August 2018 Playthrough - Die Hard Arcade & Dynamite Cop

[singlebanana]

[img width=552 height=464]https://78.media.tumblr.com/49057bafdb0ca76aff047c8068a93556/tumblr_n5c5xdknuy1s65jcko4_400.gif[/img]

PARTICIPANTS:
singlebanana
GrayGhost81
Crabmaster2000
douglie007

CHECKPOINTS:
Both titles are on the short side and intended to be one sitting games. As a result, we will be playing and discussing Die Hard Arcade on the forums the first two weeks of the month, and Dynamite Cop the latter two weeks. Helpful tips to guide others through the game are encouraged and appreciated.

[MetalFRO]

[singlebanana]

Game announcement up!

[Crabmaster2000]

Im in

[douglie007]

Yes, I will do this on stream!

[singlebanana]

Who has started?

[GrayGhost81]

I played through Dynamite Cop a few weeks ago and I freaking loved it! Gonna hit up Die Hard this weekend probably.

[Crabmaster2000]

I should be able to jump in either tomorrow or Saturday. Can't wait!

[Crabmaster2000]

Found some time to sit down with Die Hard Trilogy at last so here are my initial thoughts. I owned the Aracde Cab in the past, but havn't played it in any form for probably about 3 years.

The combat I feel holds up pretty decently. It's simple with just a punch/kick/jump, but being able to string together combos with those as well as having multiple jump attacks, running attacks, moves on wake up, back attacks, and grabs keeps it fresh. The two stand outs for me are the grab breaker where you do a Double Dragon 2 style flying roundhouse thing to break and enemy grab and knock down anyone in range, and the arrest with the hand gun. The arrest can be nice if you have someone who has strayed away from the pack, but it's nearly impossible to finish if there is a group or someone with a ranged weapon. It clears the guy quick, but feels maybe too risky most of the time and doesn't always function when I feel it should. It also feels like it should be worth a little something extra for the effort. Maybe a small health or ammo boost? My only complaint control/combat-wise is that I cannot get the run to work much of the time. Like one in 4 attempts I run when I'd like to and that seems like a strong skill to have to either tackle a group or escape a bad situation. Anyone else have that issue or do I just need to practice more? Also with the amount of item drops in this game as well as the amount of unused buttons on the Saturn controller I'd have much preferred a different button than your punch to be used to acquire items. It's super frustrating to either drop a combo to pick up an item or to try and pick up and item and punch a nearby enemy. You get punished super hard for those kinds of mistakes and it seems very avoidable by just mapping that action to another button.

The arsenal available is also pretty sweet in this. Handgun I mentioned above, but I love that you can use it like a gun or for an arrest, very cool and reminds me of NARC. Machine gun is solid also. The rocket launcher knocking everybody onscreen down is helpful, but if you can keep it for a boss-type enemy holy-moly does it decimate them. The Anti-Tank (why do these even show up though? Who is bringing a tank?) is fun to shoot, but way more fun to swing around and sweep groups of dudes onto the ground. The Pepper and the Spray I could maybe do without, they don't seem very helpful. Bottles and knives are far too slow and the damage output isn't worth it, but the long range melee weapons are great like the broom and pipe. Health pick ups are fairly abundant, but they don't actually refill you very much which is probably a fair trade off.

I like the quick time events for the most part. They feel very satisfying to do with the slow mo recap with SUCCESS blinking on the screen. And some are just silly to watch like seeing John Mcclane doing a driving hand spring to dodge and explosive or just duck under a missile launcher. The elevator dodging one feels the most rewarding by letting you gain a bunch of health for doing well though.

Oh baby that voice acting. I love the scene when the guy finally opens the safe and says "It's open it's open" in a super nerdy voice and then the White Fang does an awesome "YES" that Thor Ragnorok totally ripped off

https://youtu.be/4xWPRiP1fvY?t=16m19s

The load times aren't bad, but because there are sooooo many of them they start to wear on me. Having like 2-3 for every cut scene is a bit much. I kind of want to turn of the cut scenes, but then I'd miss out on that great voice acting so I'll live with it.

Who thought putting Deep Scan into a Die Hard game makes any sense? It's a neat concept to earn extra credits by playing it prior to the actual game, problem is that it is not a fun game at all or even remotely tied to the beat em up you'll be playing in theme or mechanics or anything. Really seems out of place.

