On the Fourth Day of Die Hard, My True Love Gave To Me...

Over the years we saw a number of adaptations of the Die HardThe 1980s were famous for the bombastic action films released during the decade. Featuring big burly men fighting other big burly men, often with more guns, bombs, and explosions than appear in Michael Bay's wildest dreams, the action films of the decade were heavy on spectacle, short on realism. And then came a little film called Die Hard that flipped the entire action genre on its head. films. Generally the developers stuck to one film for their game, looking at how to make Die Hard into a first person shooter or Die Hard 2: Die Harder into an on-rails shooter. Shooting comes up a lot in these games as that’s an obvious mechanic that suits John McClane. He gets dropped into a situation, surrounded by terrorists, and the obvious thing for him to do is pick up a gun and start shooting at the guys that are shooting at him. Whatever else I can bitch about in those games, John shooting at bad guys isn’t one of the things I’ll quibble over).

However, in 1996 Probe entertainment said, “why make one shooting game based on a Die Hard title when we could make three?” This was only a year after Die Hard With a Vengeance had come out, and the time did seem right for a video game adaptation of that film. Probe had the ability to make some kind of game that combined the various sections of that film, from the running around, to the shooting, to the driving, but they decided that because they had the license for Die Hard, all the films out up to that point, they’d do them all.

Die Hard Trilogy, then, is that game, and it boils each title down, effectively, into a single gameplay style. Die Hard becomes a third person shooter, Die Hard 2: Die Harder becomes an on-rails shooter, and Die Hard with a Vengeance becomes a vehicular combat game. Each title sticks to its specific game mode, never straying outside, turning this title into, more or less, a mini-game compilation. It’s just one where each game is at least thirty minutes long (or more, if you’re like me and bad at the game).

We’ll start with Die Hard since I feel like that game actually has the most depth to it. John starts on the first floor, the lobby, of the building, and he has to go around, taking out terrorists as they show up. You’re shown how many terrorists are on the floor, which also tells you exactly how many you still have left to kill. Unlike John in the film, this isn’t a stealth mission; he has to kill everyone, no exceptions, and he goes out of his way to do it. Also, there are hundreds of terrorists this time around, and the game liberally refills stages just to keep the player on their toes. So you run, you gun, and you kill.

There are some twists on the gameplay to keep in mind, though. First, not every target is a terrorist. Alongside the terrorists will be hostages and you’re encouraged, although not required, to avoid shooting them. If you do shoot one you’ll get a point penalty and, well, that’s really it. As this is a kind of arcade-style shooter, your goal isn’t just completing the game but getting a good high score, so avoiding the hostages is probably something you should do. But, again, you don’t have to because aside from points there’s no real penalty for it otherwise.

The other thing to bear in mind is that once every terrorist is killed you have to make your way back to the central elevator as quickly as you can. Once the terrorists are dispatched, a bomb will be placed and if you don’t make it back the bomb detonates and that’s a lost life for John McClane. Lives are important here because John can lose lives and keep going on a stage, with each life being an effective health bar. There’s no pause in the action when you lose life and move on to the next, but you don’t want to run too low because the action will get pretty damn intense as time goes on.

Overall I really liked the Die Hard section of Die Hard Trilogy. It’s fast and action packed with just enough depth and control that I really felt like I was getting the game. It is hard, but not so hard that I ever felt like the game was purposefully trying to screw me over. It is a shooter from 1996 so it’s not perfect; the graphics are chunky and the AI can be pretty brain dead at times. But if you know the kind of game you’re getting, and what it expects of you, it’s reasonable to think you’ll have fun with this experience. Sadly I can’t really say the same for the other two games in this collection.

If the Die Hard section is the best in this trilogy pack, Die Hard 2: Die Harder is the worst. This is a pretty brain dead on-rails shooter that doesn’t really expect much of you at all. You go through sequences of the film, from the airport to the abandoned wing, the tarmac, the church, the snowmobile chace, and the plane attack at the end (although not necessarily in the order they were done in the film), shooting at everything that moves as you make your way along. And then you do it again and again for a bunch of stages until the game blissfully comes to an end.

Because it’s an on-rails shooter there’s very little control over the action of your character. The game moves for you in and around the stages, giving you the preset set-pieces you have to maneuver. Your job is to move your cursor around and kill everything. It’s not hard, by any stretch, but it feels even worse because of that brain dead AI once again. Enemies show up, stand there, and get shot, and it never really feels like the game is truly engaging with you. It’s a lot of sound and fury without much to keep you invested.

And, weirdly, this game doesn’t have a boss fight against the lead terrorists. Hell, neither did the Die Hard section, either, which does feel quite strange. You’re battling your way through these games, trying to foil very specific terrorist situations, so you’d expect there would be real boss fights at the end. But that really isn’t the case for these first two adventures. You may shoot some random “bosses”, blast out some engines on a plane, but it all feels pretty disconnected from the plot of the films these games adapt.

That’s not the case with Die Hard with a Vengeance, although this game is also so ridiculous it makes you wonder why this is the game that tries to adapt its movie the best. Here we have a dri/ving game with our hero, John McClane, taking to the streets, subways, and tunnels of New York to chase down Simon Gruber and his many, many bombs. These bombs can be littered in phone booths around the stages, and they can also be on cars. Naturally, the best way to take these things out is to ram them. Yes, ram them, and everything else, in your taxi.

Why, it’s almost like your taxi is… crazy. I’d say this game was a ripoff of Crazy Taxi except that game came out three years after this one, and also you aren’t ferrying people around to their destinations, just taking out bombs all over the place. And that’s fine. It’s a simple, action packed game that absolutely doesn’t take itself seriously (after the third heli cam showing your taxi flying through the air after hitting a bomb, you know this is ridiculous) and it’s more enjoyable for it.

And then we get to the final boss, Simon Gruber, who tries to escape you in his helicopter. So what do you need to do? Obviously ramp your taxi into the helicopter repeatedly to blow it up. Shooting a car at a helicopter is patently ridiculous… at least until John actually did just that in Live Free or Die Hard nine years later. Okay, and it was super ridiculous there, too. At least Die Hard Trilogy has the grace to know it’s being silly, which is more than I can say for that later film.

The gameplay in Die Hard with a Vengeance is fun, but slight, and you’ll once again feel like you’ve seen and done everything the game has to offer within the first few stages. It’s not a bad time waster, but it does lack depth, making it less fun to play than the Die Hard section. But hey, I’ll give Probe credit: they made one really fun game that could stand on its own almost as a complete package, and they added in two more decent, albeit not always great, titles as well. Even if you didn’t like all three games (like I didn’t), you’d still feel like you got your money’s worth out of the package.

Die Hard Trilogy isn’t perfect, but it is, at times, decently fun. It has highs and lows, but the overall package is pretty solid. It certainly ranks as one of the better Die Hard games, even if that wasn’t exactly a high bar to clear in 1996. And it did well enough that, four years later, Fox commissioned a sequel: Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas. Probe didn’t make that one but, come on, all you gotta do is put shooting, more different shooting, and driving together. How hard could that be? Well, looking at the reviews… pretty bad, actually.