Is Die Hard Trilogy a Christmas game?
This is not a trick question. The answer is yes; yes it is
I don’t want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
Published by Fox Interactive
It’s called Die Hard Trilogy
Devel-oped in Croy-don by Probe
All three Die Hards play-a-ble
Make my wish come true
This or Die Hard Tril-o-gy… 2
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AND OUR WOOOORRRRRRRLLLLLDD OF PLEEEEENTYYYYYYYY- (ahem) sorry, you’ve caught me in a Christmassy mood, Nauties. Why? Because, let’s face it! It’s basically Christmas Day! And there’s nothing more redolent of Joyeux Noel (Edmonds) than a tedious resurrection of the beyond-boring argument about whether or not seminal tall building video “Die Hard” is or isn’t a Christmas Movie. Here’s the answer: I don’t care, shut up, say something of interest. As a conversation this is down there with “best James Bond” as a perennial BORE OF BORES, so stop it forever. Cheers.
Die Hard Trilogy, though, did you ever play that? It’s quite likely that you did if you were alive at the time, because it sold very well and was on all the CD formats – PlayStation, Saturn and PC for those who were, indeed, still dead. The next question on your lips, naturally, is “Stu! How did they do one game of three movies? Why, such a thing is surely impossible!” No! Wrong! Wrong again, you stupid idiot! It’s very possible and they did it very well indeed!
The original Die Hard is the first game in the package – a bold choice, let’s see if it pays off for them. It’s a third-person sort of top-down sort of Tomb Raider-y sort of Take No Prisoners thingy where you take control of that big softy John McClane and traipse around Nakatomi Plaza rescuing hostages and absolutely annihilating every terrorist you stumble across on the way. It’s simple, but great fun to spam the “kill everybody” button and riddle the bad’uns with bullets, exploring every room in every floor to collect items, weapons and armour as well as rescue everybody.
The second movie (checks notes) Die Hard 2 is adapted into a light-gun shooter, though annoyingly it’s one of the few PlayStation games in the genre that can’t be play with any kind of GunCon. It’s brilliant fun though, with almost everything in the game being shootable and a nice line in absolute absurdity; blasting entire skeletons out of people with a rocket launcher quite categorically never gets old. It’s much better than the boring movie, at any rate.
Finally, the very sensibly-named third flick, Die Hard With a Vengeance, is a mad sort of Crazy Taxi-before-Crazy Taxi that see Mr McClane and his fun new sidekick Zeus launching around New York in a series of different vehicles in order to locate a number of bombs that have been placed by a vengeful Simon Gruber, in character as the evil Jeremy Irons.
And it’s all really good, honest! All three games benefit from the sense that they were being developed by the skin of their teeth with next to no supervision from the publisher, which they were. Freewheeling and absolutely insane, they’re full of bonkers ideas, arcadey touches that absolutely no official movie license would be even remotely allowed to do these days, such as a cheat code that transforms everyone and everything into Probe founder Fergus McGovern (R.I.P, gone way too soon). Die Hard Trilogy is brilliant fun and generally not too expensive, so I implore you give it a go as part of your seasonal gaming. Oh yeah, Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas. Erm, that’s good too! Alright! I’m finished now, bye! (Please do not end your blogs with ‘I’m finished now, bye’ – Ed)
