discs, more discs available to be thrown simultaneously -- and power downs that hinder your opponent. Additionally, I'd love to see another game featured in the film meshed into Discs of Tron, in which the combatants bounce a ball off the ceiling to deactivate the concentric circles that make up each floating platform. This could easily be integrated into combat as an additional powerup attack, or even hold up as its own game mode.
Multiplayer is a necessity, especially online. Local multiplayer would be extremely fun, though potentially hazardous -- as a game based around so much upper-body movement, collisions could be nasty. To make the game even more challenging and twice as likely to cause a sensory overload, 2v2 doubles matches would be a great way to get a whole group into the action.
In terms of singleplayer, Discs of Tron needs to step up and offer something considerably more robust than the string of battles against Sark in the original. The game is a game itself -- why not frame it as a futuristic sport, comparable to tennis? With a decent tournament setup, a spattering of stages and ranked opponents to fight through, Discs of Tron could offer up a satisfyingly lengthy campaign mode that charges you with becoming the disc champion.
Though the project is still nebulous at this point, it looks like Tron may be getting a sequel in the next few years: Tr2n is currently scheduled for release in 2011. If the Wii is still around in 3 years -- or if the Wii HD has been released -- a movie tie-in with Discs of Tron would give Disney a chance to make a movie game that doesn't suck. Few movies have captured the hearts of a generation like Tron, and perhaps the sequel will do the original justice. At the very least, a new iteration of Discs of Tron could cash in on all those middle-aged folks who first fell in love with Tron all those years ago.
In the meantime, enjoy the result of Tommy Tallarico's love for Tron and gaming and fantasize about next week's Born for Wii: Halloween edition.
