The word Tron makes me cringe, and admittedly, at first finding out I’d be reviewing Discs of Tron, a small part of me died. Site regulars may have seen my review of Tron for the arcade a few weeks back - "the worst game of all time" is as close as I got to praising it. So, you’ll have to forgive my tense un-excitement upon finding out I have to ’do’ another Tron game.

At first glance I hated it. Aware that it’s not really fair to judge a game entirely on it’s main menu, I decided to actually play it - and you know what? It’s not that bad. Of course, this could be me disguising the sentence; it’s not that good. But well, y’know…..

Straight off the bat, I take notice of the controls - unlike Tron, Disc’s of Tron has controls that work. Based on the short scene from the film, Disc’s of Tron is what I’m going to call; a Frisbee ’em up. The idea - to batter your opponent with your disc’s. Each player has a circle shaped platform and whilst remaining on said platform, you throw a disc at the side wall and it will then bounce into the other players circle. Their job is to avoid flung disc whilst simultaneously throwing their own disc. By default, it’s 3 strikes and you’re out.

Single player mode has you playing against Sark (if you really care - and you don’t - watch the film), and unlike you, he also has a couple of other things to fire in your general direction. You are able to deflect normal disc’s using your cunningly named; deflector. So, if you’re unable to simple avoid a thrown disc, you can deflect it. What you can’t deflect are chasers and super chasers, these can only be destroyed by sharp shooting them with one of your discs. After you’ve thrown a disc, you’ll be able to throw 2 more in quick succession. You won’t be able to throw anymore until you land a hit or until one of your boomerangs……I mean discs, have returned to you. I’ve made it sound far more complex than it is….In actual fact, within minutes of your first go, you’ll have it sussed. It’s very easy to just pick up and play. As you progress, you’ll see a variety of set-ups concerning the amount and arrangements of your circle/s. It does get tougher, but never reaches insanely difficult.

There’s an online vs. and online co-op, and they work OK. Disc’s of Tron’s biggest problem is that it’s incredibly dull. Sure, a quick 5 minute blast is good, but play for a decent amount of time and you’ll likely drop off. The multiplayer doesn’t solve this, and lets be honest here, massive problem. It also looks and sounds horrible. Nothing has changed, even though it’s over 20 years old. It would have been easy to jazz it up, whilst still keeping the basic gameplay elements.

Discs of Tron isn’t an awful game to play, but it is boring. Everything works and the challenge is about right, but I still can’t recommend even wasting your time downloading the trial. Contradictory, maybe. It’s hard to explain. Imagine PGR4 with one track and one car. Whilst it’d be fun for a bit, boredom would soon worm it’s way to the surface. Like I said, if they could have just jazzed it up a little, it’d maybe be value for money.