"Discs of TRON", as well as the original games, was my favorite arcade unit. Being a big fan of the movie, it was a no-brainer to find that game out first in the arcades to enjoy.
I would love to own ONE of them, nevermind BOTH. So I hate you very very much. ;-p I enjoyed playing both of them, but I was not great at either of them.
If ColecoVision had come out with a TRON game, it would have looked and played just like the arcade game. Anyone know why Coleco didn't do a TRON game?
@@Rhialto You are correct. I have a MAME box with it and the actual cabinet. The cheat is MAME specific. That bezel is generated by the Front-End (Hyperspin, LaunchBox, Attract-Mode, etc).
there’s something weird going on all the mini games... it’s clear they weren’t playing on real hardware. Also you have to try hard to be that bad on the light cycle mini game 😂
How did I miss this episode? This movie was right up there with Star Wars and Indiana Jones to me as a kid and I even loved the sequel too. The game was a must in any arcade, and Disks of Tron was even better! (My friends and I would often wing Frisbees at each other reenacting the film) Another great entry filled to the top with warm, fuzzy nostalgia. Thanks Patman!..... "End of line"
First off, thanks for watching and appreciate the nice words. Second off I agree with everything including discs of Tron which is probably where I picked up my love of the frisbee when I was a kid.
I played discs of tron in the 80s and It was something special to me. I was amazed by the design, the sound and the animation. It made you feel you were into the game not just in front of a screen. At that time the animation looked so life-like, so realistic, I thought they were using special technic for it. The graphics are simple but great at the same time. And that beautiful cabinet design and joystick. The only other arcade game that made such an impression on me was the space harrier full cabinet.
Oh absolutely, even though the graphics were simple they were well-defined and very immersive. I've never seen a full size space Harrier cabinet in person.
A arcade by me upgraded the speakers, added a large sub-woofer and cranked up the sound it was amazing. I saw a video of Todd Tuckey upgrading the sound system also. But this was like the mini trucks from the same time that would bump and you could feel it.
I remember Tron,remember seeing & playing Tron at Fort Wilderness at Disney World,I don’t recall seeing any in my home town & now I know thanks 🙏 to this channel that the Tron arcade game came out first.I had the miniature Tron game.I have never ever seen Disc of Tron & now I know why again thanks to this cool channel.God,seeing & hearing the noises of Tron take me back to ‘83!
There was an additional Tron game released for the Intellivision called Tron: Solar Sailer. It was one of the lineup of games for the Intellivision’s voice module add on. I would recommend checking it out!
Tron was one of those games that blew me away as a kid with the music and graphics, and of course the gorgeous cabinet design, but I’ve always been terrible at actually playing it, especially the tank waves. Of course, I was only four when it came out, and by the time I was old enough to play more seriously none of the local places had it anymore, so I never really got to practice it all that much. Discs of Tron, on the other hand, was MY game, one of the few golden age classics where I can legitimately compete for high scores. I was very lucky because our local movie theater kept a Discs machine in their game room all the way up until at least 2001 (just an upright, not the full surround cab), and as I got older I always stopped in there to play a few rounds after going to movies, or sometimes when I was just in the neighborhood. I still remember the first time I broke 100k on that game, and what an accomplishment that felt like after all the time and quarters I’d put into it. Thanks for the memories!
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Even I've only seen an environmental DoT once. There was a miniature golf place I stumbled into in the late 90s that actually had one, and I was able to play a few rounds (they also had a gorgeous cockpit Sinistar, which is another "holy grail" type of encounter). The next time I went back there a few months later (on purpose this time) the DoT was gone - probably scooped up by a collector is my guess. These days with the old movie theater long gone I depend on the California Extreme show to get my occasional Discs fix, since it's another game you can't really play properly on emulators. It's not there every year, but often enough to keep me happy. There are always two or three Tron machines there every year, though - that's still one of the most popular classics.
We are the same age, and TRON came out and captured us both it seems. TRON had such a big effect on me as a kid, and the dream that we could one day, go inside the games, and battle on The Grid. It changed my life, and put a seed in my mind, that it was my life mission, to follow that dream. I ended up in the movies for 25 years, and over the last 5 years, I have, in fact, been out on The Grid in VR, and, its as magical and beautiful as the child I once was ever hoped for. Thank you for your amazing reviews, I have really come to love watching one of your clips after a long day making movie magic. Thank you so much.
One of my favorite games of that era. Many many quarters into into both arcade games. I wish that your review had been even more in-depth. Thanks for the fun and informative reviews.
Loved this game. They had one in the front entrance of Walmart that I used to play every time we went there. Lotta' my quarters found a new home there. =) "Discs of Tron" was an _absolutely beautiful cabinet_ once you stepped inside and I loved how it sounded in there. Never saw that little Tron handheld game of yours, but _I did have_ a red Tomitronic 3D "Sky Attack" game that was reminiscent of Flynn's "Space Paranoids" arcade game from the movie which was pretty cool. Had the white "Thundering Turbo" racing game, too. Both of them were pretty fun. Wish I could've been able to afford the rest of the set. =)
I was ten at the time too and I remember Tron, both in the arcade and at the cinema. Fantastic times. Great films, games and music. It was all so exciting.
Totally agree.with you..same here.I was 8.!After the movie could walk across and into arcade and play Tron. *another example of that was Krull.(it had its game too)but Tron especially exciting because the movie was about video games...and computer worlds...so much so they had a Second videogame(Discs of Tron)😃❤
The setup was very memorable and so was the background music. I haven't seen another tron game since 1983 where it was located at in a smalll, badly lit, and smoky arcade when I was about 10 years old.
I have just noticed you have reached 3,000 subscribers. Congratulations on such a well-deserves figure, which I am sure will continue to grow. Once again, I thank you for your consistent hard work in creating these documentaries and wish you continued success
So, my dad and my uncle had an arcade business, it went under but we still had the arcade cabinets when I was a kid growing up. One of them is this game. I love it and if could ever get this cabinet I would be a happy man
I had no idea there were two arcade versions. The one my local arcade had must have been Discs of Tron. Now it makes sense when I recently visited a retro arcade and played Tron there I was wondering where the disc combat level was. Thanks for the great video.
I loved the movie and the game. Was so hard to find one of these back in the day. There was one at the camp ground pool house I use to go to as a kid. I couldnt wait to get there to play it. I remember how disappointed I was when they got rid of it.
