John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Xbox 360, 2007)

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Stranglehold is a John Woo game through and through. It definitely does not tread new ground in either story or gameplay, but does a pretty good job fusing familiar elements from all of its influences.

Gameplay: 8/10
Pros: The gameplay is just plain fun. It's a mix of Max Payne Bullet Time gameplay with some pretty flashy new moves and situations. Face-Offs are nice gun duels that break up the monotony of running and diving. Story is serviceable if a little over the top and out there even for John Woo.
Cons: Enemies are retarded. They pretty much run straight at you and spawn from closets/doors strewn throughout the level. Deaths can be frustrating because it's due from an enemy spawning in a door behind you with a shotgun, rather than a lack of skill on your part. Interaction with the Environment can be difficult/frustrating.

Graphics: 8/10
Pros: Nearly everything is destructible and when stuff starts exploding in slow motion, it's a thing of beauty. There's a fantastic array of levels and locales. Animations, bullet effects, etc. are good.
Cons: Actual character models are somewhat blocky- this becomes more apparent during cutscenes where these characters try to exude emotion. Without all the bullet time effects this game would be standard issue in the graphics dept.

Sound/Music: 8/10
Pros: Voice Acting is top-notch and the visceral sound effects and music from Woo's movies make it into the game.
Cons: It would be nice to have the option of having the more authentic Cantonese or Mandarin soundtrack since the game take place mostly in Asia, but because of the English...it sometimes feels like they are just in some US City Chinatown. It detracts from the authenticity of the story.

Lasting Appeal: 6/10
Pros: The single player experience is a nice ride while it lasts, Multiplayer and unlockables give you incentive to pop the disk back in for more.
Cons: The Multiplayer is action packed, but requires little skill and is completely forgettable. The single player game can be beaten in a few days making this a great rental, but a questionable purchase.

Average: 75.00%
Tilt: +/- 0.00%

For a licensed game, Stranglehold definitely delivers on its promise for John Woo style action. The super moves are flashy, and interacting with the environment (firing while riding roll carts/hanging from chandeliers/etc.) is great fun. If you've played Max Payne, you've got the basic controls/gameplay down, but Stranglehold gives you a lot of new wrinkles which keep you playing. It suffers in the replayability category, but is a fantastic rental. If you download the demo and love the gameplay than a purchase is probably the right decision for you, but otherwise save your bucks for something else.

Verdict: 75%

This is a really good game. The sounds are incredible. The way the crumbling sounds when you smash through a table and the sound of bullets hitting flesh. They are almost seamless. There are so many different ways to kill a guy in that. The graphics are very good, and the physics are practically real. But what do you expect? It's unreal engine 3. They are the best physics program out there. I played the demo over and over again before i got the game. I beat it three times in a row, because it just never gets boring. It never gets old when you go into precision aiming and shooting a guy and watching him plummet to his death toward a propane tank, making it blow up, and killing tons of other guys which is unrealistic but still funny as crap. The slow motion is very well done and surprisingly easy to activate, and it is funny to his dive over a box while shooting a guy into a wall with a shotgun. If you like hardcore shooters, are good at them, and enjoy a load of unrealistic fun and are able to ignore some minor glitches, and graphical problems then this is the game for you.

Expectations were high for the title "Stranglehold", and Woo does not disappoint. Ripe with a level of action and finesse we have come to expect from John Woo's movies, this title takes it to a whole new level and immerses you in the action. You will play as Inspector Tequila, battling through hordes of drug lords and thugs using only your wits, keen instinct, and the ability to momentarily slow down time. Using this "Tequila Time", you will be able to see the bullets flying within inches of your head as you take out the targets. Special abilities and cinematic play-through make this a supercharged adventure into the world of Inspector Tequila. The only downside to the game is the presence of a few glitches and bugs, usually minor, but noticable. These bugs are more than made up for by incredible graphics, physics, and control, awarding this game a 5/5 rating.

Stranglehold is a shoot 'em up that is somewhat a sequel to the classic John Woo film Hard Boiled. The story isn't much, but the shooting action more than makes up for it, as is expected from a John Woo production. Chow Yun-Fat reprises his role as Inspector Tequila and proceeds to shoot every bad guy in his path using the signature Woo dual wielding pistol technique. Other features include Tequila Bomb techniques such as Precision Aim and Barrage, and Tequila Time where time is slowed down allowing players to shoot enemies more precisely and earn style points. A definite recommendation, if you're looking to simply shoot enemies and blow things up, Stranglehold is for you.

If you love any of John Woo's films you will especially love Stranglehold. This game is a sequel to the hardcore action film Hard-Boiled with Chow Yun-Fat, who plays Inspector Tequila Yuen, a heavy-duty, hard-boiled cop in Hong Kong.

In this game you, the player, get to play through the storyline as Tequila, voiced over and modeled after Chow Yun-Fat himself. As Tequila, you get to pull off many of the signature moves in many of John Woo's films - the two-handed gunfights, the standoffs, and the slow-motion spins and dives, to name a few. Did I also mention that you can destroy practically everything in the game? Woo-hoo! If your home entertainment system is really nice, the explosions in the game will really shake up your living room!

This game is rated M for mature, though, so don't let your kids see you playing this.