John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Xbox 360)

By Mike Neylon on Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 12:00 PM EST

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John Woo has a certain flair in his movies: lots of gunfights, lots of slow-motion action, and lots and lots of destruction. It may sound like a great basis for a video game, but there’s just enough design flaws in Stranglehold, a thematic sequel to Woo’s “Hard Boiled”, to make the game a lot less exciting than watching a movie on the big screen.

Chow Yun-Fat reprises his role as Inspector â€œTequilaâ€ Yuen, lending his profile and voice for the lead character. This time, a cop is found murdered, and through an anonymous message, Tequila learns of a plot between the Chinese Triads and Russian mafia that involves the kidnapping of two young women and leading Tequila to chase down the kidnappers from Hong Kong to Chicago and back. As with most action films, the plot is rather flimsy - there’s nearly every typical element of a Woo action film that’s enough to support the various settings and gunfights, but certainly not enough to drive the game.

Stranglehold is primarily a third-person shooter; as Tequila, you are out to kill those gang members that are threatening your own life as you try to rescue the women. While much of the gameplay is typical for a shooter, the game adds several elements to make it more like an action game. A key element is Tequila Time, which slows down time for everyone else but allows you to move about and shoot much faster, similar to Bullet Time in the Max Payne games. Tequila Time can be initiated automatically, or whenever you are performing a special move like sliding across a table, speeding along a banister, or diving onto a rolling cart; this slo-mo action only lasts for a brief while and needs to be “recharged” before you can set it off again.

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You also have special Tequila Bomb moves; precision aiming to take down one foe with perfect accuracy, barraging your opponents with a brief burst of invulnerability and infinite bullets, and a spin move that takes out all opponents in close range. Each of these actions consumes a meter, but the meter can be replenished by pulling off several stunt kills in a row or collecting semi-hidden paper cranes about the level. These abilities add just the right amount of fun to make this more than just a third-person shooter.

The gameplay can be pretty hectic at times. Nearly all of the environmental components are destructible, so as bullets start to fly, there’s a lot of debris and smoke that can get in the way, very typical of such action scenes; you can also use this destruction to your benefit, such as dropping a store sign on a foe by shooting it off its mounting. Several levels are designed as you against several waves of heavily armed foes in a closed area, and tracking where you’re getting shot from can be quite tricky. Furthermore, enemies can undergo pretty accurate death motions, and it can sometimes be hard to identify a foe that’s about to go down to once that’s able to take aim on you.

Fortunately, the game uses special sound effects to allow you know when you’ve fatally injured a foe, and when the end of a wave hits, allowing you to know when to move on as needed. There will also be times that you run into a gun faceoff, with Tequila surrounded by foes, their guns cocked to fire at close range. This initiates a special mode where Tequila will spin to face each enemy in turn, and allow you to attempt to take out the foe while avoiding their bullets in slow motion; taking damage here can be nearly fatal compared to regular gameplay, so success in these sections comes from doing both at the same time.

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The game does a pretty decent job of capturing the flavor of an action movie; unfortunately, the game, at least at the normal difficulty level (a “Hard Boiled” mode is the only more difficult level) the game is generally too easy. There are a few sections where it can get hairy, for example a late level has you trying to find foes in a section of collapsed buildings while it is pouring rain, making visibility difficult. But, once you come to understand how Tequila Time and Bombs can be used to your full advantage, clearing out sections becomes rather trivia. There’s lots, if even, an excessive number of checkpoints which makes health and ammo conservation non-existent.

Even the bosses within the game are less difficult than some sections, once you identify their weaknesses. Furthermore, the game is on the short side, maybe 8 hours for a single run-through through about 8 levels,with primarily linear paths through each. The only place where replaying can come into play is that you are rated for how fast, accurate, and destructive you are for each level, which earns you style points to unlock more bonus materials.

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While the game during action sequences can be visually stunning, traversing through levels will reveal a lot of repeat elements in many sections, primarily outside of the main combat areas. Most objects are destructible and fallen foes will show blood wounds, but surprisingly, there’s minimal effects for smoke and blood stains after a battle. The characters models are actually pretty good, with as-mentioned realistic death motions depending on where they are shot, and a good amount of variation in appearances. While the sounds of a gun battle are appropriate and realistic, the music is mostly average and otherwise non-notable.

Stranglehold also features a online multiplayer mode, through solo or Team Deathmatch, where you can still use the Tequila Time powers; whenever you do, everyone else on the level slows down as to adjust to the single player experience. However, outside of that, the online modes are pretty much just there and don’t really offer else new.

The game has some potential; Tequila Time is very much like Max Payne’s Bullet Time, if not further expanded, and generally the intensity of battle is pretty good. There are some general design problems with Stranglehold that could have helped a lot to keep the game more difficult and provided it with more of a story, helping it to make it feel less like various different levels stitches together with a weak plot. Its definitely not a terrible game, but it lacks elements that really would have tipped this as a great game.