Games of films inevitably set alarm bells ringing – they have a reputation which simply could not be any more dire. But Tron: Evolution's name alone should be enough to reassure fans of the forward-looking 80s celluloid classic.

The forthcoming film sequel is called Tron: Legacy, and with this game, Disney Interactive has cannily opted to fill in some of the backstory from the period between the two films. So you're there – playing a security program made by Kevin Flynn – when the corrupt Basic CLU makes his first bid to wage war against the ISOs, the recently introduced sentient programs. As ever, it's up to you to save the world.

In terms of look and feel, Tron: Evolution is absolutely spot-on. Your character has the requisite black shiny suit and helmet with neon flashes, and there are plenty of light-cycle-riding sequences. The entire game is restricted to a palette of black and silver with green, blue and orange neon highlights, which looks very cool. The bulk of the gameplay is fairly reminiscent of the likes of Assassin's Creed: you have an array of parkour moves such as wall-runs, vaults and a magnetic grapple – often assisted by the environment (there are specific vault points and delineated areas along which you can wall-run). Combat features heavily: you're equipped with a light-disk which you can throw at enemies or hold in order to hit them with melee attacks. There are countless combo moves, and as you progress, you can upgrade combat abilities with bombs and so forth.

The combat proves surprisingly tactical – you have to nail the correct attacks according to what class of enemy you encounter, and you must vault over rechargeable stations to power up your disk, and wall-run over energy areas to regain health. This clever mechanic, plus the fact that you constantly level up so have a big say in how you upgrade yourself, keeps the combat fresh throughout.

The light-cycle sequences are fairly basic, although they require a lot of precision – luckily, they are heavily checkpointed. If you play the game on a PlayStation 3, you can use a Move to control your light-cycle, wielding it as if it was a set of handlebars, which is a tad gimmicky.

Tron: Evolution has another clever innovation. It's designed to be as mass-market as possible (fear not gamers, it's quite challenging as long as you don't opt for the Casual difficulty mode), yet contains a multiplayer element, which is something non-gamers find scary. It includes Game Grid sequences, in which you essentially experience the multiplayer aspect, but against AI-controlled bots, which are replaced by real human opposition as you make progress.

Given the prevailing opinion about games of films, Disney Interactive has to be applauded for sidestepping all the traps that you might have expected it to fall into with Tron: Evolution. It manages a pretty impressive balancing act: non-gamers obsessed with Tron will love its ambience and authenticity, and may even discover they like games more than they thought. Yet it contains enough clever ideas, and is well-enough structured, to keep hardcore gamers interested, particularly given that it takes place in that seductive Tron universe. Any more efforts like this, and we'll have to stop habitually sneering at games of films.