The enemies are mostly very samesies in terms of how to combat them and there appearance, but there are a few standouts. When you enter the men's washroom you first get to see a dude who is definitely not urinating and lastly get to fight Namor who for some reason left the sea to take a dump in this office building. Getting to fight robots with your bear freaking hands is so awesome until you get caught in one of those devastating laser beams. The too fat dudes you fight later in the game were super tough and totally gave me Streets of Rage vibes. The big football guy kinda reminds me of Sodom from Street Fighter. He was a tough fight.

I didn't quite finish the game with the initial credits yet after 2 attempts, but I got close. I don't really want to play Deep Scan so I'll try a couple more times and if I can't do it I may be forced to though. That'll be my mission over the next couple days. There really isn't much to this game and it's pretty short. I'd probably have been pissed to buy this back in the day. It's not quite like a lot of other arcade style games where you can replay them to find secrets or to improve your score. It's pretty dang fun though in short well spread out bursts. I can't comment on it too much for this play through, but I remember the co-op being pretty solid on the arcade machine too. Anyone playing this with a buddy?

[singlebanana]

I started playing for the first time the other day and yeah, I have serious concerns about being able to finish this one.  May have to ask Shawn if there some kind of cheat code for more credits.    But on a serious note, I'm typically the kind of guy that jumps into a game "guns a blazin" without even cracking the instruction manual.  After reading your review and not knowing about using a gun for an arrest and other such mechanics, I think this might be a good idea.....

[Crabmaster2000]

Manual has a bunch of combos and good info for sure. Also if you're struggling you can just earn extra credits in Deep Scan before playing to help out. You can make it pretty easy

[singlebanana]

That's awesome! I also want to point out that Deep Scan is pretty much the same game as Sub Scan for the Atari 2600. Makes sense, since Sub Scan was developed by Sega.

[GrayGhost81]

I'm definitely going to use my action replay cart for Die Hard. Just had my first run and only made it to the robots.

The first time I played Dynamite Cop I had unlimited continues. After that, I had a limited number. Why is that? The final boss of that game is ridiculous and I can't see myself beating him, let alone getting to him, without burning through dozens of credits.

[Crabmaster2000]

Finished off Die Hard just now. I made it super close to the end last time and died just out side the first of the two final boss fights. I got better with the arrest mechanic and the game became so much easier. When you can drop a guy off the screen instantly as soon as you start and thin out the crowd it's a huge help. Also very helpful on the guys in the Yellow HAZMAT suits and the guys in the SWAT gear as they are both a bit tougher than your normal thug, but you can still arrest them right away instead of dealing with their rolling on the ground pulling out infinite guns crap. And since you can transition your handgun  from scene to scene you can start pretty close to every area with it and it's great on everything except for robots. My suggest is to load up on the H Magazines at every opportunity and try not to fire the gun very often and just stockpile those shots for late in the game or for when you have someone pointing a gun at you from across the screen then run in for the arrest.

Every time there is a missile launcher try to clear the screen without using it or letting an enemy use it. If it's got full ammo it can defeat a boss without ever having to get close. The giant HAZMAT guy just before the final fights I beat without taking a hit by just launching missiles at him.

That first last fight was hilarious and I got a Double Dragon final stage vibe with those stupid randomized bricks shooting out of the wall in that game. Just dashed in after taking the first couple hits and figuring out what the gimmick was and then it was just staying close and doing pretty well all grabs. It was fun to mess around with them. You can do Suplexes and Piledrivers! And finally getting to see White Fang in his Haggar x Ninja cosplay was awesome. I found that if you do standing jumps you can usual dodge his sword throws and you can also out jump him when he dives in so you can knock him back. Not the quickest method for take down as the jumping kicks don't do much damage, but it seemed relatively safe. Also he can block bullets with his sword so it seemed like the smart thing to do.

17:48 was my final in game time. Anyone know if there are different ending screens or any sort of reward for better times?

PS - Why were the firemen trying to blast you with the hose after nearly running you down?

I'm definitely going to use my action replay cart for Die Hard. Just had my first run and only made it to the robots.

The first time I played Dynamite Cop I had unlimited continues. After that, I had a limited number. Why is that? The final boss of that game is ridiculous and I can't see myself beating him, let alone getting to him, without burning through dozens of credits.

I know I've teased in the past about using guides/cheats, but you really don't need them for Die Hard. Just play Deep Scan which is incredibly easy. It banks you extra credits and I think you can even stack them so just play Deep Scan 3-4 times and you should have 30+ extra credits and you don't need to be expert level or spend time learning to master the mechanics. Not trying to easy-shame or anything like that, the game just offers players of any skill level the ability to reach the end regardless of skill level with what's already packed into it.

[singlebanana]

Thanks for the advice Crabby. Good stuff! 😊