I know last time I promised you that we would take a look into the dark, dank world of Advergames and I promise we will next time. However, with the impending release of Tron Legacy and all the Tron related goodness on the Retroist.com, I figured that we must take a look at the covers to some of the Tron video games that have come out over the years. So squeeze into that neon color bodysuit and put a shine to your identity disk because we are taking Cart Art onto the game grid.
Tron: Solar Sailor
ZZZzzzzzzz. . . . .zzzzzzzzzz. . . *blink blink*. . . Oh sorry, I fell asleep looking at this beige monstrosity. This cover is dreadfully boring, only the speech bubble, title text and image of the sailor interrupt the text laden, cream-colored snooze-fest of a box front. Based on the position of the speech bubble that informs us that the game “talks,” are we to think that the word Tron is speaking to us? Tron the character? Nope, Tron the word.
What about the wording on the bottom. In all caps is says “FOR COLOR TV VIEWING ONLY?” Would the game explode and impale shards of Intellivision into your head if you played on a black and white TV? You know what? That would be a better than having to look at this cover anymore.
Adventures of Tron
Now, this is a much better cover. I think a little to much space is spent on the M Network logo, but still, this cover gets the job done. The black and white line patterns do a good job as representing the grid line style of the Tron world.
On the bottom you have a tank as well as a Recognizer (the two legged stompy thingy) as well as a program which I assume is Tron himself. However, it looks like Tron has been drinking a little too much from a caffeinated energy pool because he has got that thousand micron stare. Wait, is Tron missing his left (our right) arm? Maybe that’s why he has that dead eyed vacant stare, he is hopped up on electro-pain killers to numb the agony of having his arm derezzed.
Tron: Deadly Discs
When I think of a Tron video game from the early 1980′s, this is the kind of cover I picture. Tron and Sark are featured predominately, in all their disc hurling, circuit line bodysuit goodness in Tron: Deadly Discs.
Again we have a Recognizer standing there on a grid. Something about Recognizers when they are in the “feet” inward position, they look less intimidating and more like some awkward kid trying to gather up the courage to ask a girl to dance at the High School prom.
Oh red Recognizer, you are so bashful. While I am normally not a huge fan of color clashes like the red background with mostly blue artwork, it works well here. It almost makes the cover seem like it is glowing, like it was just plucked from the clutches of the Master Control Program and put right on the store shelf.
Tron 2.0
Yeah yeah, you got your fancy discs and your gray togas, you can take all that and go run into a terminal fault error because this time, this program has got a gun and is not afraid to derezz your program butt at a hundred paces. Well, you gotta ask yourself, did he fire 64K of data or 128K? You feel your calculating software is up-to-date? Well, do ya punk?
This cover serves as a good bridge between the original Tron style and the direction of style for Tron Legacy. The bodysuit now has armor, and the thing I find most interesting and a major departure from the original Tron is the hair. Every program in the original Tron wore a helmet of some kind (though we did have beards) but he has got a nice little do uptop. Tack on some armor, and you got a program that is ready to throw down on the game grid.
I know it is not a game cover, but I figured since I only had four carts to review, I would share this image with everyone. This is from the Playstation 2 game Kingdom Hearts 2, which, as mentioned on the podcast, has a level that takes place inside a Tron world. I love the “Tron-ified” Donald Duck and Goofy. This is not so much a review of the image, but I figured I would share.