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Wow. What a pleasant surprise! You wouldn't expect a game created after a movie series to be halfway tolerable, much less good, but Fox has done more than that. Die Hard Trilogy is better than good, and to top it off, three games are playable inside this game. From what I can tell, the themes of each of the three games follows that of the Die Hard movies, but have been altered a bit to become a playable game. The player has the choice of Die Hard, Die Harder, and Die Hard with a Vengeance. The first of the three is a shooter, with the player having an "over the shoulder/above" view of the action. You control McClane and each level requires you to kill off the posing terrorists and disable the bomb that threatens the skyscraper. Once this is accomplished, you move on to the next level, seeing as though you get to the explosives in time. It can truly get exciting during your mission to locate the ticking bombs. The graphics are polygons (in all three games), and they do appear to have a noticeable amount of flicker, especially the characters. This isn't something to get overly upset about, due to the involving action. There isn't much strategy in this one, but the play control is responsive and the challenge is just enough to keep you coming back for more. If this game were left by itself, without the other two, it would still feel complete, I feel. Not bad. The second of the three games, Die Harder, turns out to be a shooter similar to Virtua Cop. With this game, you have the choice of using the regular controller, mouse, or gun. I'd imagine that the mouse or gun would make things much easier (I don't have access to either of these), but as it is, the controller gets the job done, although it is a fair challenge. Die Harder pits you against, again, a large number of terrorists, and your ultimate goal is to bring down their escape plane. This goal really has nothing to do with the game play itself, but indeed, it's better than no plot at all. Again, there is some flicker in this game, and with lots of things moving around the screen at once, it can be difficult to see who you should and shouldn't shoot. Civilians and hostages are running rampant around the airport, and who's to blame them -- there's gunfire! Learning to kill the terrorists around them can prove to be a difficult feat, as any fan of these types of games may know. The camera scrolls on a set path around the level, with enemies and power-ups appearing in various locations. Like the first of the three games, this one isn't all that bad of a game, however, I don't feel that this one offers enough to allow it to stand on it's own. The third of the three games is a racing game. Bombs are scattered around the city, and it's your job to disable them by crashing into them with your vehicle. Don't ask me how this works (running into a bomb to deactivate it?), but it works, and that's the only way you can survive. This isn't easy, however. Not only are bombs setting still, but some are inside other cars, which, not surprisingly, are giving everything they've got to outrun you. When this happens, a "energy" meter appears at the bottom of the screen, indicating the amount of damage the "bomb car" will take before exploding. You don't lose any lives in the explosion, as long as you're the one that caused the bomb to detonate. If the bomb explodes due to the fact that it's ticker dropped to "0," then you're guaranteed to become a bit overcooked. Like I said, I fail to understand Fox's reasoning behind the way this game works, but it's still fun. Later in the game you may find yourself in pursuit of a hot dog vehicle through a park! Watch out pedestrians! Each of these three games begins and ends with a cool cinema, which, amazingly, appear to be true-to-life, despite the fact that they're made completely of polygons. I've never seen polygons this realistic! Picture this: A limo pulls up to a building with a soft, orange sunset in the distance. As the camera zooms down for a curb-side view, a door to the limo opens and you here the familiar tones, indicating that the key is still in the ignition. As mentioned, this is as realistic as it can get, and the ending cinemas (showing planes exploding into millions of tiny pieces or the building collapsing in the first game) are intense enough to make you think that they are indeed, real footage. The camera even jiggles with the explosion. In addition, the music of the three games is quite good, although the voices can become redundant and annoying after a bit. Can't win 'em all, I suppose. While none of the three games are revolutionary, nor offer anything that we haven't seen before, each are solid games. The three together allow you to quickly switch to another when you've become tired of one. You should at least check into renting Die Hard Trilogy. |
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