Die Hard is an action adventure game that was released in the late eighties. It was made for the Commodore 64, but was quickly ported to other formats. Dynamix was the game’s developer, and it was published by Activision, shortly after the release of the hit movie starring Bruce Willis, which inspired the game’s plot and action. Die Hard, the video game, is a fully licensed title, so many of the characters and settings will be familiar to fans of the movie series.
The game alternates between the third and first person perspectives, depending on the action of the game.
The premise of the game sees the main character’s wife at a large high rise plaza in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, on the thirtieth floor of said building, a group of terrorists have discovered a safe that they would like to break into. They have taken a large group of people as hostages to buy themselves some time and hold off the authorities while their hacker works on breaking into the safe. The protagonist’s wife is among those who were taken. When he goes to visit her over his noon hour, he realizes the gravity of the situation and takes matters into his own hands.
Armed,
at first, with only a pistol, John McClane will enter the building and will have to fight his way through terrorists and ascend the building in order to find and rescue his wife. There are numerous terrorists on each floor of the building, and McClane will have to clear each level of baddies, and then determine how to advance. There are stairways, elevators, and also a ventilation system that can all be used to navigate the levels. As McClane advances up levels, he will access bigger and badder weaponry, and will also have to keep an eye out for soda cans that will refill his health. These can be found in empty rooms, in snack machines (which can be destroyed to reach the power ups) and are sometimes dropped by eliminated enemies.
The final note on the game is the timer. About every four minutes, the terrorist hacker gets one cog closer to opening the vault. Once they have the contents, the terrorists can exterminate the hostages and flee. McClane, therefore, has to use speed as well as stealth to reach the top of the skyscraper.
This is a fun first person shooter that does a nice job of reflecting the mood and theme of the movie upon which it was based. It is fast-paced and intriguing, and should provide a nice play for the FPS fan.
