Developer: Pack-In-Video Publisher: Activision Released: 1992 Genre: Action Platform: NES
Licensed video games during the 8-bit era were especially bad. For every DuckTales or Mission Impossible there were countless pieces of tosh like Rambo or Back to the Future. I recognized this early on yet for some reason I held out hope that each one would be good. Marvel’s X-Men is the game that finally broke me but that is a story for another day. Die Hard finds itself in a weird space. Unlike the majority of its licensed brethren it adheres to its source material faithfully and even tries to be more than just a plain overhead shooter. Unfortunately it fails in the attempt no matter its good intentions.
I will give Die Hard credit for its structure. The game follows the plot of the movie slavishly. As John McClane you have free reign of the upper floors of Nakatomi Plaza. The end goal is to reach Hans before his thugs can unlock the vault and get away. How you go about doing so is largely up to you. The game is incredibly free form; maybe too much so. It does little to guide you unfortunately and as a result can be frustrating. But for those that stick with it there are as many as seven endings depending on your actions. That is a lot of incentive for replay value. I would even say Die Hard is intended to be played multiple times. But I doubt many will due to its various flaws.
I’ve mentioned the game has flaws but it does have its good points. Die Hard goes out of its way to adhere to the film. Aside from your life bar there is a separate foot meter. Running excessively or stepping on broken glass will deplete it, at which point you move slower. Med kits will heal your feet and get you back in the game. Crooks will drop radios that you can use to spy on Hans’s communications to somewhat guide you around. Like the movie there are a limited number of guards and the game keeps track. Some actively follow you from floor to floor while others lie in wait. As you kill more men the difference is notable as the floors will remain empty.
The end goal is to reach Floor 30 where Hans awaits. This can be done in a number of ways. Taking control of the express elevator before the hackers and destroying the computer will buy time and unlock the 30th floor later. The window for this is short however. Or you can wait until all the locks on the vault are opened at which point the 30th floor becomes available. It is ill-advised however as all the remaining men will converge on that spot. You can even suicide off the top of the building if you like! Everything I’ve just described sounds incredibly cool but to experience it all is an exercise in frustration.
The controls are functional but not great. John McClane can only move in the four cardinal directions and the game desperately needs 8-way movement. Enemies have no such limitation and are aggressive as hell. Not only that, they all have machine guns that fire in a wide arc that is hard to dodge. You’ll waste countless bullets trying out a single grunt. And if you run out of ammo forget it; you’ll never survive long enough to reach melee range. Once the feet meter depletes walking becomes a chore. The lackluster controls mar what should have been a decent adventure but that isn’t even the worst aspect of the game.
Time is the most critical element in the game. As you move about Theo is working on cracking each of the six locks on the vault. Each lock has a four minute countdown until they are open. Once all six unlock the final countdown begins until Hans gets away. Even moving between floors shaves forty five seconds off the clock. This puts an overall timer on the entire game that forces you to consider every move. It gives the game a sense of urgency but also its most frustrating element.
The problem is the clock moves far too fast. Even though you have free reign you have little time to dawdle. If you move between two floors chances are one of the locks will open seconds later. Because the game gives so little direction ideally you would have some time to stumble about and figure out what you need to do. But the game forces you to stay on the move, for better and worse. Destroying the computer buys time but can only be done once. When you boil it down Die Hard has the trappings of a rogue like dungeon crawler in the sense that when you fail you take what you learned to do better next time. But the aggressive clock really ruins that sense of accomplishment.
In Closing
Die Hard had the makings of a decent licensed shooter. But its execution comes up short. This game is a broken mess that isn’t worth suffering through. Die Hard was made with good intentions at heart but that doesn’t make it worth buying.
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