Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Well, I’m not much one for labels, but it certainly takes place at Christmas, and there’s a Christmas party, Christmas presents and some Christmas songs playing, so apart from the body-count (which does actually involve Santa at one point too), then why not? I mean, it’s just Miracle on 34th Street or Elf or any of that rubbish with a bit more action. By extension, though, that does open up other stuff for the Christmas movie tag too… Rocky IV, for example. Which we’ll possibly come back to later! In the meantime, we should quickly jump back to the summer of 1988 (which I realise doesn’t help my cause!) and the release of Die Hard, the first in a series of five films, three of which we’ll be looking at here in more detail in the context of Die Hard Trilogy, then the other two, Die Hard 4.0 and A Good Day to Die Hard, we can probably skip over, and not just because they’re not in the game!

That said, when I was on holiday this year I watched the whole lot back-to-back, and despite the diminishing returns I had a good time with all of them again. Based on 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, the first film sees Bruce Willis as New York cop John McClane making his way to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to spend the festive season with his estranged wife Holly and their kids. How can that alone not quality this as a Christmas movie? Could be a Chris Rea song! Anyway, he’s meeting her at her company’s Christmas party in the newly-built Nakatomi Plaza, but while he’s freshening up after his journey once he gets there, in comes Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber with his gang of German terrorists and takes everyone hostage. McClane then goes Rambo (because Stallone, as well as Arnie, turned down the role) and starts stealthing his way around the skyscraper, taking down the gang with maximum violence and a bit of help from a friendly local cop outside, while the FBI and the local press do their best to hinder. It did pretty well at the cinema, earning about $140 million, and making the top ten at the box office that year, which also included Big, Cocktail, A Fish Called Wanda, Rain Man and the similarly appealing Rambo III.

Took a while to get the critical response it now receives though (like its re-evaluation as a Christmas movie), but did well enough to get the first sequel, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, in 1990. This one also takes place on Christmas Eve, but this time John is waiting for Holly to arrive on a flight when he starts noticing all is not quite right at the airport as a new gang of terrorists take control of its air traffic control system. Once again, the local powers that be don’t seem interested in his help, so he goes solo for an even bigger-budget piece of over-the-top violence and general jumbo jet nonsense! It’s way more gung-ho than the original, and as such loses something in comparison, but what else are you going to watch in 1990? The third film, Die Hard With a Vengeance, followed in 1995, and this time McLane is going through hard times back in New York where he ends up in an unlikely partnership with Samuel L. Jackson’s Zeus Carver, after the late Hans Gruber’s brother, played by Jeremy Irons, starts blowing stuff up all over the city and has the pair running around trying to prevent more of the same, while he’s helping himself to all of its money. It kind of runs out of steam by the end but it’s a thrill ride until then, and it ended up being the highest grossing film of that year too, even outperforming two films I’ll never see, Toy Story and Apollo 13.

Die Hard 4.0 in 2007 was the series’ Robocop 3, a watered-down Die Hard for younger audiences that saw McClane team up with a hacker, then 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard had McLane teaming-up with his secret agent son in Moscow. Both are alright but the series could probably have done without them, just like the game did, which we’ll get to in a sec, but first I want to come back to Christmas movies! As said before, I don’t care for labels but, as regular readers will know, I do love a list, so I want to briefly touch on my favourite Christmas movies before I give a full rundown of my top ten at the end. Obviously, we’ve established that Die Hard qualifies, which will further influence my list, but it’s not quite my favourite! I mentioned Rambo earlier, and it’s actually his first starring role that is, First Blood. This one from 1982 sees the highly decorated but misunderstood Vietnam vet taking the fight back to the ungrateful locals in bleak smalltown America, turning the resulting manhunt into a brutal one-man war… Which all the Christmas trees and decorations tell us is taking place during the most wonderful time of the year!

