Tron: The Arcade Game. (1982-Arcade)

The first Tron game to hit the streets was aptly named Tron: The Arcade Game. (Back in the 80's game titles were often very simple and self explanatory.) In 1982, the Bally Midway company received permission to make an officially licensed arcade game based off of the movie. The original plan was to include 6 different mini-games that would showcase different parts of the Tron universe, but due to graphical constraints the original 6 games where whittled down to 4. One of the mini games that didn't make the cut would return months later as Discs of Tron.

In these mini games, the player must guide the heroic Tron Guy through a series of difficult tasks. Tron Guy's goal in this game is not to save the computer world from the evil Master Control Program. Instead, our hero's objective is to score as many points as possible, thus proving to the world how amazing he really is. (In the early days of arcade gaming, there wasn't any story to complete or any boss to beat, it was all about scoring the highest and getting your name on the leader board.)

Tron Guy's first challenge is the Combat inspired Battle Tanks game where he must destroy the enemy tanks before they can destroy him. After that, Tron Guy tackles the movie's iconic Light Cycles. Just like in the movie, the goal is to lead the opponent into the cycle's light trail while avoiding the same fate at the hands of the other cycle. If Tron Guy survives this obstacle, his next task is the I/O tower, where he must zap the evil Grid Bugs and enter the center of the tower. Finally, Tron Guy must tackle the devastating MCP cone by blasting the shielding surrounding the core and jumping in.

Once you have completed all of these difficult tasks, you get.......to do it all over again! That's right, no last level or final boss awaits the heroic Tron Guy after his adventure. Instead, he gets to repeat the exact same 4 levels over and over, a total of 12 times in all. Even after completing the game and getting the high score, arcade goers were disappointed with the lack of closure. What happened to Tron Guy? Did he fight the MCP? DId he save the computer world? Did he get the Tron Girl? The answers to these questions would have to wait until the next Tron game....

Tron: Deadly Disks. (1982- Intellivision, Atari 2600)

Soon after his first adventure in the arcades, Tron Guy made the transition to the wonderful world of home consoles. In Tron: Deadly Disks, disc based combat takes center stage. Tron Guy will take on a whole host of evil computer minions like blue bad guys, purple bad guys, and the always dangerous orange bad guys.

Gamplay is extremely uncomplicated, just point Tron Guy at the baddie that you want derezzed and zap him with his titular Deadly Disks. Tron Guy liked to keep it simple back in the old days, no fancy controls were needed. However, just because Tron Guy likes to keep it simple doesn't mean that the user has to do the same. People who bought this game and the later title Adventures of Tron would receive a stylish blue Tron joystick.

Even the swank Tron joystick couldn't help Tron Guy escape the computer world in this adventure. Would the next Tron game mark the end of Tron Guy's adventure?.....

Disks Of Tron. (1983-Arcade)

In the original Tron arcade game, one of the mini games was to be based off of the disc dueling part of the movie. Because of graphical constraints and lack of memory space, it was not included in the game. However, arcade gamers' disc fighting dreams would come true just a few short months later when Discs of Tron was introduced.

In Disks of Tron, you once again take control of the heroic Tron Guy as he battles his arch nemesis, Sark. The game takes place on a group of opposing platforms where the two combatants attempt to knock each other off using only their disks. The user controls Tron Guy with a unique control scheme. A normal joystick moves Tron Guy around the platforms, while a circular knob moves a target around the arena. When you fire a disc, it will attack the spot on the wall where the target is. You can also deflect Sark's projectiles a limited amount of times.

As usual, the deck is stacked against poor Tron Guy. This is certainly not a fair fight as Sark has multiple types of discs at his disposal. If that's not enough, Tron Guy only has a few extra lives to throw at Sark's innumerable reserve lives. (Luckily for our hero, extra guys are available for the low low price of 25 cents.)

Once again, getting the high score is the name of the game for Tron Guy. There is no final boss fight against the MCP, your only opponent for the entire game is the seemingly immortal Sark. No matter how many times you "derezz" Sark, he will reappear with a different configuration of platforms to conquer. Once again, the fate of Tron Guy would be up in the air until the next game came along to continue the story.

Tron 2.0. (2003-PC, Xbox)

As the 80's and 90's rolled on, people began to forget about the magical world of Tron and the adventures of its protector, Tron Guy. After Deadly Disks, 3 more Tron games would be released for the Intellivision: Maze-a-Tron, Solar Sailer, and Adventures of Tron. None of these games were successful and the Tron franchise lay dormant for many years. However, the apathy of the gaming community can't keep a good Tron Guy down. 20 years after his first home adventure, Tron Guy awoke from his long hibernation, ready for action.

In the decades that had passed since the original Tron games, technology had progressed to a point where story and gameplay were not dependent on the imagination of the player. The world of the Tron movie could finally be properly fleshed out in a video game. Would this finally be the game where Tron Guy destroys the MCP and escapes the computer world?

In 2003, Monolith software created a game based off of the rumored Tron sequel. The movie never materialized, but the game, Tron 2.0, survived. Tron 2.0 catches up with the characters from the original movie, including Flynn, Alan, and Lori. But nobody really cared about those tired old characters, they were hungry for more Tron Guy!

The game itself was a standard First Person Shooter. Tron Guy was armed with his trusty disc weapon and a variety of standard FPS guns. His job was to stop a team of evil computer hackers from infiltrating the world's economic networks. This didn't prove to be much of a difficulty for Tron Guy, his polished skills were far too much for mere hackers to handle.

Despite the obvious appeal of a new Tron Guy adventure, Tron 2.0 was not a success. Without the promised movie sequel to pump up excitement for the game, Tron 2.0 was largely ignored. The game's planned sequel, Tron 3.0, was canned and the Tron franchise would not see another new title. The world of Tron did make a cameo appearance in Kingdom Hearts 2 as Sora, Donald, and Goofy visited a heartless infested computer world.

Luckily for the world, the end of the Tron games didn't mean the end of Tron Guy. Shortly after the events of Tron 2.0, Tron Guy finally escaped harsh computer realm. Once in the real world, he assumed the identity of a mild mannered computer engineer named Jay Maynard. Maynard became a modern day computer super hero, defeating viruses and hackers and keeping the world safe for users everywhere. But a Tron Guy's work is never truly done. The power of the new-generation consoles makes it almost inevitable that the Tron franchise will be revisited in the future. Whenever that happens, you can be sure that Tron Guy will once again don the tight blue spandex of justice and dish out punishment to the enemies of computer users everywhere.