After completing the reviews for the original Die Hard trilogy of films, I thought there wouldn’t be a better time than now to also review the game “Die Hard Trilogy”! It was the big game I wanted for Christmas 1996 and boy I wasn’t disappointed; the game is split into three game types, one for each film, and I LOVED the Die Hard 3rd Person shooter, liked the Die Hard 2 light gun game (especially as I actually had a PS1 light gun at the time) and was… indifferent to the driving game for “with a Vengeance”. Having these three games on one disc was crazy at the time and a great Christmas was had, but what it’s like to play now? The answer may surprise you! … Or probably not.
Background:
“NYPD! Hey, this ain’t even my jurisdiction!”
Die Hard Trilogy was released for the PlayStation 1 on September 18th 1996 in the US and December 6th that same year for PAL territories, just in time for Christmas! Sega Saturn and PC ports were released the following year on January 21st 1997 in the US and February 28th 97 in Europe.
I guess the fact it’s a licensed property is the reason its never been ported or remastered, which is a shame. It also has to be stated that the Die Hard 2 light gun segment was only compatible with some light guns, not all. I guess I was lucky!
Gameplay:
If you think John McClane’s body count is high in the film, just wait until you play the game!
As mentioned this is three games in one, so I’ll just talk about each one in order! Die Hard is a third person shooter, with the objective being to rescue all the hostages and kill all the terrorists on each floor of the building, with a couple of special stages on the roof where you can save a whole crowd of hostages at once. When you clear a floor a bomb appears in a lift and you have 20 or so seconds to make it to the lift or the floor explodes and you die (possible hard, I’m not sure what that means honestly) The stages are full of destructible glass, temporary under construction wall panels that can collapse onto enemies and exploding cars and the like, generally walking around the Nakatomi Plaza and shooting terrorists with a variety of weapons / blowing them up with a grenade or two is good fun. The radar at the bottom left of the screen is key though, not just for spotting enemies and hostages but for shooting the former while they’re off-screen is extremely helpful. There are little indicators when an enemy is targeting you showing you where they are with a circular picture and an arrow that helps as well.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph this was made before analogue sticks, yet this game is clearly designed to be able to quickly point McClane in a direction and fire, something tricky to get right with just a d-pad. At the time? I didn’t know any better and quickly became really good at the game and replayed this chunk of the disc countless times (at least until Goldeneye became the new game to play around on after having watched some sort of action movie) but now it’s really fiddly and just not natural at all. The shoulder buttons allowing McClane to side-step or roll (for L/R1 and L/R2 respectively) helps and it didn’t take too long to get back into the rhythm, but it would be great if it got an update to give it duel analogue control. Still a good laugh though, especially the death animations and voice samples.
There is quite an impressive amount of destructible environments in the airport areas of Die Hard 2, to be fair.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder is a light gun shooter, so you automatically move around the level and its your job to shoot the terrorists as they pop out from behind objects with your light gun. Don’t have a light gun? Well, then you’re kind of buggered as moving the crosshair on screen with a d-pad is slow and not very accurate… again, if it was made with analogue in mind it would at least be quicker and more responsive/accurate, but the way it is means this was a painful experience to return to (as unsurprisingly I don’t have a light gun for my PC or a TV to hook my original PS1 up to…) If you can get this working with a light gun (or play the PC version and use a mouse) it’s a fun example of the Virtua Cop / Time Crisis style shooter.
Couldn’t they at least have put like a clock floating on the road? Neither makes sense but just seeing the word “Time” for a time extension pick up seems lazy…
Die Hard with a Vengeance then is a strange one. Each level you drive a different vehicle (cop car, taxi, dump truck, all vehicles from the movie, to be fair) and you have to drive around the city and defuse bombs (by driving into them…) within a strict time limit, though the limit can be extended by driving over clocks floating mysteriously on the road. It leads to a final boss fight with Simon in his helicopter but unlike the film you have to drive over rocket ramps and ram the chopper with your car a couple of times, it’s very weird… As mentioned this was my least favourite third of the game (probably because it didn’t involve shooting anyone, though going into first person driving and seeing blood splat on the windscreen as you hit pedestrians was funny to this 12 year old, to be fair…) but due to the driving controls being “fine” for a d-pad it actually controls the best of the bunch now. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t super-smooth obviously and I still prefer playing Die Hard 1, but I was at least able to get properly into it this time and unlike my memory of the time it’s not too hard (I was obviously just not very good at it because I wasn’t very invested…)
So overall the package was amazing at the time, but like so many early 3D games, time hasn’t been kind to it, and I don’t mean the obviously outdated graphics, I mean just controls. It released in that awkward time when the N64 showed the world how to do 3D movement in games via an analogue stick and the PS1 hadn’t copied it yet, and it shows. The Die Hard 1 segment is still the best though, it didn’t take too long to get back into the swing, and it was still a good laugh.
Graphics and Sound:
Well… the stained-glass windows look nice, and the fire isn’t … too bad!
The graphics even at the time were a little janky looking but given there were so many people / things on screen I didn’t care, and honestly they’re still fine today in an unintentionally funny way, especially Die Hard and their weird death animations.
Sound is good, well the soundtrack is really good actually, a few tunes I could listen to outside of the game (and did!) but the voice actor they got to impersonate Bruce Willis is, um, a bit off. I mean me and my friends would quote him all the time to make each other laugh, but that’s not really what they were going for… Other voices like screams and terrorist quotes and stuff are comical as well, but I think at least that was intentional and adds to the fun of the simplified visuals.
Story:
Well, although it’s obviously changed to fit the three distinct game styles, the plots are essentially the same as the three movies, so if you want a more in depth look at them you can read my reviews of Die Hard, Die Hard 2: Die Harder and Die Hard with a Vengeance by clicking on them!
Thoughts Then:
Ah, the simple beat matching a clock ticking sound telling you to get the hell out of the level… The good kind of nostalgia!
As mentioned this game made my Christmas in 1996, I was so excited to play a 3D game that was “like an action movie”, especially the first film’s adaptation. I was 12 so just that right age to be exploring over-the-top 80s and 90s action films and thinking they’re the greatest things ever, so this game released at exactly the right time. Sure I didn’t really enjoy the third part all that much (even though I loved the film) but I loved the other two enough to make it an easy five.
Thoughts Now:
If nothing else I can add the third part of this game to the list of “games I never beat at the time but now have” anyway!
As with a lot of games from the early PS1 era Die Hard Trilogy does show its age nowadays, and not just graphically but in controls. Die Hard while still fun once you give yourself time to get used to it again is awkward to swing the camera around with just the d-pad, Die Hard 2 is neigh-on impossible to aim with just a d-pad and a crosshair, and with a Vengeance still works but it’s like a more limited and visually less interesting Crazy Taxi. While I can still happily waste time running around Nakatomi Plaza I can’t say the game particularly holds up in 2024, but hey, so be it. It more than held up at the time of its release!
Hogan Reviews 