Before I go a bit more traditional, let me give you a few more honourable mentions that might similarly qualify as Christmas movies if you’re feeling confrontational! Eyes Wide Shut begins at a Christmas party, Lethal Weapon ends on Christmas Day, Psycho (fleetingly!) features Christmas decorations, Edward Scissorhands is festive throughout, and The Shining’s plot isn’t really that much different to my second favourite, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation! I watch this religiously every year, and its slapstick “perfect family Christmas” led by Chevy Chase will never get old even if it is forever 1989! Die Hard would come next in my top ten but I’m going to skirt around the rest for now, which includes a mix of similarly traditional – albeit far more horror-focussed – films such as Black Christmas or Night of the Comet, as well as stuff like the aforementioned Rocky IV and Batman Returns, where that Christmas tree lighting ceremony couldn’t be a more appropriate way to turn your attention to Christmas! And that seems like a good place to turn our attention to the PlayStation and Die Hard Trilogy!

Die Hard Trilogy is effectively a collection of three individual games, each based on one of the first three Die Hard films, which, having already set the scene for those, we can let the back of the box tell us all about! “Run, shoot and drive your way through all 3 Die Hard movies in one explosive arcade epic. With 3 different game types and over 45 high impact levels, all you need to do is Play Hard, Die Hard!” Did a game ever have a better tag-line than that? It goes on to tell us about each game in turn, starting with Die Hard: “Full screen 3D action – deadly terrorists, innocent hostages and a skyscraper wired to blow. It’s just not your day!” Followed by Die Hard 2: “First person arcade shooter – a crowded airport, lost luggage and even more terrorists. Lightning does strike twice!” And finally Die Hard With a Vengeance: “Combat driving – a city that never sleeps, mad bombers and pedestrian-strewn sidewalks – you’re the wrong guy in the the wrong place at a very wrong time!”

The game(s) came to PS1 in late 1996, followed by Windows and Sega Saturn versions the following year, and was put together by Probe Entertainment in the UK, although it was a bit of a struggle after the publisher, Fox Interactive, decided they didn’t like the original idea of the Die Hard With a Vengeance game being released standalone, so the other two got bolted on later. The trouble was, most of Probe’s resource was then prioritised towards the parallel development of Alien Trilogy, which was being published by Probe’s new owner Acclaim, leaving an inexperienced team of programmers using hand-me-down equipment to put together three games in one! Didn’t do bad though, with the game selling more than two million copies and all three of the component games being lauded as worthy of being released in their own right… Except, as usual, in Germany, where it got banned because you could plough into innocent bystanders in the driving bit! From what I’ve seen of it, the Saturn version didn’t turn out great though – the visuals suffered almost as much as what were already pretty loose controls, but I’ll come back to those as we look through each bit in turn!

Visually at least, not all original PlayStation games age equally, and our first game, Die Hard, is the most traditionally “PlayStation” of the three here, with its vaguely Resident Evil art style supporting a surprisingly strategic third-person shooter with a behind and above, almost isometric camera following your movements. You start in the parking garage under the Nakatomi Plaza, and you’re going to have to make your way up nineteen of its floors, killing all the terrorists on each floor and rescuing as many hostages as you can in the process. These are all indicated on the screen as a number left to find, and any that are close will show as a red or blue dot on your radar, as will the bomb that’s activated somewhere on the floor when you kill the last terrorist – get to it in time and you’ll move to the next one. You start with your regular police-issue gun but along the way you’ll also find health pick-ups, armour, more powerful weapons and explosives, such as machine guns, assault rifles and various grenades, and whichever you picked up last will be active as a secondary weapon until you pick up something else. There’s a semi-automatic lock-on when you’re facing a terrorist that feels really good when you get used to it, giving it a kind of twin-stick feel without a second stick, but without being too much of a noticeable assist. You’ve also a terrorist gunsight on the screen that indicates you’re in someone’s sights, as well as the direction they’re attacking from.

