Net Working!

Through the efforts of ardaniel, biomekanic, dubhain and abiku, my address is now resolving properly again. Yay!

Still having (known, familiar) issues with efn email (now that my IP is stable, I need to have them allow it); also, I can't seem to connect by FTP. I'm hoping the latter problem will sort itself out soon - again, that's an efn issue, not qwest.

TRON 2.0

I bought Tron 2.0 today... even though I've had a pirate copy since Friday evening, and have already beaten the single-player game (on Easy). Why, you may ask, would I pay $50 for a game I possess and have completed? I quote Kevin Flynn:

"Because, man!"

Because the guys at Monolith and Buena Vista have earned my money. Because this game is certainly worth 4 or 5 hours worth of my labor. Because when Wendy Carlos was finally able to resurrect her old master tapes and put out a Tron soundtrack on CD, I tossed out my vinyl-ripped mp3s and bought that too. And because, when you come right down to it, it was never about getting the game free, but getting it now.

Further evidence of Tron 2.0's quality, and my own poor impulse control, can be found in my all-nighter after downloading and installing the game Friday night. I slept most of Saturday, rising in the evening to be social with the locals. I played more sanely on Sunday and Monday, finishing it last night (at Jet version 9.5.5).

Is it a good game? I'm not sure I can give an objective answer. For one, my FPS experience is limited to System Shock, the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, and now this. Interesting and/or familiar settings are more important to me than cool weapons or explosive deathmatch action. Yeah, it has jumping puzzles (mostly from ledge to ledge and crate to crate, just like DF/JK/JO), but many of them are optional, if you're willing to forego the weapon powerups, build notes (level-up coins) and interesting emails that usually tucked among the boxes. Yeah, you'll probably spend most of your time using the regular old Disc (just as in JO, there was little reason to use any weapon besides the lightsaber). Yeah, there's a lot of quicksaving and reloading. And yeah, the lightcycles are hard for those of us with age-dulled twitch reflexes.

Also, it must be admitted that Tron - for all that it is a geek touchstone - wasn't a great movie. I would describe the game much the same way: good but not great, a guilty pleasure, novel and visually stunning but with a sometimes thin or just plain goofy story that doesn't realize its full potential. Is it worth your time? Yes. Is it worth your money? If you're still a fan of the original, definitely.