That was always a terrible feeling growing up. You go to the arcade or the bowling alley to play your favorite game only to find that is been replaced with something else
They had three of the "Tron" arcade games in our town back then (Walmart, Putt Putt Golf & Games and the bowling alley). Never got to try "Discs of Tron" until I went with some co-workers to *Six Flags Over Texas* one year. That was the only time I ever got to play "The Empire Strikes Back" arcade game, too. Really wish we'd had that one available closer to home. =)
The Atari 2600 platform had a Tron pack that came with a blue tron trigger controller. Best controller I ever had, made Activision's Starmaster way better
I saw a video where the guy did slow-play to win the light cycle levels. I don't know if playing slow let you win, or if there was a slow pattern you were supposed to memorize.
I didn’t play this iconic game much back in the day, but was able to really make up for lost time by playing it at a massive display at a retro game event.
It was a perfect couple of years for me. My parents owned a movie theater in a small town. Every morning I would ride my bike to that theater, and lock it up inside, then walk around the corner to a restaurant where I would meet my best friend. We'd buy a large, buttery cinnamon roll. Then we'd go to school. After school, we would ride our bikes to a Mazzio's Pizza restaurant, where they had Tron. I would get a personal pan pizza, and play Tron until we ran out of quarters. Then ride the bikes home to go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was like Groundhog Day, except perfect. That Tron music still makes me happy inside.
A number of years ago I got to play the arcade game at a Comic Con. I think I got to the third level before dying but I thought the game was extremely well done for its time. The production values did a terrific job of bringing the film experience into an arcade game.
This is definitely one of my all-time favorite games. I played both quite a bit, but was better at Discs of Tron than the regular game. I saw people go way up in the levels and in some levels, the tanks were replaced with recognizers! The Discs of Tron full environmental cabinet, which is what I played in, was the best ever! I never played the home versions, as I was so spoiled by the arcade graphics. Still also love both movies to this day!
Tron was one of the handful of arcade games that absolutely required their custom analog controls to be playable (not including the light-cycle game). Using the knob to rotate the turret / aim was a great way to control the player. I guess with a modern controller you could use an analog stick to have it aim in the direction you're pointing the stick, but the analog knob was a perfect control for how they designed the game.
There was another game or two that used the aiming knob: Wild Western (and perhaps Commando or Front Line?). I had the steering controller that had a 360 wheel, but it was never used for any other games, like Tempest, which also wasn't released for the Atari 2600.
I w in a technical vocational high school in electronics shop. A local arcade had a handful of non functioning arcade cabinets, and one of them was Tron. We got the game running and had our own working Tron cabinet in our shop. Played that game so much during my high school years!
That handheld was gold. And I remember as a kid, Tron was the best game to play in the arcade because you got several games in one, so to speak. There was always a huge line for it.
On M.A.M.E you can play Discs Of Tron using one hand on the computer keyboard to move the character, and the other hand on the mouse to aim and throw the discs. It works out quite nicely
Things to consider: 1. Not sure if it's accurate to say Bally-Midway "produced" Bump 'n Jump in the same context as the two prior-mentioned games, Wizard of Wor and Satan's Hollow, which they did in fact develop themselves. Bump 'n Jump, a very obviously Japanese game, was developed by Data East. 2. The 3x2 button layout, as pictured in the photo of the joystick/buttons, would not be seen in arcades until 1987's Street Fighter. 3. Arkanoid was not released until 1986, four years after Tron. 4. For anyone confused by the Tron arcade footage, it was being emulated in MAME, with invincibility cheats, and without the spinner control set up properly, resulting in a lot of confusing phenomena. 5. The video game crash had very little impact on the arcade market. Discs of Tron sold poorly due to the hype of the movie being long over and the game itself being comparatively sub-par. 6. Although there's no mention of the music in Tron arcade, it is definitely worth noting. At the time of release, it was arguably the richest music to be heard from any arcade game. Each individual track was a strikingly faithful rendition of the movie's counterpart score. Trivia: The game-over track is also from the Tron score, but the score version is only heard in the trailer for the movie.
Never even heard about the Disc of Tron? Only played the Tron in Arcades! Like everyone else we played it for the bike game! Our theater was one of the lucky ones that bought the cabinet along with the movie premier! However, i was 8 years old so i couldn't enjoy the game until after Tron left theaters as it had a line to play this game! i even used a marker & put a "T" on my quarter to save for the Tron Arcade! Being 8 saving a quarter is harder than you think but it survived & i put it into the machine! Worth the wait!
I remember playing Tron in an arcade attached to a small restaurant near my home as a child. I had the handheld version shown in the video. Played it until it got too fast to play or mom told me to shut down. I must have spent an ungodly amount of time and quarters on the arcade game. At the time, I had a "cheat book", similar to a code book for home units, that had tips and strategies for the major coin-op games of the day. I truly miss the 80's era coin-op video games. The video games today have NOTHING up on the coin-op games of my childhood. Wish one of them was a coin-op Time Machine.
I coded so many versions of Light Cycles for home computers back then. It was my first isometric game and also responsible for my career with 3D programming. Always wanted the arcade cab, never found one though. Thanks for this video, subbed.
First off, give it up for us 1972 babies! Represent! Lol Man! I LOVED Bump n Jump for Atari ! It took forever before I accidentally learned you score Mondo more points for not wrecking any vehicles during a stage. Lol. Tron was an awesome movie and awesome game too! I was never really good at it, tbh. Still had fun.
Something you didn't mention. Some of the Tron arcade games were notorious for having little graphical glitches. I remember encountering it as a kid. They reference this in Ralph Breaks the Internet when Ralph and Penelope end up getting stuck in the light cycles game.
