Stranglehold

One of those questions that get asked a lot about video games is if they should aspire to be more like movies or should they focus instead on interactivity. One school of design provides a heavily scripted story where every gamer will have the same experience, but its fun from start to finish. Other games are open, full of moral choices and character development. While these games are much more satisfying, they also allow the player to frustratingly paint himself into a corner. Stranglehold is of course the type of game that aspires to be like a movie, I mean the involvement of director John Woo and actor Chow Yun Fat makes that much obvious. And yes, this is a game that follows a very strict path, but like a roller coaster its fun relies heavily on it keeping everything on the rails. 

 

Designed as a sequel to John Woo’s action classic Hard Boiled, this game picks up where the movie left off. Reprising his role as Inspector “Tequila” Yuen is Chow Yun Fat, digitally de-aged and ready to kick some ass. The game pretty much hits the ground running; following Tequila into a deadly ambush at Kowloon market. Surrounded by thugs with pistols and shotguns, it’s up to the player to shoot his way out. Of course as soon as you do start shooting you will realize that just about anything you see can be destroyed. Besides the usual exploding barrels that populate every shooting game you can also dislodge air conditioners from windows or signs from walls to crush your foes from above. The novelty of having everything react to your bullets accompanies you throughout the game; sometimes you will find yourself just shooting things to see what happens. But of course nothing reacts as viscerally as your foes, who flail and pirouette under the hail of your gunfire. The designers also took the time to create a great variety of models with accurate hit locations, endowing the thugs a variety of faces and fates.

 

Speaking of faces, they are a big highlight in this game. While it is hard to expect good acting, the character models actually have a good range of emotes which breathe a little life into the games ponderous dialog. Getting back to the gameplay another mechanic that is now ubiquitous in shooters but was inspired by John Woo’s movies is the ability to use slow motion to your advantage. Referred to as Tequila Time in this game, it will give you the edge you need to pick off foes before they have time to properly take aim. While Tequila Time is not a finite resource, you can use it at a discount when performing a stunt such as swinging from a chandelier or sliding down a banister. While it is great to be able to pull off all these stunts in combat, your characters adrenaline addiction will make him feel more like Jackie Chan than Chow Yun Fat sometimes. Still if you want a high score then parkour is the way to go, just keep shooting people while jumping over tables and bouncing off walls.

 

Unfortunately not every stunt works the way you planned it to, for example sometimes when running across a railing you will find it hard to get off. Next thing you know you are just standing there with uncanny balance as people blast you full of led. The game is full of these small disappointments that never sink the game but do often make you curse out loud. The same could be said for the overall difficulty… it seems to oscillate between too easy and just ridiculously hard with little notice. One minute the place feels like a shooting range, the next you are being chased by a gunship with heat seeking missiles. Lastly the ‘standoff’ system is a great idea but it is poorly implemented. At key plot points you will find yourself surrounded by foes and it will be up to you to take them out in slow motion. Although it looks good the execution is laughable, with Tequila dodging bullets while your enemies kindly take turns to shoot at you in a defined order. Still it’s not hard to look past these flaws and enjoy the game for what it is… a fun tribute to the choreographed gun fights of Asian cinema. And it feels as inspired by Max Payne as Max Payne was inspired in John Woo’s movies, like some sort of gaming Ouroboros. Let’s hope this is a good thing and it doesn’t kick off an eternal cycle of tribute games.