Die Hard Trilogy is an action video game developed by Probe Entertainment, published by Fox Interactive and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in North America and Electronic Arts in Europe for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows. The game is based on the first three installments of the Die Hard series of action movies, with each film entry being represented through a different gameplay genre.
The game was well received and would eventually become a PlayStation Greatest Hits and PlayStation Platinum game. Die Hard Trilogy also inspired a sequel entitled Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas. The sequel retained the three different playing styles but featured a spin-off storyline that was not connected to the movie series.
Gameplay
Die Hard
Die Hard is a third-person shooter. The player battles terrorists and rescues hostages in the Nakatomi Plaza, which is the setting of the first film in the series.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard 2: Die Harder is presented as an on rails-shooter, where the player must stop terrorists who have taken over Dulles Airport from the second film.
Players control the crosshair with a gamepad, light gun, or mouse. Die Hard Trilogy was one of the few light gun games available for the PlayStation that was not compatible with Namco's GunCon/G-Con 45 controller or GunCon 2. However, it was compatible with Sega's Stunner light gun for the Saturn version. Probe were developing Alien Trilogy at the same time. Since Alien Trilogy was being published by Probe's new owner Acclaim Entertainment, technology and experienced personnel were prioritized towards Alien Trilogy, leaving Die Hard Trilogy to be developed by a small team of young programmers and designers working with Probe's oldest equipment.
Fox Interactive exerted little creative control over the project, allowing the Probe team to be unrestrained and improvisational in their designs. Lead programmer Simon Pick recounted, "There was no real design. We made it up as we went along. We knew the overall feeling we wanted and the various points we wanted to hit gameplay-wise. We had a design document, but it was written after the fact. We’d implement a feature and the designer would write it up to send over to Fox as an update." but they were later replaced with digitized sprites. For the Die Hard with a Vengeance segment, the team had wanted to use an authentic recreation of New York City, but found that when driving at 200 miles per hour, an accurate model of NYC felt too small and confining. In an interview during development, Pick elaborated on how the team intended to optimize the game for Saturn:
Die Hard Trilogy was a commercial hit, with sales above 2 million units by 2000. It became Probe's most successful release in terms of sales in the UK.
The PlayStation version was positively reviewed. As of June 2017, it holds an 86% ranking at GameRankings. Most critics considered the high value-for-money of getting three games in one to be Die Hard Trilogys strongest point. The most common criticism was that the Die Harder segment requires the Konami light gun to be enjoyable, since the cursor when using the standard controller is slow and difficult to move. but lost the prize to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. However, Electronic Gaming Monthly editors named it Action Game of the Year.
The Saturn port also received mostly positive reviews, though it was often compared unfavorably to the PlayStation original. GamePro said the graphics are not as sharp as the PlayStation version's, especially in the Die Harder segment, but the gameplay is addictive enough to make this relatively unimportant. Josh Smith stated in GameSpot that the sluggish controls and poor graphics, especially as compared to the PlayStation version, make the first two segments of the game nearly unplayable, since lining up shots in time is awkward and frustrating. However, he said that in the third segment the animation is actually better than the PlayStation version's, and that the fast pace and black humor of this segment make it worth buying Die Hard Trilogy all by itself.