Die Hard The Nakatomi Heist Board Game by USAOPOLY Multicolour

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1. Jack Squat Verified Buyer – 7 June 2024

   The Nakatomi Heist game, in 3 Acts, using a game board that partially unfolds during each Act to be fully unfolded by Act 3, plays out just like the movie struggle between Hans Gruber and gang and our favorite New York City Police Department Detective in the “wrong place at the wrong time”, Lieutenant John McClane. Excellent graphics, playing cards with quotes from the movie, well sculpted mini-figures and objectives which match movie events make this game worth every penny. Gather a few Die Hard fans and don’t just watch the film, play the movie!
   

2. Chris Verified Buyer – 10 October 2024

   Great gift for a DIE HARD fan! 🤭
   

3. Brett Verified Buyer – 5 January 2025

   Wr had zero fun playing this game, too complicated and directions are confusing. After an hour of trying to set it up and get started, and reading the manual 100x nobody wanted to even play anymore. Waste of money.
   

4. Sean A. Gilderseeve Verified Buyer – 16 January 2025

   Die hard is one of thee best Christmas action movies of all time. Who didn’t want to be John McClain or with John McClain. Well apparently, Holly didn’t want to be with him, but that is a whole other story.

   I don’t usually buy games that are associated with other mediums like TV or movies. I find that they are often disappointing but I could help but by this game. I not only get to be John McClain or some of the thieves in Nakatomi Towers, but I can still view Bruce Willis as one of the sexiest humans on earth!

   The game itself is a lot of fun and really easy to learn. The hardest thing is knowing you won’t actually get to repel down a huge tower, should not start a smoking habit, nor will I actually get to say cool lines like he did. But if you are a fan of the movies, I would get this game.
   

5. Michael Duquette Verified Buyer – 23 January 2025

   The game like the movie is a Christmas Tradition, like Lethal Weapon or some Bing Crosby Movies. Get in the holiday spirit and kill terrorists!!!!
   

6. Ben Verified Buyer – 10 February 2025

   Fun game when I played it but we were constantly looking at the rules. it’s not a game you can pick up and play, it’s for more hardcore tabletop gaming fans.
   

7. Waylon Coleman Verified Buyer – 25 February 2025

   This game does an excellent job of incorporating the movie’s plot elements into the gameplay. Also, any game that lets you play as Alan Rickman is awesome by definition.
   

