Page 19 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

By Earl Green

I of the cartridge games by including
n the summer of 1982, there was
no hotter ticket in Hollywood than
three unique games in one - not unlike
the arcade game!
a new Disney movie that boasted
impressive computer graphics,
against enemy light cycles, and with
including some scenes created en- The handheld's first stage pits you
tirely with computer animation. The only directional controls and the action
movie, of course, was Tron, and al- button as an accelerator, it's a *bear* to
though it ended up as more of a cult beat. The second screen matches
classic than a mainstream block- Tron against Sark from opposite ends
buster, the buzz surrounding its spe- of the screen in a disc-flinging duel to
cial effects (in an age where the pub- the death. Finally, with Sark out of the
lic's imagination was sparked by the way, Tron must try to destroy the MCP
emergence of PCs the way the inter- by throwing his disc into the core. The
net is today) and the Disney name MCP's ever-shifting defensive walls
made it a marketing bonanza. make timing critical in this stage.
Tomy quickly latched on to The sequence of events in the
the U.S. toy rights, producing hands, or by the peg which se- Tomy handheld make it, almost embar-
a quartet of action figures cured it to the character’s backs) rassingly, closer to the plot of the ac-
unlike anything seen on the or, for the Warrior, a tual movie than *any* of the
market before. The nature of staff. other games, arcade or car-
the movie's visuals made it Accompanying the tridge!
tough to figure out how any four figures, Tron, Flynn, While I'm reluctant to
toys would be made: the Sark, and a generic praise any LED-based game
characters glowed, their faces Warrior, was an excel- for its "graphics," Tomy did
were more or less in black lent replica of the light find an ingenious way to dou-
and white (tinted only by the cycles from one of the ble the light cycle-shaped
color of their "circuitry's” film's all-computer- elements for the discs as
glow), and their circuit pat- animated sequences. well.
terns were very intricate. This was go- The light cycle toy came in yel- Though the toys and
ing to be a *huge* challenge for a toy low or red and today is even handheld game associated
industry that was still stamping printed more highly sought-after than with Tron haven't gone down
labels onto hollow the figures them- in poseable plastic history as
cylinders to create a selves. successfully as playthings
barely passable like- But Tomy did- derived from certain other
ness of R2-D2. n't end their rela- sci-fi franchises, the toys of
Tomy's solution tionship with the Tron continue to be sought
was unorthodox and Tron license by collectors,
generated a love-or- there. Of all the fans, *and*
hate response to the variations of Tron games classic gamers alike.
toys among Tron fans. While there that collectors and gamers have
*was* facial detail in the Tron action chased after and played, possibly the
figures, the detail existed only in the rarest is
sculpting, for there wasn't much of a Tomy's
paint job. The figures were molded in hand-held
translucent, colored plastic, which Tron game.
would allow light to shine through, and Also molded
the only detail on the figures was a in translu-
vastly simplified, painted-on version of cent plastic,
each character's unique circuitry. Each this LED
figure came with one glow-in-the-dark game did
accessory; either a disc weapon (which one better
could be held edge-on in the figure’s than many
Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 19