"How Hard can you Die...Play this game to find out"

A video game based off of the hit action movie Die Hard how bad can that be? Well, I suppose it is time to find out.

Story 7/10

If this game is anything like the movie you, the player, is New York City cop John McClane who is on travel to L.A. to see his ex-wife and kids on the eve of Christmas. When terrorist decide to crash the party at Nakatomi Plaza, which by circumstance, is where the ex-Mrs. McClane happens to hold a position and is currently at. John is the only person in the building who is not a terrorist or a hostage so naturally he has the unlucky job of having to fight off a bunch of terrorists and save the day, or in this case night. As mentioned earlier that is under the assumption that the game is anything like movie. Off hand a very amusing plot, but for some reason it is very easy to predict.

Graphics/Sound 6/10

Let me start off by saying the music is very entertaining it gives that sense of action that personally I found fitting for this kind of game. The sound effects like gun shots and bombs can use a major amount of work. The gun shots sounded more like a figure snapping than anything that I would or could associate to gun shot. Now I know how old the game is, but when I thing of games like Contra it only proves my point with the rather dull sound effects. The graphics are rather decent for its time, so I can let that pass.

Gameplay 5/10

Oh boy I suppose I had to get to this section sooner or later, let me start of, then, by saying this game has some good feature and some bad ones. The basic control layout is very obvious it should take no more than a second to figure it out, but even with that being true it has a few flaws, for example, it can be almost impossible to shoot in the direction you want like diagonal though it can be done. By the way most of the terrorists' gun shots come from the diagonals so many of the enemies if not all will get the spring on you long before you can retaliate. Other issues are things like ammunition is actually an issue in spite of the fact that there is absolutely no indicator of how much ammo you are currently carrying. Every time you get shot you loose items that you have picked up like enemy walkie-talkies and the C4 plastic explosives to top that off you have to pick them up quickly because you they will disappear in a few seconds and not to mention you are in a fire fight. Now I will give the designers credit for blacking out areas that you can not see do to walls it seems to add a strange touch of realism especially in the sense that this is a top looking down view game, but well mannered just the same. Another problem is determining what your suppose to be doing in the first place? The game makes no effort to inform you of this unless you try to put the cut scene like clips into a logical sense, and that is another issue. It is strange that how what seems almost to be every three to seven minutes the game wants to put a strange cut scene in your face that interrupts the gameplay. At this point I am at a lose with the roller coaster of ups and downs that you seem to forget that you are timed. Every time you take en elevator or stares a clock counts down the time you have left. Great just great.

Play Time/ Replayablity 3/10

I suppose if you ever end up on the right track you are in for one long game, and if not then you are in for an even longer game. Honestly how sad is it when a video game needs to leave the player confused to expand the game play time? As for replayablility I would not replay it even if I ever did complete it mainly because the process just is not worth the majority of the effort. Off hand this seems more like a game I would play for a few short minutes of play rather than a few hours.

Overall Score 5/10

Mediocre is the best word to describe this game personally I just can not put it any simpler.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/09/10

Game Release: Die Hard (US, January 1992)