Stranglehold

"Play a John Woo film!"

Hello and welcome once again to another (hopefully) unbiased review coming to you from lastfirstborn! Do you like action? Hollywood style shootouts where no one reloads, and everything blows up? This is probably the game for you then! Read on to discover what a blast (pun intended) this title is, and whether or not it's minor flaws will determine, for you, a rental or a purchase.


Graphics - 9 Hey, it's not the best the next generation has to offer, but it MORE than gets the job done. Many of the environments look almost photorealistic. The guns fire well and look right for this type of game. Enemies go sprawling thanks to Havoc. Blood is everywhere, and in realistic streaks and puddles as well as splatters on the wall. So why not a ten? Well, character animations for both our main character and many in game characters aren't extremely fluid. That's about the only problem I can find here with the graphics. And that one isn't bad, at all. The game more than does it's duty. Many enemies do look alike, especially in the earlier stages, but this problem is also minor. Especially when they're being killed by the hundreds. You can even see people flinching when shot at (including Tequlia, our main character!), and little things like this keep it fresh. Walls blow up, debris flies about during firefights (a shootist's dream), and all in all, it looks great! When you consider how much is going on, on screen (shooting, people animations, debris, objects flying everywhere), you'll realize just how hard they worked on everything here!!

Sound - 8 Everything here also more than gets the job done for this title. Guns sound right, men scream in agony when hit, the main character breathes heavily when needed, and shouts taunts at bosses in return for their's. Definately right here. When you go into Tequila Time (slow motion), sounds blur in and out of focus and slow down just right. It all sounds more than fine. My only gripe here is that enemies usually say the same stuff. This can get annoying, but you won't really notice unless you play through the game several times and really pay attention. Usually, it's too frenized to notice at all. There is another gripe, depending on whether or not you have a 5.1 Surround setup. On normal sound systems (default television speakers etc) you can hear the cutscenes just fine. But on certain surround setups, it's very, VERY hard to hear the people for some reason. This has been confirmed by several people and myself, so don't think it's just any one person's setup. You may be able to get your setup to work right, however, or you can disable it (though that's a tragedy since this game sounds great firefight-wise).

Gameplay - 8 Ah yes, the meat of any good shooter, first or third person. This game is a third person shooter in the vein of Max Payne (which got it's inspiration from Hardboiled, the start of this game's storyline technically). You run around large maps killing men by the hundreds. Most levels you'll find you killed 200 people or so, with 300ish being the higher number in some levels. You don't reload (in the spirit of true early shootout films, where heroes loaded "off screen"). You have virtually unlimited ammo to pick up automatically off your dead foes. Midway through the game you'll find grenades that are also fairly plentiful. There are several types of automatic weapons, hand guns (to be used two at a time even!), a shotgun, a rocket launcher, and of course, the environment itself can be used as a weapon! You can shoot things that will drop onto your enemies for instant kills, and also you can blow up much of your environment using the myiad of drum barrels and fuel tanks. You can also slow down time, to more accurately aim at your enemies while they are practically frozen. You can aim and move at almost full speed in this mode, so it definately gives you an edge over their seemingly superior numbers. You can also dive about, jump off walls, fall down to other levels, take cover, and more to get by! Firefights are often frenzied and long. On the two easiest difficulties (casual, normal), most foes die easy from explosions, head shots, a good shotgun blast to the chest, etc. On the two higher ones, however (hard, Hardboiled), some may find the enemies cheap and hard to kill. It's classic Midway all the way really. That is why I didn't give the gameplay a ten. Some may grow very tired of head shotting the same foe four times to kill him. On hardboiled mode, you die very easily, and enemies are almost like robots, invincible and deadly accurate. You have special powers you can execute (four of them), to give yourself even more of an edge over the army of foes ahead of you. You charge the guage by getting stylish kills off. One heals you, one lets you precision aim and "snipe" foes from afar with your handgun (which is just awesome!), one lets you fire any weapon you have currently rapidly (even shotguns!!!) while you're invincible during this time, and one releases doves around you (a John Woo staple) as you spin around and kill literally every enemy in the immediate area. You basically work your way through a level killing in the third person, until you reach standoff modes. They are sort of like old western draws, except you hold two guns, can use the environment to kill, and you normally face between three and ten (!!!) foes at once. You can try to dodge bullets in this slowed down standoff, as you try to get off your own deadly shots to the head, or environment for a one hit kill as well. After you pass this duels, you continue on in third person, killing your way to a boss or miniboss, with possibly a few more duels in between. The game works well in this quick fashion. No reloads, lot's of killing, some standoffs, then a tough boss with superior firepower that you have to outsmart as well as outmuscle. And of course, the levels seen here are the most fully destructable ever seen on a console. That alone, to me, makes the game worth buying. It's a tactical shooter's dream, though the gameplay itself is more of an unrealistic action romp. It's alot of fun to have a massive fight, and walk slowly from the area as it literally falls apart behind you. Very impressive! The story is a bit cliched, but good. It's not too long, as not to break the pace of the action. You learn just enough to know why you're in the next level, and to know you hate the bad guys. You don't have to have seen Hardboiled to follow. It's a totally new plotline feature the same character is all. But I do highly recommend it, and many other John Woo films!

Multiplayer - 7 A bit of a controversy here. For as many as I hear say they absolutely LOVE the MP in this game, I hear the same amount of people saying they hate it or it's silly. Basically, you rush around smaller version maps of the levels in the single player game. You use points you've earned in single play to buy character skins, maps, and other such things to play with online against people. Everyone can use the special abilities found in the singleplay mode once they charge their gauge up. This does mean people can instant kill you, and you can clear the map as well. But this isn't spamable, it's done once and then they lose the guage again and must repower. By then they will likely be dead. I find it very, very fun. You rush around the maps swinging off objects, diving around, and going into slow motion while you all kill each other. There is little strategy to be found here, but it's just good old fashioned fun. You can still take cover, obtain guns from the game, and do basically everything else you could do in single player mode. It's just now you can do it with up to 16 people. It's very frenzied action.

So, overall, this game is a fast paced action shooter. It isn't meant to be tactical or realistic. If this sounds like your thing, I recommend buying it! It IS a very short game, however. It can be beaten in around six or eight hours. But there's still fun achievements to earn, online play (which can easily add another fifty hours if you really like it), and several difficutty modes to challenge even the most old school action shooter fan. If you just want to rush it though, I'd give it a rent. In two days you could have around half the achievements, easy. Then take it online on a weekend when everyone is on and you could have the other achievements within another two or three days. This is a title I know I'll play again and again, simply for the challenge, and the environment destructability. Plus, it's really fun to gun down someone that's trying to dive at someone else, and watch the body fly! And, hey, you can play online as John Woo himself, if you unlock the skin.

Gamertag: lastfirstborn

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/07

Game Release: Stranglehold (US, 09/05/07)