Discs of Tron - a perfect mix of action, tactics, and atmosphere. Into the mid nineties, there was one at Circus circus in Vegas; another at the Denver international airport. Haven't seen one since
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." I love the bit. I have played the Tron arcade game a few times. I like the light cycle mini game. I didn't really care for the other stuff. The likely reason was that I was very young and wasn't really grasping everything. I have never seen the disc combat game all though I've seen home ports of it...I think. The Tron arcade cabs are absolutely stunning pieces of machinery. Most cabinets do not light up like Tron. Too this day the Tron cabinet by itself is one of the coolest looking cabs I have ever seen. The only other cab that comes close in style to me is the Sega Holigraphic Time Traveler cab (I don't remember its name). I do remember when it first showed up at our local arcades. The line to play it snaked through the entire mall (I saw at our malls arcade). It took me something like 4 hours just to play it once and man that game was the neatest piece of junk I've ever experienced. The cab was awe inspiring and the pseudo holographic characters looked amazing but the game was positively meh. Hang on a second...how did the yellow light cycle cut through the blue wall twice without exploding? Look at the footage of the light cycles again. I think you captured a glitch or something. It kept crossing your path with neither blowing up until it hit a wall or am I missing something?
The footage I used had cheats turned on which would explain the glitchy light cycles. The light cycles was my favorite as well and Variations of it have been used in quite a few other games as well. The Tron arcade cabinet is one of my favorite ones ever to be created
Discs of Tron is one thing to get if anyone wants a private arcade. I mean legit get a full arcade cabinet, fix, restore, etc. First it looks far better than MAME because it is a screen projected over a cool art background. Then it needs the special controllers to shoot discs up and down, etc. I've heard it's designed so if you get a second cabinet you can challenge other players but never seen it in action. The thing has an immersive feel since the player can lean back slightly and comfortably in a dark arcade cabinet then the sounds go all around inside it without being too noisy outside. It literally is back when VR was a grossly expensive disappointment a real good "Virtual Reality" feel in its perfect design. It's kind of a spark of Syd Mead's Tron designs (RIP!) and other immersive things played with in the 70s like Roger Dean's "Pod" designs.
The Grid Bug portion of the game is based on a sequence in the movie that was cut for time/money. The programmers couldn't wait for the movie to be released to start working on it, so they had to guess what would be included.
I was honestly never a fan of the movie, but the arcade game was awesome. The sounds were unmistakable and you could usually here them about 5 stores down from the Aladdin's Castle. I need a time machine.
The movie is astounding for its time. Not just the visuals, but the concepts. It’s easy to take for granted, but it essentially invented the concept of cyberspace and virtual worlds, certainly cinematic ones. It also has some beautiful ideas such as nested worlds, those in the outer world seeming like gods, time dilation and the first ever use of a virus or a trojan as a data weapon. On top of all that, it cemented the word “user” for a computer operator. (None of this will be obvious to younger people, who take for granted the concepts that Tron pioneered.)
My brother and I played this game back in the day when they had competitions to find the best players. My brother convinced my dad to drive him to Dallas for the state-level competition and quickly discovered that those machines had been programmed to be MUCH harder than the ones he had practiced on.
Loved this game. The actual arcade is definitely the best way to play it, the controllers being what they were. I wish there was a way to listen to an extended version of the spider stage music. Amazing track.
This would have been a good documentary to mention a very unique phenomenon, where a movie presents a fictional, contrived video game (usually made with frame-by-frame rendering, as they were not technically possible when the movie was made), which many years later was actually created by independent developers as freeware. In the case of Tron, that game was Space Paranoids. That is the game Flyn is playing in his arcade, which is a fully rendered 3D game (it was rendered for the movie on a Cray Supercomputer on frame at a time and each image captured on film). That game has actually been created, based off what is shown in the movie. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Paranoids Another example of a fictional arcade game that was made many years after the movie is The Last Starfighter. That game was also created to represent as closely as possible what is depicted in the movie. Interestingly, that game was also rendered on a Cray Supercomputer frame-by-frame. Of course nowadays a cheap smartphone has the ability to render these games real-time, and in far better quality and resolution. But back in the day they represented video games of a quality that would not be possible for at least a decade or more.
I was a huge fan of Tron when I was a kid. I still am to this day. I watched the VHS enough times to wear it out. I remember playing both Tron and Discs of Tron in the arcade, and really liked them. I only got to play them once though. I had Tron Deadly Discs and Tron Solar Sailor on the Intellivision and would play those often, even though I wasn't very good at them. There have been new Tron games recently, though based on the more recent sequel. They are good, but I get the most entertainment out of the one for the Wii because it has several different mini games with it that just make it feel more like a Tron game.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries From what I remember it was a huge screen and had speakers on the inside where you sit. I'm sure you've seen how the cabinet looks. An emulator can't really do it justice, but it's as close as most of us can get.
My first play of Tron was at a convenience store. My first play of Discs of Tron was at a place in a local mall called 'The Yogurt Shop' which basically was an arcade that sold Frozen Yogurt back then. This is where I also first played Super Mario Bros in a sit-down head-to-head Vs. cabinet.
the TRON cabinet is one of the most awesome looking cabinets of all time. the game was good i liked it, but DISCS OF TRON was one of my favorite games of all time. i use to play it ALL the time at the laundromat by my house when i was a kid.
I remember playing this at a few local convenience stores and arcades back in the day, following that, when we visited Disneyland in 1986, I was pleasantly surprised to see dozens of these cabinets all in one location. I wonder if Disney ever sold these cabinets to the General Public or Collectors, though. I'm thinking they likely destroyed them. Sad.
TRON is still my favorite Disney franchise. There was a full Discs of TRON cabinet in a small arcade my father and I frequented in the 80s. I was much better at that than the first game. I still have a fully-functioning handheld TRON game as well. At nearly 50, I still dream at night of arcades loaded with these machines.
For me as a kid in the early 90's and practically living in the arcade i always remember being creeped out by the Tron cabinet. It was in the back by tje bathroom and no one ever played it. I don't know why but it always gave me the willies. Lol
My orthodontist had a tron arcade table until he replaced it with Sega Saturn stations. While I enjoyed the newer consoles, it's amazing how I still missed classic Tron. Awesome game; awesome movie.