8. Gregg Re Verified Buyer – 3 March 2025

   Pictures attached: One shows the lock cards, one shows Act 1 (setup), two other photos shot Act 2 and 3 (just the board), then I attached a picture of the McClane player board and the lock cards. Sorry these are a bit rushed, I just realized it would help to have photos. SUMMARY: I play a lot of boardgames — some of my favorites are complex enthusiast games like Wildlands, Labyrinth: War on Terror, Clockwork Wars, Discworld, A Study in Emerald, Rising Sun, Root, Sekigahara, etc etc. This is not that. Right out the gate, I want to say that Die Hard is a Christmas boardgame. Also, is not a particularly deep or complex game. AND, despite its lack of depth, it still has a lot of fiddly little rules that will probably frustrate casual players. For example, Hans can only be killed by throwing him off the ledge, not by shooting or punching him — but every time you punch or shoot him, you get to move him one space closer to the ledge. It feels like a videogame boss, and no other character in the game works like that. Similarly, the thief locking mechanism is pretty fiddly and will likely baffle lots of casual players. However, it’s a lot of fun with fans of Die Hard in the mood for a light, silly, goofy game as long as you have one person who is reasonably familiar with modern boardgames and can teach them easily. It plays from 1-4 players, with 1 player as McClane, and from 1-3 player as the thieves. The game, to a fault, is dedicated to being ‘cinematic.’ I would go so far as to say this is heavily ‘scripted.’ What this means in boardgame terms is that, rather than allow events and storylines to develop through player creativity and ’emergent’ gameplay, Die Hard (sort of like the recent Jaws game, or Axis and Allies D-Day) heavily restricts what players’ focus is on any given turn. It really wants McClane to find the shoes, and push Gruber off the roof, etc every game — no exceptions! In a game like the ones I mentioned earlier, YOU and your friends (or even just YOU, if it’s a solitare-capable game like dawn of the zeds, Spirit Island, Hornet Leader, Thunderbirds, Nemo’s War, Champions of Hara, Too Many Bones, etc) are the ones who create the narrative. You might come away from game night with a story like, “Tom really shocked everyone by backstabbing Steve at the last minute, only to learn Steve was anticipating it all along,” or something like that. But in Die Hard, you basically are living the same general story each time, thanks to all the little niggling rules that will keep you in check. There will be minor variations — sometimes McClane will shoot more and sneak less, for instance — but it’s all in service of accomplishing the same objectives. So the question becomes, is there enough depth in those decisions you do have? I believe there is, in Die Hard — but just barely. The upside is that it really does feel like the movie, both in terms of the objectives overall, and the moment-to-moment skirmishes with the guards, as well as the sneaking around in the vents, shooting the glass windows, etc. BASIC RULES OVERVIEW: I don’t want to summarize all the rules, but I’ll give a quick primer. If you’re new to modern boardgames, it’s likely that you will want to carefully consult the manual. This is because Die hard is split into 3 acts, and the rules shift a bit between each act. However, it’s pretty clearly laid out, and after a quick runthrough, you should have everything figured out and ready to play “for real.” In the game’s first clever move, the board gradually unfolds to reveal more of Nakatomi Plaza as the game goes. Act one is TINY! In each act, McClane and the thieves work to complete separate objectives. For the thieves, some of their objectives (injuring McClane and cracking the safes) persist from act to act. For McClane, he has a very set number of objectives each act, and the act ends when he finishes them and escapes (Objectives for McClane include getting a radio, finding shoes, scaring hostages off the roof, pushing Gruber off the roof, etc. Objectives for the thieves include finding hostages, shooting the RPG at the SWAT tank, etc.) Perhaps the cleverest part of this game is how the thieves decide actions, which models their difficulty of communicating. Basically, each thief card contains a number, as well as some actions. So, a card might have the number 5, and allow the thieves to shoot and move. If you’re playing with 3 thieves, the lead thief picks one action card from a hand of three, and then shows it to the other 2 thiefs; and then the other 2 thiefs each privately select one card from their own hands, and then all are revealed at once. The thieves CANNOT DISCUSS STRATEGY HERE! After the reveal, **only the middle-numbered card is used for its “Actions”** (which can include shooting at McClane, moving, etc.). The other two cards’ actions are ignored, and the numbers on the cards are used towards hacking the safe, which has a randomly selected “Combination.” You need to hack 6 locks (the 7th only goes with the power outage!), which are increasingly complex. The last lock can only be solved when the FBI cuts the power to the building. The safe combos that the thieves need to crack are generated by stacking 2 or more ‘safe cards’ on top of each other. Each card has some numbers on it, going horizontally .Please see attached picture of the lock cards if this is confusing — it’s hard to explain! So, for instance, if the safe combo is 5, 7, 9 on the top row, and 4, 6, 8 on the bottom row, your thieves might play the following numbered cards — 4,5,9. The “5” card might contain some actions, which the lead thief can use to hunt McClane. But the 4 and 9 are immediately applied to the safe — AND, because those numbers are “adjacent” in the combination (the 5 is above the 4), both numbers are “cracked.” (If the numbers aren’t directly on top of or next to each other in the combination, you only pick one to crack.) Once all numbers in the safe are done, you move on to the next one. Completing objectives