Tal has been playing video games from the earliest days of action-oriented pixels and he even held a job at Atari, the legendary games company, many moons ago.  He is now a tools programmer at a major auction website, but he spends a lot of his free time on the Xbox 360.  This week the San Jose resident, also known as FunkDog, was the top achievement dog on Discs of Tron.  He also mastered the previous Tron XBLA release.

Discs of Tron © Tron

Are you a fan of Tron games, or is this the first time you've played?

I've been a fan of the Tron games since they came out in the arcades back in the 80s.  I was never very good at Discs of Tron growing up, but on the original Tron machine I could crack 2 million over a couple of hours.  A friend of mine (Gamertag: El Gato Grande) has a mini arcade in his place with both full size Discs of Tron and Tron arcade machines.  During that time we watched the movie Tron at least once a day.  Between the two of us we can recite the entire movie from memory.  I don't know what's wrong with us.

Did you go out of your way to get the achievements, or did they just unfold through gameplay?

Most of the achievements unfolded naturally, but there were a couple that were a pain that I went out of my way for.  On the original Tron it took me about two and a half hours to finally destroy all the grid bugs on level 1 for the Exterminator achievement.  On DOT I had to slow down my play and try to milk all of the early levels for as many points as I could get for the Immortal achievement.

Do you have any Tron tips for other players?

Discs of Tron is a little different in the fact that you only need to master one style of game, as opposed to four in the original Tron.  The biggest thing that helped me was getting used to figuring out where Sark's shots are going to go when he throws them off the side walls.  If you can quickly figure that out and move to a safe area on the playfield, you can immediately start planning your round of shots without worrying about getting hit.  Also, don't forget that you can actually shoot 360 degrees around you.  If you're getting chased by a couple of chasers, always remember that you can aim behind you to take them out.  One last tip is for when you get to the levels where your shots can bounce off the ceiling and strike the rings on the ground on Sark's side.  Try and take out one or two of Sark's rings so he is isolated on the remaining third ring.  It's much easier to take him out when he's restricted to one ring as opposed to all three.

Do you have a nemesis on Xbox Live?

Gamertag: Nytelordz is a friend of mine that I used to work with back at Atari in the early 90s.  If it's possible, he's an even bigger Tron fan than me or El Gato Grande.  Like the Tron movie, he refers to himself as a program named JSON.  If you don't believe me, check out his bio on his gamertag profile at Xbox.com.  Unfortunately for him, when it comes to video games, he *thinks* he's the Master Control Program.  In reality he's little more than a compound interest program scheduled for immediate de-resolution.  All Tron humor aside, we go back and forth a lot on the Friends Leaderboards on a lot of the retro arcade games in XBLA.

Do you usually pursue achievements?

Yeah, achievements are like a drug.  Why play a game on another console if it doesn't have achievements?  I think the different styles of achievements out there are pretty interesting as well.  They'll keep you coming back to games a long time after your initial fascination with a game has worn off.  I still play Bejeweled 2 and Quake 4 once and a while, and every couple months I'll unlock something new.  Also, few things are more satisfying in gaming than unlocking an achievement you've been going after for a long time.