Space Paranoids never appeared in arcades and never really existed, but now you can play the classic Tron videogame online.
The fictional company Encom launched a browser-based version of Space Paranoids Thursday that is free to play (no quarters required).
Space Paranoids is the fictional videogame created by master programmer Kevin Flynn in the 1982 movie Tron. The slick new browser game, a promotional piece for the forthcoming movie Tron Legacy, was announced at a fake press conference at WonderCon in San Francisco last month.
Despite being an ad, Space Paranoids does a remarkable job of re-creating the look and feel of the phony game we saw in the old Disney movie. It's no push-over either: The game's Recognizers seem like softies at first, but they'll off you if you try to drive under them. And the limited ammo in your tank makes it easy to get cornered with no firepower.
The game has 15 sectors, each of increasing difficulty. I'd be very surprised if there's not some sort or reward or viral marketing rabbit hole that becomes revealed upon beating the high score.
Tron Legacy hits theaters in December.
Update: As expected, Firstshowing.net has discovered that surviving the game gives the user access to a cache of new images of the vehicles from Tron Legacy.
Image courtesy Encom
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