Stranglehold
September 12,2007 - John Woo Presents Stranglehold is a story about love, betrayal, and revenge. Oh, and it’s also about firing as many bullets into as many objects—living or inanimate—as possible. While the story is a typical cop drama, Stranglehold promises each firefight to be more epic than the last one, even if the total package will only last you barely over eight hours.

In Stranglehold, you assume the persona of Hong Kong detective Inspector Tequila, whose voice and likeness are that of famed actor Chow Yun-Fat. A search for a missing police officer turns into a search for the officer’s killer that branches and twists into an investigation about an emerging war for territory between two rival gangs, the Golden Kane and Dragonclaw. Add Russian mob involvement and the lives of Tequila’s daughter and ex-lover at stake, and you have a recipe for any generic action movie. Tequila plays his part well despite the one-liners but the same can’t be said for the rest of archetypal thugs and mob bosses.

Story, however, isn’t the reason you’ll be playing Stranglehold. Falling in line with the shoot ‘em up genre, you’ll spend ninety percent of your time filling the air with hot, spiraling, rockets of lead. Tequila auto-wields two weapons—when possible—that share ammunition. A pretty standard set of weapons is at your disposal, including pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers. Probably for pacing reasons, developer Midway excluded reloading from gunfights, meaning you can empty 110 pistol rounds without replacing a single magazine. That is, unless you use the “Barrage” Tequila Bomb where the detective slams more rounds into his weapons and goes into a temporary stage where he is invincible and his weapons will fire as if they were automatic with infinite clips. Tequila Bombs are detective Tequila’s four special moves that he can launch after the player fills a meter by performing cinematic kills or simply earning multiple kills within seconds of each other.

Each Tequila Bomb sends the detective into Tequila Time, a sort of slow-motion mode where Tequila can focus his firepower and improve his accuracy, reminiscent of bullet-time in Max Payne and The Matrix. Unlike its other incarnations Tequila Time is not a precious resource to be carefully preserved and strategically used. Instead, it naturally regenerates at a generous pace to fill the meter and auto-launches every time Tequila is interacting with the environment while facing enemies or involved in the handful of quick-draw showdowns between a few guys at close range. Tequila interacts with environments by jumping over tables, kicking off walls, diving through windows, riding stomach-down on carts, and running up staircase railings. Instead of allowing countertops and table surfaces to block his path, Tequila will automatically slide himself across to the other side, which is a really helpful mechanic when trying to navigate a crowded environment with molten hot metal flying about your head. Tequila can also use the environment to his enemies’ disadvantage. Signs and overhead lights can be dropped onto enemy heads while statues can be toppled onto them and barrels exploded near them to their chagrin. Environments manage to change often enough throughout the game to stay fresh, but all missions follow the same formula of killing enemies until the next checkpoint with very few actual objectives other than the occasional “Destroy 10 drug tables” or “Plant explosives” that in reality are only a shallow frame to lead you along the mostly linear maps.

The graphics will seem terrible at first as you are led through the opening cinematic—character models look blocky, hair is mostly a stiff goop, and lip synching is off. Somehow, though, cut scenes generally look worse than the actual gameplay. The graphics will grow on you as you pick out fine details in clothing and find yourself immersed in a realistic urban environment. Of course, you’ll find doves not only flying about levels but also magically hidden inside Tequilas jacket to be released during the Spin Tequila Bomb. The development team obviously had to make a couple sacrifices in graphic quality at the expense of the incredible destructible environments, which is the category where Stranglehold truly stands above any other game made to date. Individual lights pop, sputter, and fall from ceilings, concrete pillars can be chipped away to expose the rebar, aluminum siding can be torn apart, walls pockmarked, statues have their legs shot out, fruit exploded, and even some entire buildings can be blown to their foundations if exposed to enough firepower. Finally, a game that truly depicts what an environment would look like after a gunfight.

Serj Tankian of System of a Down fame helped compose a couple songs for Stranglehold, and given his discography you’re guaranteed to feel an adrenaline rush listening to the soundtrack. The action sequences in Stranglehold comprise quick drumbeats coupled with intense guitar strumming that still somehow manages to retain their Chinese flavor. Of course, there are a couple tracks of traditional Chinese influence. The hundreds of destructible objects in the environment have their own distinct sounds in each stage of demolition, and weapons can be distinguished by the sound of the pitch and rate of fire. Sounds and voices are realistically distorted when entering Tequila Time, which leads to a little hilarity when voices transition from slow and deep to their normal state.

Overall, Stranglehold offers bang for your buck akin to purchasing one large firework instead of a handful of smaller ones. Except that the large firework turns out to be only slightly larger than a mediocre one. Still, it manages to push the envelope with cinematic firefights worthy of the John Woo name even if its story has been told a million times.

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More