TRON (1982)

One of my favorite movies growing up was Disney's "TRON," an electronic adventure about master gamer Jeff Bridges being sucked into the computer world by the Master Control Program and forced to engage in a host of different arcade games that, as he says, look easier on the other side of the screen. As a kid, I would go to Disneyland a lot and spend all my money on the TRON arcade game by Bally Midway. A simple setup, the game was a collection of four events inspired by the film: lightcycles, tanks, entering the MCP core and reaching the I/O tower. After completing these four levels, the game made you do them again but with a significantly higher difficulty level. Instead of racing against one lightcycle, you'd go against three. More spider bot thingies, a taller MCP core and more tanks. Oh, those damn tanks.


Most of the classic arcade games I've played on this list were, unfortunately, done through emulators but TRON was one I wanted to make an effort to track down in an arcade. Thankfully, a visit to Disney Quest in Orlando proved fruitful as they had a working TRON cabinet available (on free play no less!). To me, the cabinet is a near work of art. Just above the game screen, a lenticular image of the computer world's landscape is watched over by the MCP, who's command station looms in the background.

The game itself is pretty fun, although certain mini-games are more fun than others. If I had to choose, I'd say the I/O Tower level is the best (it's fun shooting those spiders and the chip-tuned theme music is great) and the worst are the tank missions. Its bad going up against one, but three? No thanks.