Game Review: 'Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas'

The original Die Hard Trilogy was a great game. Third person shooter for Die Hard, on-rail shooter for Die Hard: Die Harder and Die Hard: With a Vengeance was handled by a driving game. Each one wasn’t exactly huge, but we had three different styles of games. Magic. Then DHT2 came along (yeah, I’m cool; I abbreviate) and did exactly the same, but somehow much worse, and with a crap story; something about terrorists wanting to take over Las Vegas? I’m not saying the DH films had the best story, but it was fun to play as Our John. This isn’t the case for the sequel...

As its split in to three games again, I’ll do a bit for each.

First up will be the on-rails shooter. Now, I don’t have a light gun any more ‘cause I’d feel guilty for cheating on Time Crisis, so I’m left to move a garishly green cross-hair about the screen. The first thing that strikes me (well, second, after “my God, this is awful”) is how the element of surprise is...non-existent. Each terrorist has a giant blue circle on his body. Said blue circle can be seen through walls. Walls. The key component in hiding. The only challenge that I’m left with is to see how fast I can kill the hostages. The box says I can use a PlayStation Mouse instead of a light gun, just in case I really want a boring experience. Honestly, who had a mouse for their PS1? Why would you? What kind of person would give up a gun for a mouse? I’ll tell you. Dicks.
On-rails shooter = naff. Next.

The third person shooter is just terrible. Awful controls which will helpfully guide you into every obstacle that, due to the disappearing syndrome of every wall, spring up out of nowhere for your enjoyment! You can aim in a first person perspective, but there really isn’t any need – you lock on to every target you need dead, and then just hit fire over and over again. Joy. Each level quickly falls into the same boring pattern of ‘Start - Kill bad guy – get key card/pass/key – Use it – Complete level’. Again, I find myself hunting out the hostages and making them pay for being in such a crap game. Seems fair in my eyes, but then again, I had a mouse for my PS1...

Get it?

Third person shooter = naff. Next.

The driving section of the game holds one enjoyable moment, which occurs in the first level, and then the developers thought it’d be a good idea to take it out. That is the enjoyable sound effect of *thud* “Moo!” as you plough into cows. These are, for me, the hostages of this game. The rest of it is pretty pointless; you either have to get from point A to B, or ram into another car 4 times until it stops. When this happens, both your car and the dastardly thief’s jump 20 foot in the air, on the spot, then down again. One question – WHY?! The only real enemy in this game is the timer, so why stop the action, waste 4 valuable seconds and prove nothing?
Driving game = naff.

Overall, I’m glad I didn’t actually buy this game, but whoever bought it for me for one Christmas really shouldn’t have. No...really...

Phil