The level design here is superb, both in terms of variety and also interest, as you fight your way first between vehicles, then through the reception area, then offices, maintenance areas, a ballroom, a boardroom, the computer levels with the broken glass from the film and, of course, the rooftop. It’s all believable as a real building while also clearly being built for fun, and it really is that! I’ve never got to the end of this bit – probably around halfway up – although in all three games, a multi-layered, performance-based score system is the main attraction because all three are both expansive and arcade-tough – I had a quick look at a walkthrough of this part and it’s clocking in at an hour and a half! Graphically it really is very PlayStation, with a lot of straight lines, jagged edges and very limited draw-distance, but there’s tons of realistic detail in what you can see, with each floor authentically dressed with pot plants, office equipment, fire exit signage and so on, and it’s decorated just like the movie! It all moves fast and the camera keeps up beautifully, although the lack of animation frames in some of the characters (most notably the hostages) does result in some bizarre movement if you look too close! Loads of sound too, with almost non-stop speech from someone or other, a variety of beefy gunshots and explosions, and a relentless, forgettable but inoffensive techno tune playing in the background. Definitely all of its time but what a time, and you’ll be amazed how quickly you can slip back into it and just have fun being Bruce Willis with this!

It’s a shame to cut these a bit short because they really do deserve to be considered as games in their own right, but I’m conscious of your time so I’m going to jump to the second game now, Die Hard 2: Die Harder. You can think Virtua Cop for this one – a rail-shooter starting in some really cool snow outside Washington Dulles Airport, but no chance to stand and admire that because the place is already crawling with terrorists, who you’re seeing through McClane’s eyes as you move inside, through the concourse and baggage areas, into the terminal’s new wing, onto the runway, the terrorist HQ in the church and then the surrounding countryside in a final chase on foot, by snowmobile, helicopter and even by parachute as you try to bring down the terrorist’s escape plane. You don’t need to worry about movement here, which is all automatic, scrolling seamlessly from one section to the next; it’s all about that cross hair, and remembering to reload when you need to! Once again, you start out with just your service pistol, but enemies will drop all sorts of guns, rocket launchers and grenades to pick up and use, and you’ll also come across various health pickups, which you’re going to need because this thing takes no prisoners!

Some of that difficulty may well be down to playing it with a PlayStation controller though, but there is the option of a PlayStation mouse or light-gun should you have one to hand. I was also using emulation to grab some screenshots where I found an arcade stick helped a bit, should that also be an option to you. As well as the terrorists, there’s plenty of innocent people to not shoot; a blue target circle is going to identify anyone with a gun, while a red one is going to indicate you’re being targetted by a terrorist, with an arrow (which is less useful here than in the first game) that’s also going to tell you where a shot is about to come from. What this game lacks in perfect controls it more than makes up for in spectacle, as you’re swept from one shootout to the next, with the whole environment seemingly destructible, shattering glass all over the place, falling ceiling panels, sprinkler systems working on overdrive and general exploding carnage constantly filling the screen. Plenty of gore too, with the shotgun literally turning your victim into a shower of blood, which is particularly impressive when the auto-zoom kicks in! They’ve nailed the airport design again too – it’s like a real one, with newsagents, moving escalators, flight boards, baggage carousels, Christmas decorations and just general dressing like those roof panels and pillars being just right. Animation’s still occasionally very weird though! Real heft to the sound effects again, and more of a Miami Vice feel to the best of the three soundtracks here this time. I might not have the ideal way to play it but I’ve always really enjoyed playing this one all the same!

The last game in the package is Die Hard With a Vengeance, where you find yourself at the wheel of taxi in the congested streets of Harlem, with Zeus not very happily sat at your side giving rally-style directions to turn left or right, but mostly just moaning about his current predicament, which is hunting down bombs at breakneck speed all over the city! You’ll cross through West Side Highway with its myriad traffic lights causing all kinds of vehicular obstructions to your madcap progress, then Chinatown, with its one-way streets and market stalls everywhere, and Wall Street’s rush hour, Central Park full of bewildered people, and even down in the maze of the subway system, where the trains are far less concerned about you than the pedestrians on those sidewalks were! You’ve got fifteen different cars to commandeer, from Ferraris to refuse trucks, as you chase down all the bombs Crazy Taxi style, unless one happens to be on the move in a car, in which case it’s Chase H.Q. style, ramming it down, before trying to out-run the terrorists through the aqueduct system, full of workmen, pipes and rats to avoid, before emerging for a final chase with mad Simon Gruber himself along the dockside’s maritime obstacle course. As well as Zeus’ instructions, you’ve got a handy red arrow pointing you towards the bombs, while a timer ticks down towards the next detonation – too late and the city goes boom, engulfing you in a wall of flame, although you’ve got three lives to play with here before what would become a retrospectively uncomfortable game over screen involving a view of the Statue of Liberty with the World Trade Centre beyond as the city explodes behind the Twin Towers.