I really hate being "that guy", but feel there needs to be some clarifications on your history: 1. You mentioned Bally was known for Satan's Hollow as a reason Disney reached out to them, but Tron and Satan's Hollow are both MCR II systems and were released the same year (1982) so they couldn't have been know for that game. 2. At 3:30 you're showing a custom upgrade to Tron someone did using the original program with HD graphical updates 3. They weren't neon colors. They're blacklight fluorescent tubes against blacklight sensitive colors (I know I'm splitting hairs) 4. Arkanoid came out in 1986, 4 years after Tron's use of the spinner. A more accurate example should have been Warlords (1980) or Tempest (1981) 5. The World of Long Plays is cheat enabled and gives a false impression of the gameplay (especially in the light cycle game where your player ran through the opponents' walls) 6. At 6:18, the game wasn't "straight out of the move". The game they played on discs was a jai-alai style game and not discs thrown. Don't get me wrong, a fun listen. Just needed a few tweaks in the facts
I didn't say Disney came to them because of Satan's hollow, it was just an example of a game the company had done. Wasn't aware I used the HD graphics update. Sorry about that Thanks for clarifying about the neon colors Arkanoid was just an example, I was awarE it Wasn't released until 1986 sorry about the false impression of the lifecycles
A bit of trivia that I remember from an old gaming magazine was that Disney was undecided as to what colors to assign the good guys and bad guys. Apparently, Bally Midway just went ahead and went with red for bad and blue for good and Disney stuck with it. An interesting thing with the Discs of Tron arcade game was that you leaned against the back wall and sort of sat on a small angled "seat" that protruded from the wall while playing. I am not sure how many of those original machines still exist as later cabinets were without the enclosure.
Even though the "Programs" were wearing blue, they used yellow and red light cycles, while the blue light cycles were the adversaries in the movie. However, you use a blue light cycle in the game.
To be fair, I'd have played Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman is awesome in everything. This cabinet was always my favourite in the arcade. Making use of analog anything was enough to stop a game being just like every other at this time. The stylistic neon was truly eye catching at this time too.
"Discs of TRON", as well as the original games, was my favorite arcade unit. Being a big fan of the movie, it was a no-brainer to find that game out first in the arcades to enjoy.
I own both Tron cabinets. They were in bad shape when I purchased them and took me a while to restore them .
That's awesome I would love to own an original
Shut up
I would love to own ONE of them, nevermind BOTH. So I hate you very very much. ;-p I enjoyed playing both of them, but I was not great at either of them.
Glad they went to someone who cares about them enough to restore them.
It was definitely one of the first licensed games that truly captured the spirit of what it was based on.
Absolutely, I seem to recall it being in almost every arcade I went into
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Even if you weren't a fan of the film, it's four games in one!
If ColecoVision had come out with a TRON game, it would have looked and played just like the arcade game. Anyone know why Coleco didn't do a TRON game?
@@chj2 Licensing would be my guess.
Probably the first licensed game that was worth a damn, too!
4:28 I've never seen the Light Cycle cross paths like this without getting killed.
Same, clearly a cheat on what's looks like M.A.M.E.
@@Rhialto Yes, he was cheating. It's from World of Longplays. A lot of their videos are done with cheats.
@@Rhialto You are correct. I have a MAME box with it and the actual cabinet. The cheat is MAME specific. That bezel is generated by the Front-End (Hyperspin, LaunchBox, Attract-Mode, etc).
@@TheCerealHobbyist me too, I love my full size cab with coin slots, lit control buttons.
there’s something weird going on all the mini games... it’s clear they weren’t playing on real hardware. Also you have to try hard to be that bad on the light cycle mini game 😂
How did I miss this episode? This movie was right up there with Star Wars and Indiana Jones to me as a kid and I even loved the sequel too. The game was a must in any arcade, and Disks of Tron was even better! (My friends and I would often wing Frisbees at each other reenacting the film) Another great entry filled to the top with warm, fuzzy nostalgia. Thanks Patman!..... "End of line"
First off, thanks for watching and appreciate the nice words. Second off I agree with everything including discs of Tron which is probably where I picked up my love of the frisbee when I was a kid.
I played discs of tron in the 80s and It was something special to me. I was amazed by the design, the sound and the animation. It made you feel you were into the game not just in front of a screen.
At that time the animation looked so life-like, so realistic, I thought they were using special technic for it. The graphics are simple but great at the same time. And that beautiful cabinet design and joystick.
The only other arcade game that made such an impression on me was the space harrier full cabinet.
Oh absolutely, even though the graphics were simple they were well-defined and very immersive. I've never seen a full size space Harrier cabinet in person.
A arcade by me upgraded the speakers, added a large sub-woofer and cranked up the sound it was amazing. I saw a video of Todd Tuckey upgrading the sound system also. But this was like the mini trucks from the same time that would bump and you could feel it.
The blacklight bulbs that accented the cabinet and your shirt when you played added a great touch to it, too.
I remember Tron,remember seeing & playing Tron at Fort Wilderness at Disney World,I don’t recall seeing any in my home town & now I know thanks 🙏 to this channel that the Tron arcade game came out first.I had the miniature Tron game.I have never ever seen Disc of Tron & now I know why again thanks to this cool channel.God,seeing & hearing the noises of Tron take me back to ‘83!
Tron was one of my favorite arcade games, and the movie blew me away~! Thank you so much for reviewing this arcade classic.
Thanks for the nice words, I think the design of the cabinet probably the greatest one ever created
Got that handheld game for Christmas that year and still have it, it works perfectly!!!!
There was an additional Tron game released for the Intellivision called Tron: Solar Sailer. It was one of the lineup of games for the Intellivision’s voice module add on. I would recommend checking it out!
Thanks for the tip, I wasn't aware that
Love the movie and the games, changed my life and directed me into IT work. As always, thanks for making these arcade game docus.
That's awesome, thank you for watching
I understand you . Watching "The Texas chainsaw massacre" changed my life too...
@Joe Kinchicken Does being a real programmer demand that one have autistic level anti social tendencies ?
Same here, but with the addition of Wargames.
Tron was one of those games that blew me away as a kid with the music and graphics, and of course the gorgeous cabinet design, but I’ve always been terrible at actually playing it, especially the tank waves. Of course, I was only four when it came out, and by the time I was old enough to play more seriously none of the local places had it anymore, so I never really got to practice it all that much.
Discs of Tron, on the other hand, was MY game, one of the few golden age classics where I can legitimately compete for high scores. I was very lucky because our local movie theater kept a Discs machine in their game room all the way up until at least 2001 (just an upright, not the full surround cab), and as I got older I always stopped in there to play a few rounds after going to movies, or sometimes when I was just in the neighborhood. I still remember the first time I broke 100k on that game, and what an accomplishment that felt like after all the time and quarters I’d put into it.
Thanks for the memories!
