Die Hard Trilogy (lost builds of cancelled SEGA Genesis/SEGA 32X ports of movie-based game; existence unconfirmed; mid-1990s-1997)
Die Hard Trilogy is a set of action games inspired by the first three Die Hard films that was released in 1997. It was developed by Probe Entertainment, with its US and Europe publisher being Fox Interactive, and its Japan publisher being SEGA for the Saturn version. The game was also released and originally made for the PlayStation at around the same time. It is not to be confused with Die Hard Arcade, SEGA's very own game based on the franchise, nor the NES game published by Activision.
There are three total games packed inside. The first one is based on the first movie where John McClane rescues hostages in the Nakatomi Plaza from a third-person perspective. The second one is based on the second movie, Die Harder, which is a rail shooter where the player shoots terrorists at the Dulles Airport. This section is compatible with some light guns for both versions. The third game, based on With a Vengeance, has the player drive a taxi, dump truck, or sports car, defusing bombs along the way.
According to Mean Machines SEGA, ports for the SEGA Genesis and SEGA 32X were announced, but there's no actual concrete evidence of what they were like, and how the game played.[1] It is more than likely that the Genesis version would've been a 2D game using pre-rendered sprites like Vectorman, and the SEGA 32X port might be closer to the Saturn port, but with fewer polygons, and music from the Genesis port.
These versions were likely canceled as SEGA was about to discontinue support of both systems. The SEGA 32X in particular was a failure in the market with poor sales, and reception going behind it. Worth noting is that SEGA was losing trust by this time, not only because of the 32X, but due to a stunt they did at E3 1995 when promoting the Saturn, saying that it would be in stores at that moment, and would cost $399, so releasing it on any SEGA platform would more than likely end up in sales not going well. The Genesis in itself was about to drop its last games at this point after several years of support by many developers, with the last physically released officially licensed game being Show Do Milhão Volume 2, released by Tectoy only in Brazil in 2002.
Reference
- ↑ The SEGA Retro article which mentions the magazine mentioning the port. Retrieved 15 Feb '21