As usual, there’s pickups to help you prevent that though, including extended time, nitro and turbo, EMS to summon an ambulance for when the traffic is heavy, and a mini-bomb that will launch you into the air like The Fall Guy. This game is more frantic than difficult like the others, with GTA-style car controls taking a bit of getting used to, especially with the various vehicles all driving “realistically” as you jump between them, but once it’s clicked, and you’re used to the lie of the land, you’ll be getting a good way into this and having loads of fun doing so, particularly where pedestrians are involved and you’re taking advantage of that bloody in-car view with the windscreen wipers that offended the Germans so much… Something I haven’t really mentioned so far but all three games here really nail getting the feel of their respective movies just right, despite limiting themselves to being a third-person shooter, rail shooter or crazy driving game like this one, which also plays like an arcade game, but you’ll really feel the tension as you chase down each bomb. The driving is janky as hell, even by GTA standards, but it doesn’t need to be more than that, especially with so much going on around you. New York feels like New York rather than just the familiar Manhattan piece of it, although maybe minus a bit of the traffic as a concession to having fun, and while buildings repeat and are a bit by numbers, the terrified people and fire escapes and shop signs and canopies give it just enough life as you fly by, with police helicopters (and loads of pigeons) flying about above you, sunlight glinting all around you, and steam regularly coming up from below. The tunnel sections and the final chase are a bit too dark for their own good but do add welcome variety, as does the park section, as ludicrous as it is! There’s a mix of very competent, if generic, rock and hip-hop playing in the background but there’s so much blabbering, screaming, skidding and crashing going on you’ll barely notice it anyway, especially at the speed this thing is moving at! It’s a third winner on the bounce, with a great sense of urgency straight out of its source material, and once you’ve got a feel for the cars, you can’t help but have a good time with it!

I remember having a good time with the whole lot at the time but I don’t think I ever appreciated quite how impressive this collection of games really is, which is a shame because I’m realising that with 2023 eyes rather than the ones that would have been amazed by the incredible arcade-quality at home 3D visuals, CD-quality sound and just the outstanding value these three games were offering on a single disc! And they truly are three unique games rather than parts of a whole, each with a level of polish that totally defies those developmental troubles we heard about earlier, and a level of challenge and longevity only surpassed by the attention to detail in each one. And all the explosions! It’s maximum PlayStation and still one of the greats on the system, and all that’s left to do now is decide how the rest of those Christmas movies stack up against its source material! No commentary or anything, just a quick rundown, from the top, with a sentence on each one…

We already covered First Blood at number one, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation at number two, and more than covered Die Hard at number three, so we can jump straight to number four, which is Rocky IV, where he’s fighting super-Russian Ivan Drago to avenge the death of his friend Apollo Creed at his hands. At Christmas! Tales From the Crypt takes the number five slot, a horror anthology with the “…And All Through The House” short seeing Joan Collins under attack by a very bad Santa. Gremlins is at number six, the horror comedy about a Christmas present gone wrong as the mysterious cute pet in question becomes a monster. Batman Returns is next at number seven, with that Christmas tree celebration from earlier a backdrop to Tim Burton’s ultimate gothic Christmas. Number eight is Black Christmas, the 1974 slasher with a bunch of sorority girls getting knocked-off over the Holidays. Night of the Comet takes the ninth spot, and is the most underrated Christmas movie ever – a none-more-eighties comedy sci-fi horror set in the run up to Christmas where a comet causes almost everyone to either disappear or become a zombie, and would later influence the creation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I need to be careful to get the last one right, and it’s Silent Night, Bloody Night at number ten, another slasher from 1972 this time, where a load of Christmas murders coincide with a guy inheriting a former insane asylum. Which is not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night, which might well have come next, and is a 1984 slasher with yet another Santa-suited killer on the loose! And with that bonus entry, that’s more than my list of top ten favourite Christmas movies, so I can bring these festivities to a close for another year!