That's awesome, I've never seen a discs of Tron in person. I always wanted to try the surroundsound version
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Even I've only seen an environmental DoT once. There was a miniature golf place I stumbled into in the late 90s that actually had one, and I was able to play a few rounds (they also had a gorgeous cockpit Sinistar, which is another "holy grail" type of encounter). The next time I went back there a few months later (on purpose this time) the DoT was gone - probably scooped up by a collector is my guess.
These days with the old movie theater long gone I depend on the California Extreme show to get my occasional Discs fix, since it's another game you can't really play properly on emulators. It's not there every year, but often enough to keep me happy. There are always two or three Tron machines there every year, though - that's still one of the most popular classics.
This is one of my favourite games of all time. I played this in the arcade at Disneyland.
classic movie and legendary game
It really is I agree
Thanks for the video, this was my second favorite video game back in the day after Tempest.
Thank you for watching
Tempest was really good. Too bad it didn't get a 2600 release with the Driving controller that came with Indy 500.
You missed the Intellivision game Tron: Solar Sailor which was produced for the speech synthesizer module. very advanced for the time.
You're right, I did not even know it existed
don't forget the great Tron Deadly Discs for same Intellivision.
Also 'Maze-A-Tron'.
I love the midi version of the Wendy Carlos movie soundtrack. So awesome.
We are the same age, and TRON came out and captured us both it seems. TRON had such a big effect on me as a kid, and the dream that we could one day, go inside the games, and battle on The Grid. It changed my life, and put a seed in my mind, that it was my life mission, to follow that dream. I ended up in the movies for 25 years, and over the last 5 years, I have, in fact, been out on The Grid in VR, and, its as magical and beautiful as the child I once was ever hoped for. Thank you for your amazing reviews, I have really come to love watching one of your clips after a long day making movie magic. Thank you so much.
My dad bought me the Tomy at toys r us. Would play it until batteries ran out. I could get very far into the waves.
I had it as well I think my dad got it at Kmart. It was really good for tabletop game
There was also a title for the intellivsions intellivoice, Tron: Solar Sailer.
One of my favorite games of that era. Many many quarters into into both arcade games. I wish that your review had been even more in-depth. Thanks for the fun and informative reviews.
Loved this game. They had one in the front entrance of Walmart that I used to play every time we went there. Lotta' my quarters found a new home there. =)
"Discs of Tron" was an _absolutely beautiful cabinet_ once you stepped inside and I loved how it sounded in there.
Never saw that little Tron handheld game of yours, but _I did have_ a red Tomitronic 3D "Sky Attack" game that was reminiscent of Flynn's "Space Paranoids" arcade game from the movie which was pretty cool. Had the white "Thundering Turbo" racing game, too. Both of them were pretty fun. Wish I could've been able to afford the rest of the set. =)
I wish I had seen a discs of Tron in person but never had the chance
Loved the movie and the arcade game as a kid! It would make my day when this would come on as the Sunday afternoon movie at noon on ABC!
Absolutely, I can recall the Sunday night movie on ABC being a big deal as well
I was ten at the time too and I remember Tron, both in the arcade and at the cinema. Fantastic times. Great films, games and music. It was all so exciting.
Totally agree.with you..same here.I was 8.!After the movie could walk across and into arcade and play Tron. *another example of that was Krull.(it had its game too)but Tron especially exciting because the movie was about video games...and computer worlds...so much so they had a Second videogame(Discs of Tron)😃❤
The original TRON from 1982 is the coolest Disney movie ever made in my opinion.
The setup was very memorable and so was the background music. I haven't seen another tron game since 1983 where it was located at in a smalll, badly lit, and smoky arcade when I was about 10 years old.
I haven't seen one in ages either
Tron always stands out as being different to other games of the time. It hasn't aged in playability at all and the music and sound fx, awesome game
It really is a timeless classic
Great choice to cover. I found this one particularly interesting as I had not heard of the game before. Once again, excellent work
Awesome, glad you liked it
I have just noticed you have reached 3,000 subscribers. Congratulations on such a well-deserves figure, which I am sure will continue to grow. Once again, I thank you for your consistent hard work in creating these documentaries and wish you continued success
So, my dad and my uncle had an arcade business, it went under but we still had the arcade cabinets when I was a kid growing up. One of them is this game. I love it and if could ever get this cabinet I would be a happy man
I had no idea there were two arcade versions. The one my local arcade had must have been Discs of Tron. Now it makes sense when I recently visited a retro arcade and played Tron there I was wondering where the disc combat level was. Thanks for the great video.
Absolutely, thanks for the nice words
the cabinet was the best thing about this game. the glow, man. the glow. good memories.
I loved the movie and the game. Was so hard to find one of these back in the day. There was one at the camp ground pool house I use to go to as a kid. I couldnt wait to get there to play it. I remember how disappointed I was when they got rid of it.
That was always a terrible feeling growing up. You go to the arcade or the bowling alley to play your favorite game only to find that is been replaced with something else
Same. Along with Karate Champ and Wacko.
They had three of the "Tron" arcade games in our town back then (Walmart, Putt Putt Golf & Games and the bowling alley). Never got to try "Discs of Tron" until I went with some co-workers to *Six Flags Over Texas* one year. That was the only time I ever got to play "The Empire Strikes Back" arcade game, too. Really wish we'd had that one available closer to home. =)
The Atari 2600 platform had a Tron pack that came with a blue tron trigger controller. Best controller I ever had, made Activision's Starmaster way better
Wow, I didn't know that! Interesting.
Yeah, that looks pretty sweet.
www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-tron-special-pack_15907.html
Your channel really brings back the best memories.
Glad to hear that! Thank you very much
Absolutely loved this game! The three light cycles versus one was the game that would always do me in though… Still a hell of a lot of fun!
The light cycles was always my favorite
I usually made it through a few levels before getting swarmed by those stupid grid bugs =/
I saw a video where the guy did slow-play to win the light cycle levels. I don't know if playing slow let you win, or if there was a slow pattern you were supposed to memorize.
This was my first game I would always play before anything else, at a local arcade about 8 years back.
It was fantastic from the gameplay to the actual cabinet
Love this game & love your 'History of...' videos!!! Looking forward to watching them all!
Thank you so much, glad you enjoy my content
I think I'll subscribe so they keep coming up in my suggestions.
