Review: Stranglehold (360)

The John Woo style of cinema lends itself perfectly to games, it’s a surprise that it’s taken so long for someone to recognise this. Guns, slow motion, violence, it’s all there - and the movie that this game takes its cue from is probably John Woo's finest work - Hard Boiled. Reprising his role Chow Yun Fat returns as inspector Tequila and must fight evil mob bosses from Hong Kong to Chicago. Destroying everyone and everything in its path. And we mean everything.

The destructible environments are what make Stranglehold an enjoyable ride. If you take cover behind a pillar, then don’t get too comfy because before you know it bullets will shatter it leaving you completely exposed. Then there are the set pieces. Through the game you’ll notice a small shining light on certain objects. Just shoot them and watch the carnage unfold, which normally involved stuff collapsing and enemies getting crushed in a bloody mess. It really showcases the impressive physics system as glass shatters and bricks go flying, all topped off with some hilarious ‘rag doll’ animations.

The developers have clearly been studying the work of John Woo because Stranglehold manages to really convey his visual style and action directing. Bullet time (or as it is known here - Tequila Time) is used well and activates itself whenever you perform a dive or slide down a rail. You’re also given what are called Tequila Bombs. Kill enough enemies in style and the gauge will fill and once a section gets filled you’re able to use a special move. The most special of these is the slow motion effect, where you can follow the bullet right to the target. It also showcases the impressive graphics and facial animations as enemies wince with pain. The other noteworthy one is the spin attack which takes out all enemies in your radius while a flock of doves fly towards the sky. It just isn’t a John Woo game without doves.

Another classic John Woo trait included in the game are the Mexican stand-offs. If you watch one of his movies there’s bound to be a moment where our hero has a bunch of guns pointed right at him, but still manages to take everyone out. In this little mini-game you enter slow motion and with the left stick you control your movement by leaning to the left and right avoiding bullets and the right stick is to aim your shots. It’s an excellent feature and definitely one of the highlights of the main game.

Stranglehold isn’t without its problems though. Firstly the game is pretty much the same from beginning to end. Shoot some enemies, go to next area, shoot some more enemies, Mexican stand-off, kill boss and repeat. It does do this very well, but a little more variety wouldn’t go amiss. It’s probably because of its repetitiveness that the developers have decided to make the game rather short. Though there is a difference between being short and taking the pee. With games that clock in at six hours being described as a short lived experience it came as quite a shock to complete the game in around three hours. For a £40 game brand new that’s quite rubbish really. With extra unlockable content however you are compelled to play through the game again, especially with the unlockable Hard Boiled difficulty.

Online multi-player is also another way they’ve tried to increase longevity, and failed miserably. We’ve played some terrible online shooters in our time, but nothing quite meets the incredibly awfulness of this game. First of all we entered a custom search to find a game and after some head-splittingly long loading times we finally entered the fight. Despite the menu saying that the ping was high, we still found ourselves fighting the lag. Then after about a minute we encountered a game ruining bug. Suddenly our character would drop his weapon and end up fighting with his fists. Then when we tried to pick up another weapon we would just slide over it as if it wasn’t there. What a fantastic experience. The slow motion also seems to happen completely out of the blue. We don’t quite know whether it was the other players that activated it or the computer decided to flick the switch, all we know is that we tried and nothing happened, and quite frankly we couldn’t be bothered to go back and find out.

If you like destruction, shooting people and a game with a brain the size of a pea then there is no doubt that Stranglehold is the game for you. It’s not smart or clever, but despite the flaws it still managed to entertain us right to it’s conclusion. Much like a John Woo movie then.

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Adam Gulliver