TRON 2.0 is a video game developed by Monolith Productions and released in 2003.It is a sequel to the 1982 movie TRON; the player takes the role of Jethro "Jet" Bradley, son of the film's characters Alan and Lora. Jet is swiftly summoned into the digital world of Encom's computer network to protect it, his father, and the secrets of the digitizer technology from both a mysteriously powerful virus corrupting everything in its path and a group of Corrupt Corporate Executives from the company Future Control Industries ("fCon") staging a hostile takeover.Not to be confused with TRON: Legacy, the 2010 movie sequel to TRON. Particularly since the two sequels are mutually exclusive, and Word Of God makes the film the official continuity.
A God Am I: Thorne. He later realizes he's nothing.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted strangely enough, considering it was such a big theme in the movies. Most of the Programs are there to do their jobs. It's the invading humans that cause problems.
Alternate Continuity: From TRON: Legacy, as the two feature different and incompatible accounts of how the digitizer technology was developed in the decades since the events of TRON. There is also a character who is dead in one and still alive in the other.
There are some pretty shocking similarities, though, such as Kevin Flynn vanishing under mysterious circumstances (per the Ghost in the Machine spin-off comic) and Tron himself going MIA. Probably the most shocking one is that the plot of the game actually involves something called the "Tron Legacy Code", though nothing like it appears in the film sequel.
Not to mention the leads in each canon are the sons of the original Tron's leads, who meet a female program who's been influenced or sent to help by the lead's father
And the fake-out with the living virus and apparent Big Bad merely being an Unwitting Pawn to the truly evil people who set the whole thing up has shades of TRON: Evolution. Let's just say it probably wouldn't be a surprise if the Legacy writers played a few rounds of this.
Ancient Keeper: I-No, Tower Guardian of the old Encom mainframe. Terribly friendly sort, too. Chooses to die with his system, sadly.
Attack Reflector: Jet can turn his disc into one of these using the Power Block subroutine. It's devestating against other disc-wielding opponents.
Bar Brawl: Jet and Ma3a head to the Progress Bar to get the Legacy code compiled and contact "Guest." Just when it's looking like everything's going to turn out ok, "Guest" warns Jet about the bad code too late to do anything about it, and Thorne crashes the party with a horde of Z-Lots.
Body Horror: When Alan removes the correction algorithms to check them, fCon higher-ups Bazra, Popoff, and Crowne are merged together into the final boss upon digitizing.
Brain Uploading: Ma3a straddles the lines of Brain Uploading, Virtual Ghost, and Interface with a Familiar Face. Ma3a's previous builds (Ma1a and Ma2a) were designed by Alan and Lora. Lora was killed by being partly digitized by her laser. Alan used code from Ma2a and the part of Lora that remained in the system to construct Ma3a - this is why she's voiced by Cindy Morgan, the actress who played Lora (and her virtual doppelganger Yori) in the first film.
Check Point Starvation: The game only autosaves at the start of a level, no matter how large said level is. Worse, you cannot save during the lightcycle matches at all.
On the other hand, if you have installed the patch, you can simply skip the lightcycle matches, and you can manually save at any time (except during lightcycle matches, of course).
Clear My Name: Jet is mistaken for the cause of the viral corruption by Encom's chief security program, the Kernel, and a Stern Chase ensues for the first few acts of the game.
Colour Coded Armies: Every faction gets its own colour, the red and blue of the original film being supplemented with green for infected, viral programs and sectors, gold for really ancient systems, and purple for the Big Bad.
Come with Me If You Want to Live: Mercury blasts her way out of the lightcycle arena and orders Jet to follow her. At that point, Jet only knows her as an opponent and current champion of the Game Grid.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In lightcycle races, computer-controlled opponents manage to pull off turns that are obviously impossible for human reaction to repeat. May or may not cross into Fridge Brilliance if you realize that they have the in-game advantage of not being human over the player.
Cool Bike: TRON 2.0 has its own updated version of the lightcycles (designed by Syd Mead).
Corrupt Corporate Executive : If you thought Dillinger from the first film was bad, the F-Con crew are worse.
It is hinted that fCon's CEO is actually Dillinger.
The Corruption: Thorne becomes a living version of this, infecting other Programs to turn them into insane Z-lots. Jet is able to use weapons originating from the corruption without suffering ill effect. Fridge Brilliance when you realize he's an uncorrupted User, and not subject to the usual system guidelines.