for the thieves gets you more safes unlocked faster. “Actions” like shooting, punching, shoving etc are decided by dice rolls. I like that the map influences this. Line of sight is needed to shoot; obstacles in the way make the dice roll harder (and hostages are “super obstacles” that are EXTRA hard to shoot through/around in the final act!). McClane dies if his draw pile runs out. This is somewhat similar to the old Gears of War boardgame (also good, for 1-4 players!), although unfortunately there’s not really opportunities to “take risks” and use multiple cards at the expense of your health, like you could in Gears of War. Instead, this functions as a kind of stealth timer, to keep McClane moving, and to make it sting when he has to discard cards because he’s taking fire. At the same time, McClane must be aware that cards that McClane plays are carried over to future acts; cards he doesn’t are wasted!! McClane, in this way, gets stronger, better equipped, more experienced as the game goes on — just like the movie. In one great touch, when he doesn’t have his shoes, McClane must discard a card for stepping on broken glass, while the guards don’t have to. Each thief (in 3-4 player games) gets to be lead thief each turn. They pick the actions and first card picked. This is a good way to avert quarterbacking — when one player just tells all their teammates what to do. It gives each thief player a chance to have an “executive” role on the thief side. HOT THOUGHTS: I love, love, love the thief action selection mechanism. It’s inspired and different, and leads to funny moments. It works best with 3 thieves. With only one player as thief, it changes a bit (basically, you draw one card facedown, then one face up, then pick the third from your hand). It also has a different minor change with only 2 thieves. That’s all workable and creates some drama for the thief, but it really comes alive with the full 3 thieves. Why? Because you’re trying to read what the other thieves are going for! Let’s say your lead thief plays a 3. Is that to crack the safe, or to push you along towards picking the action card?? This requires reading your teammates, plus the board. Love it. Makes you feel like a thief struggling as McClane hunts you. I also love that the board expands from act to act. Eventually, you’re in the climactic moment with the huge, (pretty nice looking) board, and the helipad and gruber are up top — and McClane needs to push Gruber off to win. The board also introduces light tactical considerations, like when McClane should take a shot, or where thieves should hide behind obstacles. I did think the art style was good, but I could see how it could be a bit abstract for some. The cards all have appropriate quotes from the movie, which helps a lot. On the negatives or more difficult parts, I will note that I don’t think the game is too replayable. This is a big risk of ‘scripted’ cinematic games — it always will hit the same story beats. That said, get some drinks and put die hard on (!), and with fans of the film, this is an enjoyable way to spend an evening. I also preferred the later acts, where the board is a bit more open, to Act 1. Act 1 is a little small, and it felt like my choice of tactics as McClane was always clear — just rush for the objectives as quickly as I could. There wasn’t the space to have tougher decisions in the initial act. I did really enjoy how some objectives persist across multiple acts (The thieves are always trying to draw blood from McClane, and their progress in injuring him carries over from act to act, as does their progress with the safes), while other objectives need to be completed within the act. However, some of the objectives are more fun than others. Killing a thief and throwing his body out the window! Tons of fun. Shoving guards or Gruber around to get them at the edge of the building? Shooting out glass near McClane? All awesome. But, I was a little less enthused by hunting around for hostages, which involves turning over tokens and seeing if it’s hostages or not. Because the objectives are the same from game to game, there’s not much variety. I wish there was a player aid as quick reminder of what the different actions do, although they’re straightforward enough it’s not a big deal. But, there are some minor things to remember.Sometimes, players can forget that sneaking lets you enter an obstacle space with one, rather than two moves, for example. Also, it can be a bit anticlimactic if McClane dies by running out of cards. If he ever cannot draw more than 2, he’s out. This encourages more planning by McClane, but it can end games in a whimper. Tons of fun, simple enough, and goofy. If it’s your first boardgame in a while, it may come off as a bit rules dense, so just take it act by act.

   

9. Gemma Sankey Verified Buyer – 9 March 2025

   This game is incredible. The design is good, it plays out just like the movie. It’s great as a 2 player which I wasnt expecting. I recommend this game to gamers and on-board gamers as it’s easy to play!
   

10. Tad R. Verified Buyer – 12 March 2025

    Haha ok not really, but this game is fun! Takes a little time to learn and understand all the rules. Once that happens though, it is fun and challenging! Great time with friends that know and love the movie! Even those that don’t find the game fun once they play it. Yippee Ki Yay!
    

11. Anonymous Verified Buyer – 19 March 2025

    Delivered as described.
    

12. Michael D Verified Buyer – 1 April 2025

    Fun as hell. Seems to have been designed along the lines of DnD so if you play a tabletop game it is super easy to pick up. You move based on drawn cards. Actions like punching, shoving, shooting require dice rolls. 4 different levels of game play (3 different acts and act iii split into 2 sections.) We watched the movie while playing and it took about the time of the movie to complete the game. Simple mechanics but a lot of fun. My husband was very happy with this one! It is full of graphics and phrases/quotes from the movie.