Product Description
-------------------
Ve, baby, Ve! Action game fans will want to gamble on the
latest action-packed installment of the popular Die Hard series.
While the .com editorial team has not yet had a chance to fully
review the much-hyped Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Ve, we're
intrigued by Fox Interactive's promise of varied gameplay and
fast-action fun. Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Ve s to
please with diverse game segments that test your driving,
shooting, or action-adventure gaming skills.
Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Ve also boasts enemies that
respond intelligently to your -and-fire assault. Enemies
retaliate carefully against attacks instead of walking carelessly
into your fire. They also pursue and attack aggressively,
rather than randomly. We're hoping that Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva
Las Ve is worth the gamble.
Review
------
Die Hard Trilogy 2 only seems like an incredibly strange name
for a game until you stop to think about how obvious it is for a
developer to want to make a sequel to one of the best titles to
have appeared on the PlayStation. In it, you're once again placed
in the shoes of Bruce Willis' same-named film character John
McClane as he takes on another group of "terrorists from another
country." How can the same thing happen to the same guy four
times? Bad luck or sequelitis, you decide. As the original was,
DHT2 is three games in one: a third-person shooter, a game,
and an "extreme driving game." This time, however, you can play
through each of these sections separately or through a story
mode, which strings them along in an order somewhat resembling a
plot. In other words, you can play a level and then go to a
driving level before coming back to another level. The
third-person levels follow McClane as he blasts his way through
criminal hordes using machine s, s, and stun s,
saving the occasional hostage along the way. These stages are
very similar to the third-person levels from the first Die Hard
Trilogy, even if they aren't nearly as long or difficult. They
even look much like those stages, albeit strained through
n-Space's Duke Nukem: Time to Kill engine, and you view them from
a perspective slightly closer to the ground. The -game stage
runs along the same lines as before. You're transported through
various environments on rails like those of an amusement-park
ride, and you must shoot terrorists who pop out at you while at
the same time avoid firing on innocents who happen to get in the
way. Instances where enemies appear on site ends of the
screen at once are much more rare in this version, and you seem
to have more time to shoot before being . Graphically, it's a
more cluttered redux of the similar section from the last game.
Since the original came out more than three years ago, it looks
somewhat dated, although not enough to overly impinge on the
gameplay. This stage supports the Konami light well, while
the Con peripheral doesn't seem quite as accurate as it does
in Namco's own titles. The least appealing section of Die Hard
Trilogy 2 is the driving stage, in which you race around town
smashing into enemy cars and running over bombs. Though the stage
isn't awful, the car doesn't handle as tightly as it should, and
the entire experience is simply not that much fun to play. If
you're working through the story mode, you'll look forward to
finishing the driving levels so you can get back to the other
stages, which can be fairly entertaining at times. The level of
difficulty is toned down a notch from the first DHT in all three
sections, yet the game is still fairly challenging. Sure, it's
got some knocks against it. The graphics aren't exactly first
rate, the soundtrack is made up of that metallic sort of canned
techno that turns people off to electronic music, and the
voice-acting calls to mind amateur impersonation night at the
local improv. But it somehow retains a certain degree of playable
charm. While it doesn't stack up well when compared with the
original game, Die Hard Trilogy 2 does manage to outclass recent
like-minded titles like EA's Tomorrow Never Dies, and it provides
a nice fix for those who own PlayStation light s. It may be a
better rental than a purchase, but those not expecting a lot out
of the game may find themselves pleasantly surprised.--Joe
Fielder--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without
express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot
Review