Cutscene Incompetence: Early on, Jet managed to plow through several waves of security units. But when a cutscene takes him directly to the Kernel's office, he surrenders without a fight
Cutscene Power to the Max: In-game, Mercury barely helps out, but when Jet's freed Ma3a and they're about to escape, she is shown fending off about five Z-lots in melee combat in a You Shall Not Pass moment.
Cyberpunk Is Techno: Yup. The whole soundtrack. The Antiquated Server level even samples Wendy Carlos's original score.
Deadly Disc: One of your weapons is an identity disc.
Dying as Yourself: Thorne; he even helps out the good guys with some information before he goes.
Escort Mission: Through the last quarter of the game, you're escorting your father through F-Con's network. Not as bad as the Protection Missions because he has the good sense to duck or otherwise take cover when discs start flying.
Explosive Overclocking: Literally done. This is the TRON universe, after all. Jet overclocks an old Encom mainframe to upload Ma3a to it, getting her out of immediate danger. Unfortunately, the overclocking tears the old system apart, forcing him and Ma3a to retreat to the open Internet.
Face Heel Turn: Ma3a and, in a sense, Tron; the "Tron Legacy" (no relation) code Jet tries to find to fight fCon turns out to be designed to Kill All Users — as he finds out just after Ma3a assimilates the code.
Grid Inventory: Jet has a varying amount of space available in each level to load power-up programs. Alpha-grade programs take up four times as much space as the gold versions of the same power-up — and if all you have are one-slot inventory spaces available, you're in trouble.
Hoist by His Own Petard: The trio of bad guys wanted to digitize humans to infiltrate all corners of cyberspace. At the end they're digitized, and turned into cyberspace Eldrich Abominations. Jet defeats them and Alan traps them on a hard disk.
Honorary Uncle: The in-game emails reveals that Kevin Flynn is Jet's godfather, and the spin-off comic has Jet talking about "Uncle Kevin's" cyberspace misadventures.
Humans Are The Real Monsters: The whole problem comes from a handful of greedy, vicious, and stupid humans who want to exploit and enslave the Programs in order to Take Over the Worldfrom the shadows by blackmailing world leaders and manipulating world finance and media. Thorne was just an Unwitting Pawn to that end, despite his A God Am I trip. The Programs themselves just want to protect their home.
The programs moan that the Users treat them like dirt and demean them. One of them snorts that if that's what Users are like, maybe worshipping them is wrong. Mercury even tells Jet that Users make her feel crude. Jet replies that it's humans who are the crude ones, and that people are not ready to interact with the cyberworld.
Lighter and Softer: Especially compared to thecanonsequels. Yes, a first person shooter manages to be one of the most optimistic entries in the franchise.
Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Nice going, F-Con thugs. You lock Alan freaking Bradley in a closet full of spare computer equipment. That can't backfire on you...
Lost In Transmission: Oh, Users. For three-quarters of the game, Jet's instructions from "Guest" and Ma3a are incomplete, full of static, cryptic, incorrect, or all of the above.
Ludicrous Gibs: The "canonical"sequels have dying programs collapse into a shower of little cubes. On this one, enemies explode into piles of flying body parts before de-rez.
Made a Slave: The Kernel plans to execute Jet outright, but Mercury intervenes when Jet mentions Ma3a and suggests sentencing him to the Game Grid instead. This is mostly so she can break him out herself when he proves he can hold his own.
Magnet Hands: You can perform all sorts of acrobatic tricks and still catch your disk without fail!
The Man Behind the Man: What F-Con aspires to be using their rule of cyberspace to blackmail world leaders and manipulate global media. There is also the mysterious CEO of F-Con (Word Of God says he's Dillinger from the first film) who is directing matters unseen while the Terrible Trio do the legwork.
Mind Screw : The spin off comics for many readers. The whole thing turns out to be a collective hallucination from three glitched Programs, two of which think they're Jet and the third is trying to mislead them. They're still pretty weird, even after the explanation. The characterization of Alan also veers into Ron the Death Eater territory.
Mini-Game: The light cycle races, which also tend to be Nintendo Hard. Later versions of the game allow you to skip the ones in the main game, and there is also a non-story-based light cycle game mode you can play any time.
Jet compiling the Tron Legacy code. Alan thought that it would be safe to compile since he thought there were no humans in the system. Once he found out Jet was in the system, he desperately tried to tell Jet not to compile it. Too late.
