Starting as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, Stranglehold captured the attention of many gamers. As its production continued, Activision announced that it would be multiplatform, releasing on the Xbox 360 and eventually the PC. Unfortunately, Stranglehold has entered the gaming market as a game that is a blast for a while, but soon gets old and frustrating.
Stranglehold is advertised as a sequel to the John Woo movie Hard Boiled, starring Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector Tequila. The movie boasted a gritty storyline and over-the-top gunfights, which Stranglehold continues in earnest. Chow Yun-Fat has also contributed his likeness and voice to the game, thus establishing continuity. The story, while somewhat interesting, soon begins to feel tacked-on however, since the gunfights clearly dominate the entire game.
The game controls from a third-person perspective, with standard movement and camera controls. The vast majority of all the levels in the game involve shooting lots of people and destroying lots of stuff. Though this sounds simplistic, it actually manages to be quite a lot of fun. Borrowing a mechanic from Max Payne, Tequila can slow down time and perform many acrobatic feats, such as ?shootdodging? and wall-jumping. In addition, there are tons of environmental objects to interact with; you can swing from lights, slide across tables, kick tables over and use them as cover, ride on roll-carts, slide down railings?the list goes on. In addition, you will sometimes go into Hollywood-style standoffs, where you are surrounded by a group of enemies and must take each out individually as you dodge their shots. Damage is severely ramped up in this mini-game, and it?s quite hard at first, but eventually becomes pretty cool, though somewhat contrived and cheesy.
Stranglehold awards points for ?stylish? kills. Simply shooting someone gets you 1 star, while sliding down a railing, jumping sideways and kicking off a wall to shoot someone in midair can earn you up to 5 stars. Earning style points refills your Tequila meter, from which you can access four special powers, called ?Tequila Bombs.? You can get a quick health boost, pull off a precision long-range shot, get infinite ammo and invincibility for a short period, or go into a very John Woo-esque cinematic spin move which kills all nearby enemies. Each Bomb is unlocked as you progress through the single-player campaign, and each uses varying amounts of energy. In addition, there are glowing origami cranes scattered throughout each level which refill a sizeable chunk of energy, as well as health packs that completely restore your health.
The game uses a modified version of the Unreal 3 engine, with the addition of a special physics system (based on Havok) known as ?Massive D.? This allows for highly destructible environments, and the game certainly delivers on its promises. Just about everything can be destroyed or mauled in many ways; this can mean that your cover can crumble under gunfire as you hide behind it. Watching Tequila dive onto a table and slide across it in slow motion, firing his guns as dishes fly everywhere can be quite a sight. The game even keeps track of how much damage you do, giving you a dollar amount at the end of each level.
Stranglehold makes for a very good graphical and sound package. Character models are quite well done, and the likeness of Chow Yun-Fat is second to none. The gun models and environments also look great, but it is rather disappointing that each type of gun looks exactly the same. The voice acting is generally pretty good, but Chow Yun-Fat has a rather nasty habit of ?dead-reading? lines in his English-speaking movies, and this unfortunately holds true in Stranglehold. Still, you?ll get a good feeling that you?re in frantic firefights with the great gun and destruction sounds.
There is some multiplayer in Stranglehold, but it is not very appealing. Only two modes are available: deathmatch and team deathmatch. There are not very many maps to choose from, and even those are basically dumbed-down versions of single-player levels. Slo-mo is harder to achieve in this mode, so the cinematic gunfights that make the campaign enjoyable are largely lost in multiplayer.
The major problem with Stranglehold is in its lack of innovation as the game progresses. Each level is basically the same idea, but with different environments: kill a lot of people, move on to another room, get a cut scene, repeat. It?s a lot of fun, but gets old by the 4th level or so. The story is only mildly interesting, and usually just serves to break up the action. The single-player campaign is fairly short at about 6 or 7 hours, but a few levels seem to drag on forever. Finally, it becomes incredibly hard to figure out where you are being shot from. Every single bullet produces its own ?smoke trail? in the air, but usually you are being assaulted from multiple angles at once, and the enemies are accurate enough that you will lose a big chunk of health before you can find suitable cover or kill the shooters.
Stranglehold pushes the line when it comes to a family-friendly perspective, but less so than other shooting games. The violence is quite bloody, but hardly ever gory; you will never see dismembered limbs or the like. As Tequila takes damage, blood splatters and scuffs appear on him until you heal with a Bomb or health pack. There is some language, but it appears only during cut scenes and is never strong. The female characters featured wear tight clothing, but nothing very revealing. There is a level which has you destroy drug tables and drug-shipping freighters. Finally, Tequila?s very name refers to the fact that he drinks tequila, and he does so on-screen, but never to excess.
Stranglehold is a solid third-person action game which looks great and is a lot of fun. But the fun soon wears out, and you begin to get bored by the campaign?s halfway point. In addition, the bloody violence and drug references may make the game less desirable. While not a bad game, Stranglehold could certainly have used a little more depth and sustainability.
» By Joe Severyn, Plain Games. Published 1/1/2008 10:16:24 PM.