The more recent Tron cartoon and movie was really good too, to bad both of those didn't get a sequel. Anything Tron is good.
I never saw the cartoon but I did enjoy the second movie
I didn’t play this iconic game much back in the day, but was able to really make up for lost time by playing it at a massive display at a retro game event.
It was a perfect couple of years for me. My parents owned a movie theater in a small town. Every morning I would ride my bike to that theater, and lock it up inside, then walk around the corner to a restaurant where I would meet my best friend. We'd buy a large, buttery cinnamon roll. Then we'd go to school. After school, we would ride our bikes to a Mazzio's Pizza restaurant, where they had Tron. I would get a personal pan pizza, and play Tron until we ran out of quarters. Then ride the bikes home to go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was like Groundhog Day, except perfect.
That Tron music still makes me happy inside.
Fantastic Channel!!! Keep up the great research so the history of these classics will not be forgotten!!
I remember seeing the arcade at Fort Wilderness in Disney World probably in 1983.This game stood out!!!
A number of years ago I got to play the arcade game at a Comic Con. I think I got to the third level before dying but I thought the game was extremely well done for its time. The production values did a terrific job of bringing the film experience into an arcade game.
This is definitely one of my all-time favorite games. I played both quite a bit, but was better at Discs of Tron than the regular game. I saw people go way up in the levels and in some levels, the tanks were replaced with recognizers! The Discs of Tron full environmental cabinet, which is what I played in, was the best ever! I never played the home versions, as I was so spoiled by the arcade graphics. Still also love both movies to this day!
I would love to see a full discs of Tron arcade game because I've never seen one.
Tron was one of the handful of arcade games that absolutely required their custom analog controls to be playable (not including the light-cycle game). Using the knob to rotate the turret / aim was a great way to control the player. I guess with a modern controller you could use an analog stick to have it aim in the direction you're pointing the stick, but the analog knob was a perfect control for how they designed the game.
The arcade game was the complete package
There was another game or two that used the aiming knob: Wild Western (and perhaps Commando or Front Line?). I had the steering controller that had a 360 wheel, but it was never used for any other games, like Tempest, which also wasn't released for the Atari 2600.
I w in a technical vocational high school in electronics shop. A local arcade had a handful of non functioning arcade cabinets, and one of them was Tron. We got the game running and had our own working Tron cabinet in our shop. Played that game so much during my high school years!
How cool is that? That's fantastic
The best were the cabinets that you stepped into to play. That 3D lenticular background was awe inspiring
Never got to see one in person, that sounds amazing
The music from the game is very nostalgic for me. Thanks for doing this!
That handheld was gold. And I remember as a kid, Tron was the best game to play in the arcade because you got several games in one, so to speak. There was always a huge line for it.
Exactly, just like gorf
Discs of Tron was always one of my favourite arcade games. Back in the day it was an actual sci-fi experience.
I never got a chancee to try out a real cabinet but I always wanted to
MCP Cone was my favorite, light cycles close second, tanks the least...Tron was my go to game at the arcade.
It is definitely a classic
I loved the breakout gameplay of the MCP, too. Added a fun, new twist to the genre.
I love Tron lol !! My favorite growing up. The complete package as an arcade game.
On M.A.M.E you can play Discs Of Tron using one hand on the computer keyboard to move the character, and the other hand on the mouse to aim and throw the discs. It works out quite nicely
I'll give it a try, thanks
Things to consider:
1. Not sure if it's accurate to say Bally-Midway "produced" Bump 'n Jump in the same context as the two prior-mentioned games, Wizard of Wor and Satan's Hollow, which they did in fact develop themselves. Bump 'n Jump, a very obviously Japanese game, was developed by Data East.
2. The 3x2 button layout, as pictured in the photo of the joystick/buttons, would not be seen in arcades until 1987's Street Fighter.
3. Arkanoid was not released until 1986, four years after Tron.
4. For anyone confused by the Tron arcade footage, it was being emulated in MAME, with invincibility cheats, and without the spinner control set up properly, resulting in a lot of confusing phenomena.
5. The video game crash had very little impact on the arcade market. Discs of Tron sold poorly due to the hype of the movie being long over and the game itself being comparatively sub-par.
6. Although there's no mention of the music in Tron arcade, it is definitely worth noting. At the time of release, it was arguably the richest music to be heard from any arcade game. Each individual track was a strikingly faithful rendition of the movie's counterpart score. Trivia: The game-over track is also from the Tron score, but the score version is only heard in the trailer for the movie.
Never even heard about the Disc of Tron? Only played the Tron in Arcades! Like everyone else we played it for the bike game! Our theater was one of the lucky ones that bought the cabinet along with the movie premier! However, i was 8 years old so i couldn't enjoy the game until after Tron left theaters as it had a line to play this game! i even used a marker & put a "T" on my quarter to save for the Tron Arcade! Being 8 saving a quarter is harder than you think but it survived & i put it into the machine! Worth the wait!
Intellivision also had a voice game called Tron Solar Sailor.
Another great documentary! One of my favorite games also especially because of the movie which was also one of my favorites.
Glad you enjoyed it!Thank you
I remember playing Tron in an arcade attached to a small restaurant near my home as a child. I had the handheld version shown in the video. Played it until it got too fast to play or mom told me to shut down. I must have spent an ungodly amount of time and quarters on the arcade game. At the time, I had a "cheat book", similar to a code book for home units, that had tips and strategies for the major coin-op games of the day. I truly miss the 80's era coin-op video games. The video games today have NOTHING up on the coin-op games of my childhood. Wish one of them was a coin-op Time Machine.
You and me both, I would love to go back to the dark dimly lit arcades with rows upon rows of cabinets lined up. It was a glorious time
Loved this game. Had a quarter played for a minimum for 45 minutes. The best!
That's awesome, I could never last anywhere near that long
I coded so many versions of Light Cycles for home computers back then. It was my first isometric game and also responsible for my career with 3D programming. Always wanted the arcade cab, never found one though. Thanks for this video, subbed.
That is awesome, thanks for sharing your story. Also, thanks for subscribing hope you enjoy the rest of my content
discs of tron is a badass arcade game. just the right difficulty curve, lots of variation, and great fun.
It was a great game
First off, give it up for us 1972 babies! Represent! Lol
Man! I LOVED Bump n Jump for Atari ! It took forever before I accidentally learned you score Mondo more points for not wrecking any vehicles during a stage. Lol.
