Stranglehold, starring international film icon Chow Yun-Fat and world-renowned action director John Woo, brings all of the action and suspense of a summer blockbuster to your home. Acclaimed action director John Woo presents Stranglehold, a stunning third-person action adventure videogame and “spiritual sequel” to Woo’s 1992 action masterpiece Hard Boiled.
You should definitely watch the movie Hard Boiled before playing the game as it features a tough-as-nails cop who teams up with an undercover agent to bring down a gun smuggling ring and has some of the most amazing and influential action set pieces in cinematic history. Fifteen years later the game Stranglehold redefines the action gaming experience with its acrobatic gunplay, thrilling cinematography, frenetic combat and incredible Massive Destructibility (Massive D) that your itchy trigger fingers have been waiting for.
System: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Genre: Action-Adventure Shooter
Release dates: September 7th 2007 (USA), September 14th 2007 (EURO), September 20th 2007 (AUS)
Players: 1-8
Developer: John Woo’s Tiger Hill Entertainment
Publisher: Midway
Origin: America
Chow Yun-Fat reprises his signature role as Inspector Tequila, pitting gamers as a take no-prisoners cop waging a personal war with Hong Kong crime lords. Tequila’s loyalties to the force are tested when his ex-wife and daughter are kidnapped by the Russian mob in Chicago. Tequila struggles to balance his duty to uphold the law with doing what it takes to save his family.
Stranglehold allows players to experience the excitement of true next-gen action as you take on the role of Inspector Tequila created by John Woo for his influential action film, “Hard Boiled” starring Chow Yun-Fat. Ensnared by a crime boss with a gripping secret, Inspector Tequila is forced to cross the line from sworn duty to bloody revenge. Engage your enemies with intense cinematic gun battles and cause massive environmental damage in real-time or revolutionary slow-motion sequences called Tequila Time.
Watch the Stranglehold launch trailer.
So what are the main features of Stranglehold?
* Stranglehold allows gamers to play a John Woo directed action blockbuster movie. dual-wielding,stunt-laden gunplay combined with massive destructible environments ensures that Stranglehold will be a true tour-de-force. The environmental interactivity and two-fisted gunplay all come online, bringing the experience to a whole new level.
* Gamers will experience smooth flowing gameplay, such as running up railings, swinging on chandeliers and leaping onto moving objects, all without interrupting intense gun battles.
* Featuring the cinematic flare of acclaimed action director John Woo, Stranglehold will also benefit from Woo’s direction on storyline, camera placement and cutscenes. Starring international action-star Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector Tequila, the game’s cast is also comprised of other A-list Hollywood talent.
* The innovative physics engine will provide gamers with an unprecedented level of interactivity. With two huge areas to explore (Chicago and Hong Kong), the interactions will be infinite with each level offering massive amounts of destructibility.
* Stranglehold’s inventive combat camera and Tequila Time slow-motion system allow players to simultaneously aim and shoot at the current target while diving, providing for robust gunplay combat between foes. This generates a cinematic effect that mimics Woo’s. Tequila Time is managed through a meter which drains with use and regenerates with time.
* Using a highly modified version of the Unreal 3.0 engine integrated with the Havok physics system, Stranglehold will breathe new life into game environments and characters with stunning graphics, and feature an ever-changing battleground depending on how players approach different scenarios.
From character design to gameplay mechanics, learn all you need to know before you enter the destructive world of Stranglehold. Watch this Stranglehold single player gameplay feature.
Get an in-depth look at the characters, weaponry, and gameplay elements present in Stranglehold. Watch this Stranglehold multiplayer gameplay feature.
Now let’s see how much fun Stranglehold is on a scale from 1 to 10?
