Yipee Ki Yay! Channel your inner Bruce Willis, or John McClane, and embark on a bullet riddled Xmas party to remember.
Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza (DHNP) is an 2002 single player FPS. It's more "run and gun" than "tactical" and it follows the (first) movie pretty closely, including the John McLane wisecracks. The game takes you on a familiar journey, especially if you have seen the first Die Hard movie, but with a few surprises along the way. The game relies on your pre-knowledge of the John McClane character as apart from a few wisecracks and thinking out aloud moments the character is not really developed. Given the competition, DHNP as a straight movie to game adaptation is not bad, although it tends to be very much "on the rails".
The narrative is faithfull to the movie, but there are a few new things, including dodging firefights between SWAT and the German robber gang inside the buiding, scenes in the sewers, disabling bombs ... but all the new stuff is within the context of the original story. The opening and closing scenes book-end the film version of events plus the extras.
A big difference to the story is that Hans Gruber's team of Teutonic mercenaries is not the dirty dozen or so in the film ... it's indeed a small army scattered in groups of 3 -5 across all the floors of the Nakatomi Plaza building. This game has an extremely high body count. You get to enjoy all the John McClanesque adventures: crawling through ducting with your pistol and Zippo lighter, dropping C4 down the shaft, cutting your feet on broken glass, upsetting Karl by sending his brother down the elevator ... it's all there.
As you near the end of the thirty (yes, that's right 30) levels those boss fights we all love to hate start appearing. None of the levels (on Medium anyway) are overly difficult especially with the generous save system. The game however feels rather repetitive in terms of clearing floors full of bad guys to accomplish objectives. Eliminating the bad guys, true to the FPS genre, is the main aim of the game. Unfortunately the weapon characteristics seem at odds with those in similar games, for example the most prevalent SMG is the MP5 which, unlike say in Rainbow Six or GRAW, seems a very inaccurate weapon with AK47 style recoil, whereas the M60 is accurate and exhibits relatively negligible recoil. Of course DHNP is only a game and I don't often get into a weapons discussions ... but it just seems wrong to not get this right. Anyway as with most FPS of its vintage John can carry a veritable arsenal, although it is the pistol and MP5 that will get most use ... the Steyr is a fairly lethal weapon as is the M60. I rarely used the flash-bang grenades.
Gameplay-wise DHNP can be challenging. Accomplishing some of the tasks without the odd replay, especially disabling the bombs early in the game ... you (only) just seem to have enough time to do this on Medium difficulty. The levels, as noted can feel somewhat repetitive, but there is a reasonable balance in level duration and difficulty. Often you are literally on your last legs and you'll come across a first aid box to boost your health. The HUD tracks John's health, stamina and morale. Health is replenished by first aid boxes, some of which are not easy to spot, and stamina by resting. There's a mission where you need to escort an architect to safety through a burning level which is quite challenging especially when the engineer seems to keep running off on his own getting into trouble. Be aware that the gameplay is not always intuitive and there are a number of occassions where you seem to come to a dead-end and cannot progress ... my advice download the walkthrough. The final boss fight, with Hans holding Holly hostage, is not very satisfactory and seems unrealistic.
Graphics are acceptable for the vintage (2002) of the game. Character AI varies and they also seem to have similar difficulty hitting you with their MP5s. Voice acting is acceptable with the actors obviously trying to imitate Bruce Willis and co-stars with reasonable success. The cut scenes unfortunately are rather stilted and not very satisfying. The soundtrack is not particularly memorable but as with most games the tempo changes when you get near a "hot zone".
DHNP was a Sierra product and the games I have from them are pretty solid offerings. Some are better than others of course, and DHNP is not their finest hour, but still enjoyable in its own right. Only a couple of glitches, with John getting stuck and unable to move, were encountered despite having upgraded to the 1.041 patch. Also climbing into ducting at times is unusually difficult ... it obviously has to be done just so.
OVERALL: DHNP is somewhat dated and has a "been there done that feeling". However it is worth exploring if you wish to step into the bloody bandages, not shoes, of John McClane and take down Hans Gruber and his cohorts. If you loved the movie you will probably enjoy the game. If you want to play a really good vintage FPS from 2002 then try SOF2 instead.
Caveat: I bought the game (pre-loved) on eBay and it cost ~A$10 including postage from the UK ... so the GS review from 2002 based on the then US$30 price is not really relevant. My main "technical" criticism is that the MP5 SMG is pretty inaccurate and it seems to take LOTS of hits with either the SMG or pistol to bring down the baddies. But Bruce, I mean John, can also take quite a bit of damage and there's first aid boxes scattered around the "hot zones".