Die Hard

Die Hard is a video game in the action genre developed by Dynamix, Inc. and published by Activision, Inc. originally released in 1989. It is currently playable on DOS.

Die Hard is a fun first-person shooter from Dynamix that broke new ground in several respects, though apparently not enough to attract the attention of most gamers.

The game is based on the hit movie of the same name that launched Bruce Willis to stardom in 1984. The basic story: a New York cop wages a one-man war against bad guys who have kidnapped his wife and co-workers from a Los Angeles skyscraper. The game designers took a similar approach to the Cinemaware of yesteryear: Die Hard is clearly trying to be an interactive movie, using digitized actors, cutscenes and novel camera techniques that create the atmosphere. In this regard, it largely succeeds, although the differences between the digitized characters and the bland polygonal graphics in the background alter the player's suspension of disbelief.

The game even includes an adventure game-style inventory, where you can store the various items and weapons you encounter. The first-person 3D perspective works well, although it is sometimes difficult to gauge the distance between objects, as very few things cast shadows (an aside: Dynamix evidently returned to this combination of digitized actors with polygonal graphics in their much later RPG Betrayal at Krondor).

Overall, Die Hard is a fun and atmospheric shooter that contains more depth than it seems, though its clumsy combination of polygonal graphics with digitized actors creates an inconsistent environment that can't draw the player in as much as Cinemaware's early classics. All in all, a solid game that could be so much more.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.