Stranglehold Review

The integration of Hollywood and the videogame industry continues with Stranglehold, which is basically a sequel to the John Woo movie Hard Boiled. Chow Yun-Fat reprises his role as Inspector Tequila, a no-nonsense Hong Kong cop in the mold of Dirty Harry. A notorious gang has kidnapped a fellow officer, and Tequila volunteers to accept their offer to negotiate his release even though he knows it is an obvious setup. When the kidnapped cop turns up dead, Tequila’s search to bring his killers to justice leads to a bloody romp through the double-dealing, double-crossing world of Hong Kong’s vicious crime gangs.

Stranglehold would not be able to call itself a sequel to Hard Boiled if it didn’t deliver the same sort of over-the-top action and violence of a John Woo picture. And that it does. The body count in this game is staggering and practically begs for a Scarface style bullet or body counter. Enemies assault you by the dozen and all of them are very well-armed. While the odds may seem to be stacked decidedly against our poor Detective Tequila, he is not without his arsenal of special talents to help him lay down the law. First of all he is incredibly acrobatic. Not only can you dive and roll with reckless abandon in the game, you can make use of your environment to get the drop on your adversaries. Whenever you approach an interactive object such as a rail, zipline, or hand cart it will briefly flash white. When you see this flash L1 will cause Tequila to interact with that object, whether it be sliding down a handrail or tiptoeing along the top of a banister. There are also plenty of interactions that are automatic – for example, run about to a countertop and you’ll slide across. And of course you can keep shooting while you’re pulling off all of these moves and there’s certainly some fun to be had taking out a room full of gangsters while rolling across the floor on a handcart.

Not all interactive objects in the environments are there for acrobatics. You’ll come across poles, window A/C units, and signs that flash with a little white gleam. When you shoot these objects they will set off a sequence that inevitably leads to the deaths of several gang members. There is a certain satisfaction to watching the sequence of events kicked off by a falling neon sign eventually take out a cluster of enemies, and some of the chain reactions can’t help but elicit thoughts of Rube Goldberg.

The biggest ace up Tequila’s sleeve is Tequila Time (yes, Max Payne fans, it’s just like Bullet Time). As you kill enemies the game will rate the creativity with which you dispatch them and reward you by filling your Tequila Time meter. This power can then be used to slow down time although you’ll still be able to aim and fire your weapons in real-time. It’s a great way to take out several enemies at once before they can even react to your presence. Tequila Time is automatically engaged when you dive while your aiming reticule is near an enemy or you can press a button to turn it on at any time. Your Tequila Time meter is also used to power your special abilities which include the useful talent of self-healing. Another lets you aim your weapon as if it had a sniper scope and another makes you invulnerable for a short period of time.

The last special attack is really a type of mini game that is triggered automatically at various points in the game. When you find yourself in a Mexican standoff, time once again slows down and you are automatically turned to face each enemy in turn. You’ll have control over your aim, but you can also dodge enemy bullets as they come at you much like in The Matrix. The Mexican standoffs are more there for visual appeal than anything else, and the first couple of times it will seem cool but it will begin to grow stale after that.

With all that Tequila has going for him you can imagine that he is a pretty effective killing machine despite the number of enemies he has to face. When you first start playing the game you’ll love the feeling that you’re in a John Woo movie. The action has a great visual appeal to it although it does require a healthy suspension of disbelief – especially when it comes to the bosses who take literally hundreds of bullets to take down. Before too long though the luster will begin to wear off when you begin to notice that there are only a small number of types of interactive objects in the game and you’ll see them over and over again. It doesn’t help matters much that the enemy AI is pretty simple and although they have a numbers advantage they insist on wasting it by running out into the open all of the time. Add in a frustrating game camera and you’ve got a recipe for tedium. Stranglehold is a short game, but at the same time the repetitive nature of the action makes the levels feel long. Even slow-mo kills and highly destructible environments can get a little boring when each skirmish feels pretty much exactly like the last.

If you’re interested in checking out a game that plays differently from most of the action shooters out there, then Stranglehold is worth a look. However, don’t be surprised if you find yourself getting a bit tired of the whole thing before you reach the end despite the game’s short length.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 74%. It will put a stranglehold on you for a little while, but it’s really a sleeper hold.