3 sloppy games for the price of one.
The first generation of 3D games haven't
aged very well, but curiously enough, there's a
couple of licensed PS1 games that tend to get brought up quite often, the Die Hard Trilogy duology. For reasons known only to me(faulty disc) I'll be taking a look at Die Hard Trilogy 2 first, the one I used to play on PC when I was younger, can't say I have many memories about it, but I can say one thing.... it hasn't aged very well.
Die Hard Trilogy 2 is
three games in one: A third person arcade shooter, a on-rails first person shooter and a driving game. There're three modes of play: Practice, in which you play a tutorial level for each mode to let you get a
feel of what you'll be doing, Arcade, in which you play every stage in whichever mode you pick, and,
lastly, Movie mode, which has you playing a mix of stages from all three modes, tied together by cutscenes telling a completely original, and
not very good, Die Hard story. In my humble opinion, it's a decent array of modes and content, with bonus unlockable levels lying within.
I bet the game is sounding pretty good right up to here, and,
sadly, something's got to give: The game has aged as gracefully as a 20 year old grape. Let's start with the best, the on-rails shooter is actually pretty decent, and it's
probably loads of fun if you'v got a lightgun joystick. If you don't... oh, boy, get ready to grapple with the analog's sensitivity as you try to hit every incoming enemy, while avoiding hostages. That said, the game covers most of the basics, you have unlimited gun bullets, but can get other weapons by shooting at them, you can also shoot at health kits to recover your health. Sometimes, you'll also have to shoot projectiles, such as missiles or knives, in order to avoid incoming damage. Basically, it can be fun, but the dual shock isn't the ideal way to play the game.
The driving stages are a bit
interesting because there're many different objectives. Ram into an enemy until you defeat it, outrun a truck, get to a door before it closes, get bombs back to safety detonation zones while avoiding crashes. All of this
while collecting nitro power ups or time extensions. Sadly, the controls aren't up to snuff, if you hit a wall, driving in reverse is very stiff and clunky. As a matter of fact, there's a certain slopiness to how movement in this mode feels. It's easy to accidentally overshoot your target, or trying to collect stuff, such as bombs, can be an exercise in frustration since the car's movement isn't smooth enough. All in all, these stages are great on
paper, but the execution isn't up to snuff.
The third person shooter mode is where most work went into, and the one that
suffered the most. These stages feature various objectives, such as rescuing X amount of workers, getting to a certain place, finding keys in order to open up doors, etc. McClane can carry one extra weapon besides his unlimited ammo gun, with weapons such as sub machine guns or the
world's weakest shotgun. Where this mode falters is in how stiff John moves. R1 and L1 are used to strafe while walking, which doesn't work very well in this game, while if you hold the Square you can run-strafe left or right, provided John doesn't come across an edge or a bump on the road, which will make him unable to move any more.
It's horrible. Moving around environments feels very stiff, even if you don't take into account how bad the strafing is, tank controls don't help in an arcade shooter. The cherry on top is that most of the time it feels like you can't avoid taking damage, so these stages are unfairly hard because of that. Honestly, if it weren't for the stiff controls this mode
could've been a blast.
The silver lining in this... is that Die Hard Trilogy 2 can be
sorta fun despite how badly it has aged. The lows certainly outnumber the highs, but I'd lie if I said the game was completely horrible.
But I don't think those highs are worth wrestling the joystick for. It's easy to see why people have fond memories of the game, because everything sounds great, on paper, but the execution is so clunky due to poor controls that it ends up falling short of what it could've been.
4.5 out of 10
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