Tron was an awesome movie and awesome game too! I was never really good at it, tbh. Still had fun.
Absolutely :-)
It's not only an excellent game but the cabinet is a work of art
I think the reason why we enjoy this movie more now than when we were kids...we understand what CLU, RAM, MCP and so mean.
LOL, that could be
My day camp had an arcade with this cabinet along with Time Pilot '84. Both pretty fun. Now I've seen both of those videos.
Something you didn't mention. Some of the Tron arcade games were notorious for having little graphical glitches. I remember encountering it as a kid. They reference this in Ralph Breaks the Internet when Ralph and Penelope end up getting stuck in the light cycles game.
Discs of Tron had an amazing arcade cabinet.
I've never seen one in person
Discs of Tron - a perfect mix of action, tactics, and atmosphere. Into the mid nineties, there was one at Circus circus in Vegas; another at the Denver international airport. Haven't seen one since
iT IS REALLY QUITE RARE
Loved both the Tron and Discs Of Tron arcade games!
I love to the original But never saw The follow-up
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." I love the bit. I have played the Tron arcade game a few times. I like the light cycle mini game. I didn't really care for the other stuff. The likely reason was that I was very young and wasn't really grasping everything. I have never seen the disc combat game all though I've seen home ports of it...I think. The Tron arcade cabs are absolutely stunning pieces of machinery. Most cabinets do not light up like Tron. Too this day the Tron cabinet by itself is one of the coolest looking cabs I have ever seen. The only other cab that comes close in style to me is the Sega Holigraphic Time Traveler cab (I don't remember its name). I do remember when it first showed up at our local arcades. The line to play it snaked through the entire mall (I saw at our malls arcade). It took me something like 4 hours just to play it once and man that game was the neatest piece of junk I've ever experienced. The cab was awe inspiring and the pseudo holographic characters looked amazing but the game was positively meh.
Hang on a second...how did the yellow light cycle cut through the blue wall twice without exploding? Look at the footage of the light cycles again. I think you captured a glitch or something. It kept crossing your path with neither blowing up until it hit a wall or am I missing something?
The footage I used had cheats turned on which would explain the glitchy light cycles. The light cycles was my favorite as well and Variations of it have been used in quite a few other games as well. The Tron arcade cabinet is one of my favorite ones ever to be created
Discs of Tron is one thing to get if anyone wants a private arcade. I mean legit get a full arcade cabinet, fix, restore, etc.
First it looks far better than MAME because it is a screen projected over a cool art background.
Then it needs the special controllers to shoot discs up and down, etc.
I've heard it's designed so if you get a second cabinet you can challenge other players but never seen it in action.
The thing has an immersive feel since the player can lean back slightly and comfortably in a dark arcade cabinet then the sounds go all around inside it without being too noisy outside. It literally is back when VR was a grossly expensive disappointment a real good "Virtual Reality" feel in its perfect design. It's kind of a spark of Syd Mead's Tron designs (RIP!) and other immersive things played with in the 70s like Roger Dean's "Pod" designs.
“Adventures Of Tron” is one of my absolute favorite Atari 2600 games. Highly addictive!
I enjoyed it as well
Discs of Tron always reminds me of games like tennis in a way and thought it would he cool to have a vr version of the game.
That's an idea for a game
The Grid Bug portion of the game is based on a sequence in the movie that was cut for time/money. The programmers couldn't wait for the movie to be released to start working on it, so they had to guess what would be included.
Maybe the best looking arcade machine of all time. That design is stunning.
I think the arcade cabinet is the greatest one ever created
They look so cool in a more dark area of an arcade
@@jamesnoble8205 oh yeah
@@jamesnoble8205 You want one that looked cool in a dark arcade? "Discs of Tron." That one was freakin' amazing =)
@@jamesanthony8438 I've heard that but never saw a DOT in person. No arcade I ever went to around here had one
I play this game all the time at a retro game store near my house...honestly my favorite arcade game of all time
It's definitely my top 10
I was honestly never a fan of the movie, but the arcade game was awesome. The sounds were unmistakable and you could usually here them about 5 stores down from the Aladdin's Castle. I need a time machine.
I didn't care for the movie back then either but I loved the visuals. The arcade game though, I was always a huge fan of
The movie is astounding for its time. Not just the visuals, but the concepts. It’s easy to take for granted, but it essentially invented the concept of cyberspace and virtual worlds, certainly cinematic ones. It also has some beautiful ideas such as nested worlds, those in the outer world seeming like gods, time dilation and the first ever use of a virus or a trojan as a data weapon. On top of all that, it cemented the word “user” for a computer operator. (None of this will be obvious to younger people, who take for granted the concepts that Tron pioneered.)
My brother and I played this game back in the day when they had competitions to find the best players. My brother convinced my dad to drive him to Dallas for the state-level competition and quickly discovered that those machines had been programmed to be MUCH harder than the ones he had practiced on.
That's pretty crazy that they would do that. Thanks for sharing
I had Tron action figures and motorcycle toys when I was a kid. The good ole days.
That is awesome, I never had any as a kid
Loved this game. The actual arcade is definitely the best way to play it, the controllers being what they were.
I wish there was a way to listen to an extended version of the spider stage music. Amazing track.
I agree hundred percent
This would have been a good documentary to mention a very unique phenomenon, where a movie presents a fictional, contrived video game (usually made with frame-by-frame rendering, as they were not technically possible when the movie was made), which many years later was actually created by independent developers as freeware. In the case of Tron, that game was Space Paranoids. That is the game Flyn is playing in his arcade, which is a fully rendered 3D game (it was rendered for the movie on a Cray Supercomputer on frame at a time and each image captured on film). That game has actually been created, based off what is shown in the movie. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Paranoids
Another example of a fictional arcade game that was made many years after the movie is The Last Starfighter. That game was also created to represent as closely as possible what is depicted in the movie. Interestingly, that game was also rendered on a Cray Supercomputer frame-by-frame. Of course nowadays a cheap smartphone has the ability to render these games real-time, and in far better quality and resolution. But back in the day they represented video games of a quality that would not be possible for at least a decade or more.
