Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza

[Keith Heitmann]

I downloaded the new demo from Sierra "Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza" and installed it Friday.

There's lots of action and the first level is spent killing everything that moves and trying to find the wire cutters that you need to go back and disable 7 time bombs before they explode so you have to move quick and kill even quicker.

After a dozen attempts I found the wire cutters and finally figured out how to use them (select Weapon #2 (press 2) then use mouse wheel to select cutters and left click mouse).

I'm now on the rooftop level, the next level, as the demo starts on the floor below, and I'm killing off terrorists left and right from a easy hide by peaking around the corner of the building near the base of the metal ladder that leads from the rooftop helipad down o the next lower roof level. I just pick them off as they hit the bottom of the ladder. Must have killed about two dozen by now. They are not very smart. I'll move on I guess the game just seems to keep regenerating more of them so its a pointless excercise.

It uses SWAT 3 / Half-Life type graphics, but it doesn't seem a fluid as those in SWAT 3. My computer bogs at various points of the demo making taking aim nearly impossible as the target rolls and hides and moves all the while my sight jerks about the screen seemingly in an uncontrolled manner as the game tries to process all the input.  At other points the game runs fine without any bog down. This is on a P2/450. My video card is a bit on the small size with only 8MB RAM so this is partly the problem.

Another problem is that they AI characters besides being stupid, are also blind an deaf. If I rush an enemy  quckly enough I can actually get past him and stand behind him while he's looking the other way as if I wasn't there. Hopefully, this won't be the case when they release the game.

I'll continue my save game some time later to see what's next.

You can get the demo now from:

ftp1.sierra.com/pub/demos/pc/DHNPDemo.exe

ftp2.sierra.com/pub/demos/pc/DHNPDemo.exe

ftp.idg.se/gamepro/demos/dhnpdemo.exe

games-sea.tucows.webusenet.com/files2/dhnpdemo.exe

www.dailyfiles.dk/demos/DHNPdemo.exe

tucouws-games.alphalink.com.au/files2/dhnpdemo.exe

3dgamers.in-span.net/pub/3dgamers/games/diehardnp/dhnpdemo.exe

gamezoneftp.zone.ee/pub/game.zone.ee/demod/dhnpdemo.exe

gamingplace.proxad.net/files2/dhnpdemo.exe

ftp.gamepro.com/pub/gamesnet/computer/dhnpdemo.exe

ftp.ngi.it/Games/Die_Hard/Demo/dhnpdemo.exe

www.planetmirror.com/pub/bluesnews/demos/dhnpdemo.exe

syd4.ausgamers.com:8080/^1157898789/ftp1/gamedemos/action/dhnpdemo.exe?noerror  

ftp.edome.net/demot/actionpelit/dhnpdemo.exe

ftp.gamecenter.ru/demo/dhnpdemo.exe

www.gamecenter.cz/filecenter/dhnpdemo.exe

[Keith Heitmann]

Update - I completed the demo.

The demo only involves the top 3 floors of the Nakatomi Plaza. I had to dumb way down all the video settings to get things running smoothly on my system. My 8MB video card just couldn't keep up otherwise.

Some of the puzzles are clever and some are as old a those old text adventure games dating way back to the original Zork. Lots or repetition and retracing your steps.

It took me a while to get off the rooftop. I had figure out what is I had to do first and then figure out how to do it all the while the computer generated AI kept coming on regular intervals so usually I only had time to do one task before I had to run off and prepair to defend myself. But I finally made it off the roof.

I like some of the cut scenes taken directly from the movie but animated of course. There are 4 or 5 of those.

It's a sizeable download at 82MB but worth it if you want to try the latest FPS game coming out.