A very delayed case: The old mainframe is populated with tanks that cannot be deactivated or destroyed, forcing Jet to run the proverbial gauntlet. Flynn left them behind in the system...Nice freakin' going, "Uncle Kevin!"
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: F-Con decides to test their laser by zapping Alan in, which reuinites him with his son and Ma3a. Now, seeing as this is a guy who probably invented computer security in this universe...
Ninja: fCon's Datawraiths are all-but-literally computer ninja — digitized hackers able to infiltrate any system, and appear and disappear with virtually no warning to attack the player. In fact, their animations are almost entirely copied from the ninjas in No One Lives Forever 2.
Nintendo Hard: Like Metroid Prime, TRON 2.0 can be described as a first person platformer with shooting. Unlike Metroid Prime, the jump distances are hard to control, often landing you in the Bottomless Pit over and over. And you can't fall as far as you can in many other games before hitting the ground becomes instant death.
Also, even on Normal mode a group of ICP can kill you in seconds. Combine this with the jumping puzzles and the dodgy disk mechanic and you really should just turn on God Mode and enjoy the Scenery Porn. The jumping puzzles will still kill you more than most other game's enemies.
This is without even mentioning that there is no autosave. No joke, you have to rely on the quicksave function a LOT. Yes, this is lampshaded by one character, but he refers to it as "autosaving". Further inexcusable considering that one of Monolith's previous FPS titles, Aliens vs. Predator 2 actually DID use an autosave function.
No Ending: The ending leaves more open than it solves. Sure, Thorne's dead, the virus was halted, Alan and Jet make it back to the analog world, and it seems their rocky relationship is a bit smoother now. Yes, Ma3a is uploaded out of danger and Mercury appears to have escaped. However, The F-con CEO / Dillinger/ (or maybe even Master Control Program 2.0) is still operating with impunity, and Alan cuts him off in mid-threat. Furthermore, Crown, Popoff, and Baza are trapped on a hard disk, and Alan isn't in any hurry to free them. And what about the F-Con buyout of Encom, and all those DataWraiths?
No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: In this continuity, it took 20 years to fully recreate the digitizer technology because only the MCP knew how to make the corrections needed to allow humans to enter the Grid intact.
Emails suggest, however, that the developers were unaware of this fact and that they did not know that the digitizing laser only worked because the MCP was tweaking the incoming data.
No OSHA Compliance: Every level has bottomless pits. None of them have railings.
Oh Crap: Jet when he receives the warning from "Guest" not to compile the Tron Legacy code as it's happening.
"Jet" is short for "Jethro." We only see this in the in-game email.
Subversion with Mercury's User. She only knows him as "Guest." Turns out, Guest is Alan, using a game console and spare parts to hack into the system!
Another subversion is that Jet is called "Alan 2" by Mercury which should have been a huge clue to Jet that Alan was feeding her instructions.
Pillar of Light: Exit ports (the means to travel across different systems) appear as these. The final Boss Battle is inside the transit beam going home.
Powers as Programs: The only thing always available are the "basics": the disc, the rod, the ball, and the mesh. All their other iterations (they have two additional versions each) are loaded as programs in Jet's "memory allocation" on the server he's on, along with the additional powers, such as increasing jump height, silent running, and so on. Virus-type enemies can infect programs to reverse their effects (the silent running program makes Jet's footsteps louder, for example), and all programs have an alpha, beta, and gold level. Alpha is the least effective (or the most costly in terms of energy) and takes up the most space in memory (four contiguous blocks), beta is more effective (or less costly) and takes up two blocks, and gold is the most effective (or least costly) and only takes up one block. While there are beta versions of programs that can be found while exploring, you can only get gold versions by "feeding" the program to a code optimizer. Of which there are a limited number, and which can only be used once each.
Protection Mission: Two of them, both guarding Ma3a. The first one is where she needs to be protected from hostile security programs while she tries to override the server's security. The second is a Bar Brawl where Thorne and his Z-Lots try to kill her and you have to fend them off long enough for her to compile some code.
Punny Name: I-No. Justified as he is an information retrieval Program.
The leader of all the security programs is, of course, their Kernel.
Recursive Canon: The TRON arcade game from the 1980s appears; the explanation is that Kevin Flynn created a game based on his adventures in the film, which was later published by Encom. The same explanation was recycled for TRON: Legacy.
Recycled Script: For that matter, don't make a drinking game out of how many plot points of this game got recycled for Legacy. (See Alternate Continuity)
RPG Elements: Before they were widely popular. The player can gather points throughout the game that can be used to "upgrade" Jet's basic characteristics (life meter, energy meter, etc.).