I was a huge fan of Tron when I was a kid. I still am to this day. I watched the VHS enough times to wear it out. I remember playing both Tron and Discs of Tron in the arcade, and really liked them. I only got to play them once though. I had Tron Deadly Discs and Tron Solar Sailor on the Intellivision and would play those often, even though I wasn't very good at them. There have been new Tron games recently, though based on the more recent sequel. They are good, but I get the most entertainment out of the one for the Wii because it has several different mini games with it that just make it feel more like a Tron game.
I always wanted to try discs of Tron in the arcade but never had a chance to see one
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries From what I remember it was a huge screen and had speakers on the inside where you sit. I'm sure you've seen how the cabinet looks. An emulator can't really do it justice, but it's as close as most of us can get.
I've played both games in the arcades during the 80's. I'm pretty sure my 1st time playing Discs of Tron was at an Aladdin's Castle.
Ahhhh Aladdin's Castle, What fond memories I have of that place
My first play of Tron was at a convenience store. My first play of Discs of Tron was at a place in a local mall called 'The Yogurt Shop' which basically was an arcade that sold Frozen Yogurt back then. This is where I also first played Super Mario Bros in a sit-down head-to-head Vs. cabinet.
I absolutely love the movie and arcade game! it is a One of a kind arcade machine because it does stands
It sure does, thanks
the TRON cabinet is one of the most awesome looking cabinets of all time. the game was good i liked it, but DISCS OF TRON was one of my favorite games of all time. i use to play it ALL the time at the laundromat by my house when i was a kid.
The cabinet is so unique with neon colors. It's really a classic arcade game from top to bottom. Thanks for sharing your story
And 100 years later, the tron world is still waiting for a arcade-quality stand-alone tron tank battle or lightcycle game.
I didn't know Discs of Tron was supposed to be in the original game. Very interesting!
Would be cool to see everything all in one set game
The glowing joystick was just so compelling, I always had to try to play it when I got the chance. Always died really fast though...
"Train him for the games! Let him hope for a while, then blow him away!!" My ALL-TIME favorite movie and games!!
It is definitely a classic
I remember playing this at a few local convenience stores and arcades back in the day, following that, when we visited Disneyland in 1986, I was pleasantly surprised to see dozens of these cabinets all in one location. I wonder if Disney ever sold these cabinets to the General Public or Collectors, though. I'm thinking they likely destroyed them. Sad.
That sounds awesome. It would be terrible if they destroyed all those cabinets
TRON is still my favorite Disney franchise. There was a full Discs of TRON cabinet in a small arcade my father and I frequented in the 80s. I was much better at that than the first game. I still have a fully-functioning handheld TRON game as well. At nearly 50, I still dream at night of arcades loaded with these machines.
If you ever get to galloping ghost in Chicago they have a full-size discs of Tron
As a kid I played this in England while my family was stationed in England. I had no idea how to play it. I just loved the bright blue joystick.
That cabinet was a work of art and the neon colors really brought you in
For me as a kid in the early 90's and practically living in the arcade i always remember being creeped out by the Tron cabinet. It was in the back by tje bathroom and no one ever played it. I don't know why but it always gave me the willies. Lol
The only place I saw Discs of Tron was at Disneyland at the arcade by Space Mountain. I played it every time I went there.
That's cool, I never saw one in person but I would love to
My arcade, the Gold Mine in Michigan City, had a full size EDOT. I pretty much lived in there from 1983-1986...
I was 10 when it came out in the movies loved it along with all the Tron related games
We must be pretty close in age. :-)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries 48
I was 11 just about 12.
My orthodontist had a tron arcade table until he replaced it with Sega Saturn stations.
While I enjoyed the newer consoles, it's amazing how I still missed classic Tron. Awesome game; awesome movie.
That is really cool, I would have loved that… Heck I would love that even now :-)
I collect arcade games and happen to have two full size Disc of Tron cabinets. 600lbs each, they are a beast.
Wow that's incredible. I always wanted to try a full-size upright
I really hate being "that guy", but feel there needs to be some clarifications on your history:
1. You mentioned Bally was known for Satan's Hollow as a reason Disney reached out to them, but Tron and Satan's Hollow are both MCR II systems and were released the same year (1982) so they couldn't have been know for that game.
2. At 3:30 you're showing a custom upgrade to Tron someone did using the original program with HD graphical updates
3. They weren't neon colors. They're blacklight fluorescent tubes against blacklight sensitive colors (I know I'm splitting hairs)
4. Arkanoid came out in 1986, 4 years after Tron's use of the spinner. A more accurate example should have been Warlords (1980) or Tempest (1981)
5. The World of Long Plays is cheat enabled and gives a false impression of the gameplay (especially in the light cycle game where your player ran through the opponents' walls)
6. At 6:18, the game wasn't "straight out of the move". The game they played on discs was a jai-alai style game and not discs thrown.
Don't get me wrong, a fun listen. Just needed a few tweaks in the facts
I didn't say Disney came to them because of Satan's hollow, it was just an example of a game the company had done.
Wasn't aware I used the HD graphics update. Sorry about that
Thanks for clarifying about the neon colors
Arkanoid was just an example, I was awarE it Wasn't released until 1986
sorry about the false impression of the lifecycles
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Fair enough. I know my comment probably came off as pissy or as a know-it-all, apologies if I did.
@@curtis3948 No, it's all good. Thanks for the tips
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries If it's a problem with the neon, I could have my neon guy look at it.
A bit of trivia that I remember from an old gaming magazine was that Disney was undecided as to what colors to assign the good guys and bad guys. Apparently, Bally Midway just went ahead and went with red for bad and blue for good and Disney stuck with it.
An interesting thing with the Discs of Tron arcade game was that you leaned against the back wall and sort of sat on a small angled "seat" that protruded from the wall while playing. I am not sure how many of those original machines still exist as later cabinets were without the enclosure.
Even though the "Programs" were wearing blue, they used yellow and red light cycles, while the blue light cycles were the adversaries in the movie. However, you use a blue light cycle in the game.
To be fair, I'd have played Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman is awesome in everything.
This cabinet was always my favourite in the arcade. Making use of analog anything was enough to stop a game being just like every other at this time. The stylistic neon was truly eye catching at this time too.
Dustin Hoffman is really good. The cabinet really brought out the movies aesthetics
6:03 disc of tron: black light, super-stereo-sound and and and, this was a dream of...unique & this fantastic music.
Absolutely