Die Hard 4.0
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| Die Hard 4.0

Someone should tell Bruce Willis that wearing a grubby vest and a smirk doesn't make you a credible action hero. Why, we spent two days last week wearing just that. Admittedly, we were watching the Jeremy Kyle Show and munching Doritos rather than fighting terrorists. But if any had turned up, we could've taken them.

Anyway, Bruce clearly doesn't need our approval, as he's back on the big screen with a new Die Hard movie. Gameloft, fast becoming the mobile publisher of choice for Hollywood, is releasing the official tie-in game. Logically enough, it sees you playing John McClane, who has to save the US from terrorists trying to hijack its digital infrastructure. (How? Perhaps by taking Facebook offline until people riot in the streets).

It has to be said: Gameloft is developing a formula for its movie tie-in games, which involves a base of slick platform action, interspersed with set-piece mini-games to add a bit of variety. So it is in Die Hard 4.0.

The main part of the game sees you running around levels jumping, crawling and shooting baddies. As with previous games (think Splinter Cell and Pirates Of The Seven Seas), there's a degree of sneakiness involved, too, with you able to tiptoe up behind enemies and dispatch them at close quarters.

It might be familiar, but it's extremely well put together, with an intro level to show you McClane's moves, bold graphics and some great animation – we're fans of the move where you hide behind a piano then pop up and bash the bad guy's head into it. (At least, it looks like a piano.)

A neat inclusion is the rage feature, where you go postal and blow away everything on screen in slow-motion. And the game certainly makes you feel like an action hero, ducking under bullets, crawling through tunnels and leaping over rails.

So what about the non-platform bits? They take two forms. First, there's the top-down driving sections where you squeal around Washington DC at top speed, and then there's the bomb-disposal puzzle bits, which show someone at Gameloft HQ has been playing I-play's 24 games. The latter's a simple diversion, but the former is great fun.

Criticisms? The game is too short. We blasted through it in a couple of hours, and could've gone faster if we'd been really trying. What's more, if you've played a lot of Gameloft's previous action games, this feels a bit too familiar.

But that's put into perspective by some of the truly dodgy movie tie-ins that we've played, especially lack-lustre platform titles. We can quack on about Die Hard 4.0's lack of depth and formulaic feel all we like, but for fans of the movie who just want a really fun game to play, it delivers.

Die Hard 4.0

It's another Gameloft cookie cutter movie game, but we won't complain when it's done this slickly
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Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)