02/29/00

Die Hard Trilogy 2

Fox Interactive for Playstation

Die Hard Trilogy 2 marked a first in my long history of gaming. While forcing myself to play this absolute dog of a "game," I threw my controller at the ground out of sheer frustration for the first time. Ever. I consider myself a patient gamer. I rarely lose my temper with a game. I play through video games on a daily, weekly, monthly basis for that is the nature of my job. Unfortunately for me, if a game comes my way that I hate to the very marrow of my bones, it is still my job to play it, wretched though it may be. So, whenever I pick up my Dual Shock controller and hear that mysterious rattling noise from within, I am reminded of the awful week I spent playing Die Hard Trilogy 2.

"Gee, Pat" you say, "what’s so bad about the game?" Well, where to begin… once you get past the ridiculous title (what’s next, "Die Hard Trilogy Trilogy"?) the first thing you’re going to be hit with is the absolute mediocrity of the opening cinema and the voice acting. Seriously, this is some crap CG. John McClane has a double chin for the love of God!!! And the kinda-sorta-sounds-like-Bruce-Willis voice actor spews those oh-so-famous lines with as much excitement and flair as I use when asking my wife to "pass the salt, please" at the dinner table. Even worse, McClane pipes up randomly during the actual game with some of the lamest zingers to ever pass the lips of an action movie hero.

So you start playing the game. WATCH in baffled amazement as the walls fade in and out around McClane as you fight the controller to get him to run in a straight line! HEAR yourself scream with frustration as you’re repeatedly killed by bad guys you cannot even see yet because the draw-in is so terribly bad! FEEL the pain I felt after a week of playing this game every single day! SMELL the manure in the cow-filled fields of what has to be the worst driving game engine I have ever witnessed!

Like the original Die Hard Trilogy game, the sequel "features" 3 different game engines. There’s the Godawful Third Person Action EngineÔ , the Worse than First Generation Games Driving EngineÔ , and finally, the best of the three, the Better than the Other Two But Still Awful Shooting EngineÔ . Actually, the light gun game is kinda fun in a twisted way. Since you don’t have to struggle with horrible controls to move around like in the other levels (since you are moved automatically), the only thing you’ll notice is that it’s impossible to tell exactly where your shots hit because instead of a little hit mark you get a giant red circle that appears somewhere around the area of your shot, making pinpoint accuracy a joke, at best.

"So, is there anything at all remotely worthwhile about Die Hard Trilogy 2?" you ask. No. This is probably the worst Playstation game I have ever played, and I’ve played just about all the Playstation games out there in some form or another. Don’t buy this game. Don’t even rent this game. Send the programmers who deserve to lose their jobs for making this game a message. Die Hard the movie did not need sequels and neither did the first Die Hard Trilogy.

Graphics: 1 (There ARE graphics)

Control: 0 (Getting stuck on corners, stairs, walls and other obstacles is not my idea of a good time… unless I’m really drunk)

Sound: 1 ("Yippeekay… aw who am I kidding?")

Replay: 0 (You won’t want to play through it the first time – trust me, it never gets any better.)

Overall: 0.5 out of 10 (It would have gotten a 0 but that would mean there was nothing there at all…)

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