DIE HARD ARCADE
Original Release: Sega, 1996, Arcade
Other Releases: Saturn (1997), PlayStation 2 (2006), PS3/PSP (2012)
A wild ride from the Sega development team responsible for Alien Syndrome and House of the Dead, the game basically makes up its own new and crazy version of Die Hard
Die Hard Arcade (Arcade, Sega, 1996)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Well, winners might not use drugs ... but whoever came up with this interpretation of Die Hard sure seems like they popped a bunch before they sat down at the ol' writing desk.
The game takes place in something that looks vaguely kinda like Nakatomi Plaza, and the main character is a cop who maybe looks a little Bruce Willishish if you catch him from the right angle (though the promo art makes it look more like ripped Neanderthal Robin Williams). Other than that, it's got nothing at all to do with Die Hard. Instead it's a polygonal beat-em-up in the 80s-90s Japanese arcade world of mohawk punks and b-boys, with occasional weirdo bosses like a rather slim sumo and a gigantic firefighter.
What I think actually happened here is that Sega knew from the jump they wouldn't be allowed to use the Die Hard name in Japan (for whatever reason), so to preserve sales there they essentially created a completely original title that they could scrub the cursory Die Hard references from very quickly (and it indeed appeared there as "Dynamite Deka" with almost no changes other than the name).
I've seen some mentions online of this being the first beat-em-up with 3D polygon characters, I'd have to comb through obscure computer games to verify that but it could very well be the case. It's definitely a creative romp, with the same sort of energy and visual spectacle that Sega's AM1 team also brought to the House of the Dead games. In terms of gameplay, it definitely draws on Virtua Fighter in how the characters move and handle. It's the same slow sort of precise movement with detailed rotoscoping, but they can suddenly explode into inhuman combos and jumps and such. And this pre-dates Shenmue by three years (though it was in development as Virtua Fighter RPG the same year), but it also uses occasional simple QTEs that allow you to either skip certain battles or are necessary to avoid taking big damage from some environmental hazard.
All this creates a fun product with a good and unique variety of moves, but unfortunately one that only lasts for less than an hour of gameplay. It was clearly meant to be an arcade graphical spectacle, and is particularly fun when goofing around with friends (a second player can join as a female character created entirely out of whole cloth for the game), but it's not around for a long time and offers almost no reason to replay it.
Die Hard Arcade (Saturn, Sega, 1997)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
On the one hand, this port is almost "arcade perfect" save for a few little niggles. On the other hand, it does nothing to address the original game's inherent lack of content and replayability. For what was presumably a full-priced home title, you'd really like to see them add some new modes of play or something. Something more than just a random emulation of Sega's forgotten early 80s arcade title Deep Scan, which can be played off the main menu to earn more continues (you get four by default) for the main game.
Die Hard Arcade ran on the Sega Titan Video board which is almost the exact same hardware as the Sega Saturn, so it's really pretty much a direct port. But if you're playing on a console hooked up to a modern (non-CRT) TV, expect brief blackout flickers a lot as the game switches resolutions between cutscenes and in-game. And while it probably won't be an issue with emulation, the console has a bit of load time here and there as it accesses the CD.
If you just want to emulate a ROM I'd go with the original arcade version, it'll be smoother than Saturn emulation and you can just continue as much as you please without having to grind Deep Scan for credits.
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