Though Die Hard Arcade featured lashings of entertaining armed and 
unarmed combat, it wasn't a massive hit in the arcades, but the fact 
that it ran on Sega's very Saturn-like Titan hardware has made it a 
cinch to port over to our favourite home system. The action is 
reminiscent of older games like Final Fight or the Megadrive Streets 
of Rage series than more recent one-on-one beat-'em-ups. Enter a scene 
and you're surrounded by a crowd of bad guys who attack with fists and 
feet as well as knives, bottles, brushes and rocket launchers. You 
have to defend yourself in similar fashion, using hand-to-hand combat 
as well as whatever dropped weapons come to hand. Even furniture turns 
out to be quite useful - there's not much to beat the thrill of 
Smacking a terrorist with an antique grandfather clock. But being a 
pixel-perfect recreation of the coin-op does have its downside. Any 
moderately-skilled player can finish the arcade game in a few credits 
or less and once defeated it's not a game you would readily come back 
to; the game is no different the second time through and because 
there's no score you don't really have anything to beat. 

Die Hard Arcade because it makes an change from usual Saturn fighting 
games and it is enjoyable, in both the single and two-player modes. 
Sadly it's just too short-lived for more experienced beat 'em up fans.

Toby Barnes