"I'm auto-saving every 30 seconds. I suggest you do the same."
Scenery Porn: Watching the TRON universe is one thing; interacting with it is another thing altogether.
Secondary Character Title: Up to Eleven - Tron himself doesn't appear, and is only mentioned in passing by a couple characters. I-No explicitly states that he "vanished" shortly after the victory over Master Control. Fridge Brilliance, though, if you think of Programs as the children of their Users; Jet and Tron have the same father.
Stealth Pun: Oh my GOD, they're everywhere. Covering all of them would require an entire page. Let's start with the names of some programs.
Ordinary NPCs are given ordinary names, such as "Brian.exe". The security programs, Intrusion Countermeasure Programs, are given names like "svchost.exe" and "spoolsv.exe". There are enemies called "Resource Hogs" which are given distorted names of real programs such as "reelplayer.exe", "inlook.exe", "screensaver.exe" and "exploder.exe". Virus programs called "Z-Lots" who are spawned by "Rector Scripts" also exist.
ICPs run after you with identity disks alight shouting such gems as, "Freeze, Program!", "You can't hide from me—I know all the shortcuts", "Quit running!", and "Stop executing escape routine!".
There's an ICP who laments the approaching reformat because he lost all his updates the last time it happened. His buddy replies, "You'd lose your header if it wasn't compiled on."
"In the event of sudden archive decompression, a subnet mask will rez into your overhead memory. If you are accompanying any subprograms, please install your own mask before assisting them."
And finally, your weapons and sub-routines are named normally enough, but they couldn't help but sneak in a subroutine called "Megahurtz" that increases weapon damage and name your sniper rifle the "LOL".
Story Breadcrumbs: The in-game emails and video archives Jet finds tell most of the story of what happened between the events of the film and the events of the game, or what's going on in the analog world while Jet's fighting through cyberspace.
Swiss Army Weapon: Four of them! The Disc, Rod, Mesh and Ball primitives each have several different forms, on top of the use of the Rod for lightcycles;
Take That: The names of the Resource Hog type enemies include many thinly-veiled references to real-world applications, such as image_shop.exe, morton_disk_scan.exe and netscope.exe.
Technology Marches On. The in-play graphics of the game TRON 2.0 were better than the mainframe-rendered graphics of the original movie.
In game example: the Recognizers have become outdated and have been retro-fitted into transport tugs.
The old program I-No in the ENCOM mainframe brags about the machine's specs that modern handheld console would be embarrassed to have.
I-No: EN12-82, top of the line mainframe. Capable of 16 bit processing, full monochromatic display support, and a local storage of 128MB! I challenge you to find a more robust system!
You'd be surprised at the antiquated equipment still in use in many places. As recently as a decade ago, at least one Texas university was running its entire student information system on an IBM 3270 mainframe with only 16 MB of system memory, using Windows XP with terminal emulation software in place of the original monochrome 'dumb terminals'. No idea if they're still using it or if they've replaced it with something else by now.
Technology Porn: Not quite at the level of the movies, but still enough to make the nerds Squee.
Terrible Trio: Crown (the sociopath), Popoff (the psychotic), and Baza (the coward)
Theme Tune Cameo: The Wendy Carlos Tron theme only appears once in the game.
Also Deconstructed as F-Con's attempts to buy out Encom are just a means to an end; what they really want is the digitizing tech so that they can send in mercenaries to conquer the digital realm and exploit it for themselves.
The Unfought: Thorne, played up as the game's main Big Bad on the box. When you finally reach him, the Kernel has nearly defeated him, and he derezzes soon after you beat the Kernel.
Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Kill any civilian program or ally, and your game immediately ends with "This Program has performed an illegal operation."
“Well Done Son” Guy: It's heavily implied that Lora's death put a huge wedge between Jet and Alan. Alan even grumbles during the game's intro that Jet is "as bad as Flynn." It's obvious that they do love one another, but there's not a lot of understanding on the part of either party.
What Happened to the Mouse?: What about the mysterious leader of fCon? The developers once said that it would have been Dillinger, the human villain of the original movie (supported by an email where the CEO claims he "lost this company once before").
Zombie Apocalypse: What the Thorne virus does on the other side of the screen. It kills sentient Programs, making them single-minded Z-Lots whose sole function is to corrupt or destroy healthy ones. Parlock lampshades this in his Let's Play.
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