FUN FACTOR – 8.5
Stranglehold will give you intense, non-stop action, cinematic gunplay and massive destruction all over! It’s incredibly awesome and satisfying to see a game that’s a sequel to a movie, yet still features the choreographed action and freeze framed sequences that John Woo is known for. It makes you feel badass and the badguys will remind Inspector Tequila plenty of times (excuse my language) of how big his balls are for taking them on… after which you usually end up shooting them in the head with blood gushing everywhere or blowing up the entire place resulting in massive explosions, that all help make you feel like you’re in the middle of a blockbuster movie kicking ass like there’s no tomorrow.
The developers really stayed true to John Woo’s directing style and Chow Yun-Fat’s cool acting, and both clearly had their input into the action-packed gameplay and cut-scenes. All movie-based games or movie game sequels should look at Stranglehold as to how to get that cinema feeling into a game right. The controls are perfect and thus the action plays fantastic. Definitely try out the demo for the game before buying and if you love that first level, you’ll have a blast playing through the entire game! There’s loads of fun to be had in Stranglehold story mode and you can also check out the online multiplayer, but look at that as more of an optional extra mode, the story mode packs the real adrenaline-pumping punch here.
Since I already owned John Woo’s Hard Boiled movie on DVD, I picked up the regular Xbox 360 version of the sequel game Stranglehold. But there’s also a PS3 Collector’s Edition that includes the aforementioned Hard Boiled fully remastered in high-definition and on the same Blu-ray disc with all the additional game extras and features. Then there’s a different Xbox 360 Collector’s Edition that includes the same extras and features, but on a separate disc without the Hard Boiled movie.
Graphics – 8.5
Stranglehold’s graphics and movie-style scenarios looks great thanks to a heavily modified version of the Unreal Engine 3.0. Among these modifications is Massive D, a set of physics technologies that allows players to destroy nearly every object in a given level. Yes, almost everything! The character animations could be better though, especially when the characters are talking it doesn’t look that next-gen, luckily the rest of the game does. Stranglehold incorporates a body swapping technique that randomizes parts of enemy character models, producing varied characters rather than repetitious clones. Stranglehold’s gunplay uses location-based damage. The A.I. responds differently to various hit locations, varying enemy reactions with damage-mapped impact points, even Tequila himself will automatically move his head away from a gunshot impacting the cover he’s hiding behind if it’s near his head. This feature is integrated throughout the game, but especially apparent in enemies during the second of four Tequila Bombs: Precision Aim. Also, while targets take time to recover from flesh wounds, they will eventually revive (even if unable to stand) and continue to fire until passing out from simulated blood loss, so you better be safe and really take ’em out while your guns are blazing and causing blood to flow and buildings to blow!
Audio – 8.5
The action-packed music score for the game was written and composed by Serj Tankian. Two complete songs are “The Essence of Tequila” and “Chicakong”. The various gunshots, explosions they cause or impact they make on the many different surfaces, all sound fantastic. Midway did a fantastic job on the sound effect. Of course the main attraction is Chow Yun Fat reprising his role as Inspector Tequila, they scanned his entire body and his voice acting is convincingly cool and angry at the same time. Once again John Woo makes a cameo as the bartender pouring tequila for Chow Yun Fat’s character.
Ingenuity – 8.5
As mentioned before, it really does feel like you’re playing through a John Woo blockbuster movie, which was exactly the creator’s intention. The controls are easy to learn as they are shown to you as you progress through the game. There’s nothing quite like diving to the side in slow motion while emptying your guns into mafia goon’s chests to take them down. Every action, shot, and special move you take/make looks cinematic and feels rewarding. Simply awesome.
Replay Value – 7.5
Expect Stranglehold’s main story mode to give you 6 to 10 hours of playtime depending on the difficulty level you choose. You may think it’s short, but it’s oh so much fun that the game length doesn’t really matter. Stranglehold’s online multiplayer is for up to eight players and it can get pretty crazy playing it in deathmatch or team deathmatch modes, but that’s not to say it’s much fun. For example, the Tequila Bombs like slow motion doesn’t really work as you’d expect it to in multiplayer unless both people activate it at the same time. In January 2008 the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Stranglehold received a multiplayer map pack that adds 10 new maps and 21 new character skins to the online part of the game.