Video Game / Die Hard: Vendetta

Hey look, John McClane's back!

Die Hard: Vendetta is a First-Person Shooter developed by Bits Studios and published by Sierra Entertainment. The game is based on the popular Die Hard film series, featuring the iconic action hero John McClane and serves as a continuation of the then-trilogy (which has since been declared non-canon after the fourth film was released).

Set five years after Die Hard with a Vengeance, John McClane is called back into action when a terrorist syndicate attacks Townsend Museum for a priceless painting and takes everyone hostage, among them John's daughter, Lucy McClane who now works as a rookie L.A.P.D officer.

After a daring rescue mission, John is on the trail of retrieving several missing artworks and investigating Piet Gruber, son of John's nemesis, Hans Gruber way back in the original Die Hard, currently a financier for the museum, who may or may not be in league with the terrorists.

Alongside engaging in intense gunfights with enemies while completing objectives, gameplay also incorporates elements of stealth, for John to silently eliminate enemies, as well as including a variety of weapons and gadgets John can utilize to overcome challenges.

The game was released in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox platforms.

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This is going to be fun, John...

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Gruber's private army launch a siege on the Century City Police Department midway into the game, intending to bomb it. It ends with von Laben dead, Lucy kidnapped and Nitric in Gruber's employ.
• Air-Vent Passageway: The loving, evergreen, long-lasting tradition from the Die Hard movies gets carried over in the game, with John using air vents to infiltrate and escape the subway, prison and warehouse stages.
• Alternate Continuity: Doesn't follow the timeline of the film series, that the game's developers already confirmed even way back in the game's initial release. Live Free or Die Hard being released five years later featuring Lucy McClane as a non-combatant whose relationship with John is strained further cements it's non-canon status.
• Assist Character: In a few scant stages, Lucy McClane and Sergeant Al Powell (AI-controlled) will help John take down enemies, although they're usually not too much help with their revolvers since the player as John likely have better weapons.
• Avenging the Villain: Defied - John initially assumes Piet's vengeance towards him is because of John killing Piet's father, Hans Gruber, in 1988. Turns out it's NOT the case.
  John: So this is it, Gruber. Go ahead. Take your shot. I'm the one you want. If you've got a score to settle, settle it now.
  Piet: McClane, this was never about revenge. My father barely said two words to me my entire childhood. You did me a favor by killing him. This is about money, McClane. The money which you will now get for me.
• Bedsheet Ladder: The banner variant shows up in the Chinese Theatre stage, where John needs to access a balcony but the doors are locked. The solution? Shoot one side the "Galaxy Thief III" bannner underneath, and use it as a makeshift ladder. John will drop this hint aloud if the player doesn't know what to do:
  John: Hmm, I wonder how secure that banner is?
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Gruber traps McClane in a certain room in the Nakatomi building with a bomb primed to blow in 30 seconds...and there's an unlocked window nearby with a window cleaner's platform underneath it that John rides to safety. The window's not even closed all the way, so John can easily throw it open and escape.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: John's "Yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" was used by a few other characters, notably by Piet Gruber when taunting John over a walkie-talkie and later spoken by Lucy when she shoots Piet before he can try shooting John again.
  Lucy: Yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker!
  John: That's my girl!
• Bullet Time:
  • One of the game's features, promoted by the cover art, the "Hero Time" where John moves faster than usual as everything else runs in slow-mo around him.
  • A few Quick Time Event(s) will lead to this, like John pulling a Shoot the Hostage Taker in the first stage to save Lucy leading to a cutscene of John's bullet killing a mook in slow-motion.
