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As I continue to romp and stomp through Sega's better half of their game library (considering how much crap I've gone through in the worse half), I come across Sega's early 1997 arcade-to-home conversion of Die Hard Arcade, a game that bears some resemblance to the hit 1988 movie of the same name. The result? Well, it's the arcade game brought home all right. Now all that matters is how much you've played the coin-op.

You control either John McClane or his female partner as they travel through Nakatomi Tower and take on terrorists, evil cops, gang members, and other baddies while trying to find the main guy, an athletic old coot who's trying to break into a vault in the main office and holding the President's daughter for ransom. Along the way, you can use several weapons to your advantage, such as broomsticks, guns, machine guns, and, my personal favorite, rocket launchers.

The graphics in Die Hard Arcade are pretty good, even though they're nowhere in VF2's league. The fact is they were never meant to be, but they do suffice for a good programming job by the team at Fox Interactive. The animation on each character, enemy and hero, is well done, and the stages have wonderful 3-D details to them. Little things like fountains, electronic gizmo-rigged floors, and even in-game cinemas don't slow down the details either. Not bad.

The music is a bit overdone, with enough orchestration within the game to make it sound like a World War. Still, it's kickass music and a lot better than the mundane tunes located in Die Hard Trilogy. The sound fx are the usual bunch of groans and oofs, with some well-acted voice breaking up the monotony ("Ahh, so the cat has found the mouse" is a pretty cool line...I use it in Duke Nukem quite often).

Control's pretty good, although not really the level above Final Fight that I was expecting. After all, that's what this really is- 3-D Final Fight. You can move your character around and pull off special combos and attacks, but there could've been more variety and less of the tap-tap actions that made KI Gold such a monotonous trip. However, to its credit, it is pretty tight and gets the job done.

Rounding out the other issues: The funfactor of this game is very high, as it's fun to take on several opponents at once with the likes of a broomstick (do I smell a Jackie Chan scenario, huh?). The difficulty is just right, although you can activate a Super-Hard mode via a code (see the Codes section to snag it). The extra bonus, an obscure 80's title called Deep Scan, is kinda cool and allows you to rack up the credits so you can do even more damage during the game.

I guess the only letdown about Die Hard Arcade is the ending. Here you are going through a building full of hostile enemies, and, once you beat them, all you get is a little ten-second or so ending? What up with that? Otherwise, Die Hard Arcade scores as a 3-D variation of Final Fight, and I recommend it to all the fistcuff swingers who own a Saturn. It punches up an 8 out of 10 and a Yippie-Ki-Yay on top. So what if Eastman didn't like it? Is there a game these days he actually likes?