With its artsy combat and smooth gameplay, "John Woo Presents Stranglehold" is a high-paced shooter with style - and randomly inserted doves - to spare. Midway's third-person shooter for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC strives to prove a game doesn't need a feasible story to be fun.
Seemingly designed as a cross between "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" and "Max Payne," "Stranglehold" tells the story of a Hong Kong policeman tracing a worldwide mystery. He does so primarily while rolling, flipping and diving through endless swarms of bad guys, differentiating the game from most pedestrian detective mysteries.
"Stranglehold" is billed as the spiritual sequel to "Hard Boiled," the 1992 cult classic film directed by John Woo. Chow Yun Fat returns to voice his character, Inspector Tequila Yuen, a detective who has more in common with Rambo than Sherlock Holmes.
The first level of the game takes place in a "bad part of town." In "Stranglehold," this should be taken to mean that literally every door hides several gun-wielding mobsters. Tequila's most effective counter is a blend of sliding down rails, leaping over tables and diving head-first off ledges - all while constantly firing at the stream of encroaching bad guys.
All of this action is made possible by "Tequila Time," a gameplay mechanism Midway comically describes as "revolutionary." Tequila Time is, in every way, precisely the same as "Bullet Time" from 2001's "Max Payne." It allows you to slow down time as you perform in the game's acrobatic firefights. That said, a disingenuous label doesn't stop Tequila Time from being a blast to use.
Throughout the course of "Stranglehold's" plot, Inspector Tequila will make stops all over the world, from Hong Kong to Chicago and back again. In every locale he visits, Tequila gets the chance to destroy virtually any part of the local scenery. If some gamers may be tempted to take cover and fight defensively, "Stranglehold's" fully destructible environments will put a stop to that. Allowing enemies to blow away anything Tequila might be able to stand behind forces the game to be played quickly.
At the end of every one of the game's seven chapters, Tequila is given a score card. Besides a body count - always in the triple figures - the game also reports the total property damage Tequila has caused, further encouraging the player to tear apart the beautifully rendered scenery.
The game's brand of stylistic gunfights is derived from its movie influences. Both the choreographed gunplay and insanely high body count of "Stranglehold" can be traced directly to its film origins. Unfortunately, compared to "Hard Boiled," "Stranglehold" does not do a particularly effective job of communicating the story behind the guns.
Between the slow-moving dialogue and the allure of more crazed gun-slinging, the cut-scenes are easily and usually eagerly skipped. This can leave the player in the Chicago Natural History Museum with no clue how he got there, suddenly facing an army of armed thugs.
The alternative is not much better. The plot is thin, and any close inspection leaves obvious questions. Watching thousands of enemies blast holes in their own homes with weapons they couldn't logically afford can only distract from the fun to be had in killing said enemies. Although flocks of white doves are a John Woo trademark, thir presence is never explained either, further adding to the player's befuddlement.
Because the story does so little to support the gameplay, "Stranglehold" relies on an arcade game's appeal. The game has great graphics and supremely entertaining action; there is no need to understand who Tequila is shooting.
Although seeing an enemy live through thousands of bullet wounds may be distractingly far-fetched, it doesn't make shooting that enemy any less entertaining.