• The Bus Came Back: After their abscence in Die Hard with a Vengeance, Sergeant Al Powell (with his last appearance in Die Hard 2 merely a cameo) and Richard Thornburg make a comeback in the game as major supporting characters.
• Camping a Crapper: One area John enters in the Chinese Theatre hostage scenario is the toilet, and he can sneak upon a couple of mooks chatting with each other, one of them taking a leak at a urinal. If John isn't spotted, he can gun down the urinal guy mid-pissing.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late:
  • Averted in the Nakatomi Plaza level. McClane is the last to arrive although ultimately the SWAT grunts are cut down leaving it all up to John, naturally.
  • Played straight in the Holmes Observatory level. The police only arrive after the whole place has gone up in flames and McClane has gotten out alive (having killed Frontier, natch.)
• Celebrity Survivor: Hollywood Town has Jessie Montana, a starlet caught in the middle of a terrorist attack, apparently having been inside her trailer the whole time. In typical celebirty fashion she'll constantly nag at John for trying to save her.
  Jessie: [to John after he just sent her trailer flying] Oh I'm going to make sure that you are going to spend a long time in jail, buster. You are so going to regret the day you messed with Jesse Montana!
• Chekhov's Skill: One of the tutorial stage's last challenge have John attempting to diffuse three dummy bombs. How convenient that the final stage, Holmes Observatory, revolves around John trying to diffuse Jack's timed explosives to prevent him from blowing up the premiere.
• Continuity Nod: The game references the past three movies every now and then.
  • Die Hard
    • When "Hero Time" is triggered, the background music turns into Symphony No. 9 "Ode to Joy" lifted from the very first film.
    • The second-to-last stage is set in the Nakatomi Plaza, which the game lovingly recreates from top to bottom. It sports the same courtyard (where John dropped a dead terrorist on Al Powell's vehicle back in '88) to identical sigils to zig-zagging long tables in the conference rooms.
    • John himself lampshades the first movie's events. And Piet taunts John using his father's exact phrases.
    Powell: Deja vu, heheh.
    John: Yeah, I never thought they'd let me back here.
    John: C4? Hmm...can't blow up the same building twice can you John?
    Piet: Tick tock, tick tock, cowboy...
    Piet: What was that you said? Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker?
    • One of the explorable areas in Nakatomi Plaza is the indoor pool / mini-waterfall where John fell in to escape an explosion in the film.
    • The game's last cutscene sees John punching out an overly insistent movie producer who wants to buy the rights to his story, much like Holly knocking out Dick Thornburg's lights moments before credits roll.
  • Die Hard 2
    • One area in the subway contains mooks dressed in painters' overalls disguised as janitors, like the skywalk gunfight from the film. There's even an identical tall frame with a mook standing on it like in the movie.
    • John fighting enemies in a room full of conveyer belts.
  • Die Hard with a Vengeance
    • The Big Bad is related to Hans Gruber, although it's his son instead of brother. Said Big Bad also seems to want vengeance for Hans, but it turns out not to be the case. Ironically, uncle Simon doesn't get a single mention at all throughout the game.
    • The subway shootout in the game is based on the movie's subway scenario.
    • A lot of terrorist bombing plots going on in this game, just like Simon Gruber's MO in the film. Pretty sure Piet got the idea from his uncle's activities five years ago.
    • Piet even has a European henchwoman who's an expy of Katya from the third film.
• Cutscene Boss: The game have it's share of boss battles throughout, but Piet Gruber, the Big Bad, was instead shot by John during a cutscene. Then Lucy comes up and puts a second bullet in him. His Dragon Ascendant, Jack Frontier, turns out to be a far bigger threat.
• Dark Action Girl: Piet Gruber's henchwoman and minion, Marlin, who serves as the boss prior to the Nakatomi Plaza stage. Upon being gunned down, she uses her last breath to tell John her boss is waiting for him in Nakatomi Plaza... with Lucy McClane as his hostage.
• Destroy the Security Camera: In the police station raid, John will need to shoot security cameras to avoid detection thanks to the terrorists taking over the surveillance room.
