Dan Geeks Out: Video Game Review #366: Die Hard

Die Hard

TurboGrafx-16

Nostalgia Factor:

Mop Up Duty for the year 1990 wraps up with my review of Die Hard for the TurboGrafx-16. I originally had no intentions of playing this (I was going to go with Star Tropics instead), but when I saw screenshots of how interesting this game looked, I knew I had to check it out. Since I’ve never played this game before, I don’t have much else to add as far as nostalgia goes. Let’s move onto the review!

Story:

This is one of those movie adaptations that only loosely follows the plot of the film. In this game, John McClane, who is apparently just chilling in a park, hears that Nakatomi Plaza is under siege by terorrists. Not only is the building itself taken over, the whole surrounding area is too. He decides to spring into action and take out these terrorists himself. To do so, he has to clear the park of terrorists, cross some swampy terrain outside the building, enter the building, and make his way up to the top – where he must kill the terrorist leader before he can escape in a helicopter.

Gameplay:

Just looking at screenshots of this game, I expected it to be similar to other shooters of this era such as Gun.smoke or Rambo: First Blood Part II – two games I recently reviewed. While they share some similarities, they are quite different.

While the purpose of those games is to simply start at the bottom of the screen and make your way to the top while shooting enemies, Die Hard takes a slightly different approach. Many of these stages are maze-like in their design. You’re not just going up, you’re going left, right, down, and up again – trying to find your way through to the end of each stage. This isn’t a game I would consider “bullet hell” either. It’s slow moving. You can take your time. John McClane can also jump, which makes it much easier to avoid enemy fire.

There are several different weapon upgrades you can pick up as you play. I liked the machine gun and the rocket launcher thing. The rocket launcher was especially useful due to its blast radius. All I did was walk forward while firing a shot off every few seconds, and it would often kill most of my enemies before they even had a chance to react.

Honestly, I don’t have much to write about this game’s gameplay. It’s a top down shooter where you walk around each stage, shooting enemies and occasionally fighting a boss. There are some environmental hazards like sinkholes and pits to jump over, but I don’t feel like those are anything groundbreaking.

This is just a really fun, fairly easy game that I was able to beat on my first attempt (although I ran out of ammunition during the final helicopter battle and let me tell you THAT was a pain in the behind). I enjoyed this game so much that I actually fired it up a day later and played through the whole thing again. That’s not something I do very often!

Graphics:

I was immediately drawn to this game's graphical style. In fact, just seeing one screenshot of this game was enough to pique my interest and make me want to check it out. The graphics are bright and colorful. The sprite characters are large and detailed. The levels have their own unique looks to them. The only thing I didn't care for were the levels where your view was obstructed by the mesh/fencing as you are looking down on the action. That's really annoying.

Sound:

This game has a pretty good soundtrack. I was vibing with it as I made my way through this game. There's not any one track in particular that stood out to me now that I am done with the game, but overall I can say I enjoyed how everything sounds. I guess the one standout would be the little jingle that plays whenever you finish a stage. I like that.

Overall:

This game was such a pleasant surprise. I had never even heard of the game before, which usually doesn't bode well for it. But when I did a little digging, I found out that this game was only released in Japan, not in the United States. That explains why I had never heard of it. Not because the game was bad, but simply because it was never released over here.

I prefer this title over other similar "bullet hell" type shooters - simply because of its slower pace that lends itself more to strategic thinking than to knee jerk reflexes. I'm not going to lie - I would never consider Die Hard an all-time classic or anything like that. It's definitely not going to be remembered by basically anyone in the long run. But you know what? I don't care.

I play games for fun, and to have a good time. Die Hard definitely brings the fun. No, it won't go down as an all-time great (not even close), but it succeeds at what it tries to do - to give the player a fun time. Definitely a pleasant surprise, and definitely something I'd recommend to anyone interested.

THE GRADE:

40th Birthday Mop Up Duty Celebration Tour:

1982 reviews:

1983:

1984:

Frogger II: Threedeep!