• "Die Hard" on an X: Well, no doy. The very first stage is a Die Hard-style scenario in the Townsend Art Museum, and later there's a Die Hard in a Theater, Die Hard in a Fish Factory and even goes full circle into a Die Hard in the Nakatomi tower building before ending with "Die Hard in an Observatory."
• Distressed Dude: Several of them, including the Hollywood records store clerk being held at gunpoint by mooks, the Chinese Theatre projectionist who's nearly suffocating from having a gag over his nose and mouth (until John frees him) and Al Powell in the police station raid. The latter regains his gun after being released and temporarily helps John take on enemies.
  Al Powell: I'll survive. Nothing broken, I'm tougher than these fools realize!
• Dodge the Bullet: John does this when Piet, wounded by one of John's bullets and being Defiant to the End, tries firing a shot at John. The bullet misses in a slow-motion shot, and then Lucy comes up and puts a second bullet in Piet that finishes him off.
• Donut Mess with a Cop:
  • Referenced when John infiltrates the police station in the middle of a terrorist raid.
  Mook: [shooting at some cops] You're dead, you donut eating homo!
  • John even lampshades the trope. At least twice.
  John: Just once I'd like to have a normal work day... a little filing, some coffee and donuts. No guns, no bombs, no hassle!
  John: [to Al] Look, you just rest here. Hell after all those donuts you'd just slow me down.
• Double-Meaning Title: The game's title and revelation makes the plot sound like Piet's terrorist schemes is payback over John killing his father Hans Gruber all those years ago, but it turns out Piet never really loves his father anyways, and him antagonizing John isn't out of vengeance over John dropping Hans to his death. At any rate, the "vendetta" refers to Jack Frontier's attempts to get back at Hollywood for terminating his contract and dropping him off the limelight.
• The Dragon: Piet's henchman, the ex-CIA operative-turned-disgraced movie star Jack Frontier, who opposes John repeatedly in the game's second half and becomes a Dragon Ascendant after Lucy shot Piet.
• Dragon Their Feet: After Gruber's killed off in the penultimate level, Frontier goes off on his own, launching an attack on the Holmes Observatory just to kill the actor who took his old movie role. That level is simply cleaning up the last detail.
• Evil Is Petty: Jack Frontier used to be a massive movie star with "Galaxy Thief" after his CIA days, but the crummy sequel bombed his career and he was replaced for the third movie. His response? Team up with Piet Gruber, be complicit in a number of crimes including a massive art museum robbery and an attack on a police station that killed most of the staff present, and then commit a terrorist attack on the Galaxy Thief III premiere, solely out of a completely selfish and petty vendetta.
• Ground by Gears: The Cesar Tuna Factory level at one point sees John face-to-face rotating gears on a Conveyor Belt o' Doom, so he has both that and the mooks shooting at him to worry about.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • John can equip himself with twin revolvers or Uzis in shootouts, though he can only target one enemy at a time.
  • Piet's minion, Nitric, uses dual Uzis during his first boss battle. His second one sees him using a machine-gun instead.
  • Marlin carries double revolvers when fought as a boss. She's far more accurate than Nitric, expectedly.
• Hostage Situation: In all the levels - the museum, theatre, Hollywood streets, subway, all of them. A frustrated John even lampshades it (after seeing a terrorist demanding three captives to be quiet).
  John: Shit, hostages. Why do these guys always have hostages?
• Human Shield: John can grab mooks from behind and use them as captives, before ordering other mooks to lay down their weapons, though only in stages when he snuck upon them without being noticed - if the shootout is already in full-swing John isnt granted this option.
• Immoral Journalist: Dick Thornburg, the asshole reporter from the movies, is as big a jerkass in video game-form as his live-action counterpart.
  Dick: [when John rendezvous with him in the opening stage] This is great! The best footage we ever had in ages - police ^note John, currently fighting terrorists in shootouts massacres foreign art benefactors!
  John: Where's the rest of your film crew?
  Dick: Err, they got shot. Occupational hazard.
• In Prison with the Rogues: The Hollywoodland shootout ends with John capturing Nitric, alive, but John unfortunately endangers a Hollywood actress, Jessie Montana in the process leading to his own arrest. Alas, John and Nitric just happens to be imprisoned in neighboring cells.
  John: Being locked in this cesspool isn't getting any better with you ^note Nitric turning it into a goddamned fish market!
• Interface Spoiler: How do you know the third prisoner is bullshitting you about the secret way out in the LAPD? The auto lock-on highlights him as an enemy, as opposed to not targetting Nitric or Dowd at all.
• It's Personal: John's grudge against Piet becomes this after the villain abducts Lucy. Again.
  John: [while he and Lucy ride the elevator to Nakatomi's roof for the final battle] Ok, whatever happens up there I don't want you to put yourself in any danger. This is personal between me and Gruber.
  Lucy: Yeah, well now it involves me.
  John: You ready to do this?
  Lucy: You lead the way.
• Justified Tutorial: The first stage is a training exercise where John gets to "refresh" his skills in a Shooting Gallery. It can't be skipped when restarting the game, the player can instead use a memory card to save before the museum stage.
• Kill It with Ice: One stage have John taking on Piet and Sumi's mooks in a freezer room loaded with nitrogen tanks, one of which is needed to break down a locked door in John's way. Shooting the tanks will release nitrogen gas that freezes any unfortunate mook in the way, and another shot on a frozen mook leads to Literally Shattered Lives. In fact, one of John's pre-programmed dialogue in the level is this lovely Shout-Out:
  John: Hasta la vista, baby!
• Like Father, Like Son: For all his claims of not caring about his father Hans, Piet's plan is simply a robbery masked as a greater plot...just like Hans himself all those years ago.
• Lineage Comes from the Father:
  • John's daughter, Lucy McClane (in the few levels where she sees action) is another police officer and a trigger-happy Cowboy Cop like her dad, who isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty. She even lets out her dad's trademark "Yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" after killing the Big Bad.
  • Piet Gruber turns out to be another terrorist mastermind, just like his father Hans, and is holding Los Angeles hostage with an experimental warhead.
• Museum Level: First stage is set in the Townsend Museum where terrorists have taken over, and John's daughter Lucy is among the hostages.
• Never My Fault: Via cribbing the famous speech from On the Waterfront, Frontier blames everyone but himself for his fall from grace in the final level.
• Night-Vision Goggles: The Subway level sees John obtaining these in an area, which come in handy when the last parts of the level are pitch black. The screen, being from John's POV, is entirely green in this particular area.
• Not Me This Time: After escaping Gruber's Nakatomi bomb trap, John has to assure Powell that it wasn't him that blew the place up this time.
• Nothing Personal: Said by Jack Frontier after he betrays his boss, Piet Gruber, leaving the latter to die.
  Jack: Nothing personal Gruber, but you had it coming.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: John McClane has aged visibly in the game compared to his film counterpart, with his character model in cutscenes sporting graying hair. His main enemies, on the other hand, are Piet Gruber, son of his first villain Hans Gruber, and Jack Frontier, a disgraced former soldier-turned-actor-turned-terrorist who couldn't be older than forty.
• Papa Wolf: It's John McClane we're talking about here. The bad guys learn this the hard way once they kidnap Lucy.
• Railing Kill: Mooks behind balconies tend to fall over the side and several stories down when shot. Some cutscenes depicting Bullet Time executions will even have the mooks fall in glorious slow motion.
• Railroad Tracks of Doom: In the subway, as John infiltrates the railroad tracks, he finds a mook in two pieces halved around the waist lying on the subway tracks. This of course warns him to be careful of passing subway trains, lest he suffers the same fate (Game Over, time to reload your last save) himself.
• Relative Button: Nitric, after being busted out of prison by Piet's terrorists, with John in the cell next to him, leaves behind this taunt to the still locked-up John, for no reason other than to spite the latter for arresting him earlier.
  Nitric: Think about this, muchacho: While you're in here I'll be with your daughter!
• Schmuck Bait: One prisoner in the LAPD claims to know a secret way out of the precinct to safety. You let him out of his cell and what does he do? As soon as he gets to the entrance, he runs to the bomb-wired doors. You're gonna have to shoot him so he doesn't blow everything sky high.
• Sequelitis: In-universe example with the Galaxy Thief trilogy, a movie series which Piet's minion Jack Frontier used to star in. The first Galaxy Thief was a success making Jack a star and led to a sequel being greenlit. Unfortunately, this time Galaxy Thief II bombed despite making plenty of money, with Frontier's wooden performance being a particular target for critics; the studios' decision to replace Jack in Galaxy Thief III leads to Jack's Start of Darkness and allying himself with Piet Gruber before eventually attempting to commit a terrorist attack on Holmes Observatory at the premier of Galaxy Thief III.
• Show Within a Show: The "Galaxy Thief" movie trilogy. The final level is John preventing a terrorist bombing on the third movie's premiere.
• Shoot the Rope: During the chaos at Sierra Correctional, at one point some of the inmates capture and attempt to execute surviving SWAT guys by hanging them from their necks, for no reason other than shits and giggles. John has to save the one surviving guy from this by shooting the rope before he chokes to death.
• Shout-Out:
  • There's a water tower in Hollywoodland's corner that looks exactly like the one in Warner Bros'. It even has a red version of the Warner shield logo on it's side!
  • The Sierra prison level at one point has John uncover a secret entrance in a prison cell, hidden by a poster (of a girl in a bikini) covering a hole in the wall, ala The Shawshank Redemption.
  • Frontier's Motive Rant in the final battle is drectly cribbed from On the Waterfront, word for word.
• Silliness Switch: Using either the Big Head or Pin Head cheats grows or shrinks the head of EVERYONE in game, and alters their voice to match. Try Pin Head mode if you want everyone to look like shrunken headed freaks who sound like characters from South Park!
• Sniping Mission: In Hollywood Town, with John obtaining a sniper rifle and tasked with clearing out all the other enemy sniper guards before they can take any more of the SWAT guys out.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: The last parts of the Hollywood Studio level features a locked gate that blocks McClane's way. His solution? Not to climb over the gate (despite it not being particularly tall) or Shoot Out the Lock but to shoot a clamp holding in place the trailer of a multi-million dollar actress while she's still inside! And this ends up with McClane arrested to keep Jessie satisfied. Nice move, John!
• Time Bomb:
  • Twice in the Nakatomi Plaza stage. For the first, Gruber traps John on the 22nd floor with a bomb primed to go off in 30 seconds, which John escapes of course. For the second, John eventually finds Lucy, tied to a chair in a conference room with an explosive vest strapped to her chest. And he'll need to disarm the bomb within 2 minutes by finding the detonator and deactivating it.
  • Holmes Observatory, the final level, involves Jack Frontier installing timed explosives to blow up the building on the premier of "Galaxy Thief III", which John needs to track down and diffuse.
• Turn in Your Badge: Powell orders John to hand in his badge and gun when he arrests him at the end of the Hollywood Studios level. Mostly as a formality.
• Where It All Began: Near the end of the game, Piet Gruber carts a captive Lucy off all the way to Nakatomi Plaza, where McClane dropped Hans to his death all those years ago. The trope name even gets referenced by Gruber's Dragon Lady.
• Why Won't You Die?: A repeated phrase uttered by Piet Gruber, and some of his mooks. Then again, they're fighting John McClane.
• Yakuza: It turns out Piet is in league with the Japanese criminal underworld, led by the Yakuza mob kingpin Sumi Kazawa, who's suppling Piet with a prototype RDXS Ample rocket weapon in exchange for the stolen artworks from Townsend Museum.
• You Killed My Father: Not that Piet seems to care in the end, as he claims his father "barely spoke two words to [him in his] entire life" and that McClane did him a favour in killing Hans. In the end it's all about the money...just like Hans.

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