John Woo Presents Stranglehold for Xbox 360

Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you that John Woo is a brilliant filmmaker. I think arguments can be made that he knows how to put together an entertaining action flick albeit it may be missing some serious IQ. Stranglehold came onto the scene recently for the Xbox 360 and immediately caught my interest. The 1992 film Hard Boiled has been getting name-checked in every review and gaming blog about this title; a previous collaboration of Woo and Chow Yun-Fat that draws some similarities in story and scope. Sorry, but as much as some people consider this film a classic, I will have to be honest here and state that I've never seen it before. But when I watch some of Woo's American movies like Broken Arrow and Mission: Impossible 2, I can't imagine I'm missing much (you can start emailing me about how Woo's Chinese movies were better). But this is only the primer to this game, a mere background on what to expect. Stranglehold provides all the gunplay you'll ever want or need out of a game that takes a cinematic approach to an over-the-top action title.

Upon booting this game up, the cinematic presence that Woo brings to this title is fairly prominent. Camera angles in the cut sequences play out like a scene from a movie; which is exactly the point, I guess. My point is, before you even pull the right trigger to fire away, you'll start to be immersed in the story just as you would a crime action flick.

You play as Inspector Tequila (Yun-Fat), a cop that is bent on rescuing a kidnapped girl, fighting crime bosses and trying to scratch at old wounds with people that haunt him from his past. Truth be told, the story is a bit over-the-top, but going into this game, I would be lying if I said I was expecting anything else.

Stranglehold plays a lot like the decently received The Matrix: Path of Neo but since it's been cool to hate on The Matrix, you won't see this similarity drawn in many reviews of this game. The cinematic style is certainly similar, obviously along with the inclusion of "bullet time" slow down that allows you to act quicker than your opponents. This only levels the playing field when you have an entire room of evil cronies that are all aiming at your head.

Since this game is inspired by the very stylish John Woo, you get rewarded for performing certain moves that look flashy (as if it were ripped from one of his films). Let's say you're rolling across a room in a dining cart or sliding down a banister while concurrently shooting enemies along the way; this will accredit you style points and help fill your "Tequila Meter." By using your d-pad to select, you will end up acquiring four special "Tequila Bombs." These special moves consist of a basic partial health replenish, precision aiming that will allow you to hone in on an enemy to bring massive damage, another will allow you to unload a "barrage" of bullets depending on what weapon you may have at the time. This will mean that for a short period of time, you will be invulnerable to most types of damage and can rapidly fire your opponents. The forth and most devastating move goes to a cut-scene where Inspector Tequila spins around and shoots every enemy that is engaged in a given room to kill you. This particular move is especially deadly; you will be thanking yourself for using it when the time's ready.

Spanning across seven chapters, you will meet your fair share of gang-bangers and usually face a "boss" to complete a level.

I could pick out a few gripes I have with this game, some of which seem obvious and have already been publicized, while others you'll only get here on Netjak.com. I of course thought the Massive D environments where virtually everything is destructible was certainly a feature that had a certain "Wow" factor to it; but what I didn't find impressive was the clunky facial models that some secondary characters had. For the most part Tequila and the mob bosses had very detailed facial structures, but this cannot be said for everyone. At times I was reminded of Shenmue for the Dreamcast where it was groundbreaking for 2000, not today. But maybe I'm being too harsh.

The biggest issue most people are going to have if you have not heard this already is the length of the game. Educated gamers know that an action title like this won't last you forever, or even close to it. I happened to beat Stranglehold in probably about 6 or 7 hours, only really getting caught in a few situations where I had to replay the same scene in order to figure out a strategy. There's not a whole lot of guesswork for this game, just run and gun. There is, however, a bit of a twist when you can slow down time and use specific weapons to get done what you need to do, but this is a fairly brainless game overall. This of course was not supposedly to be much else than that, which is why I was extremely entertained by it during the time I was playing it. The offline story mode is quick and easy, a perfect rental if you ask me. But hey, at least it wasn't as painful to get through as Paycheck starring Ben Affleck.

The online component of Stranglehold can only be described as a tacked on afterthought. It's pretty clear that having you and your online counterparts using bullet time all at once to gain some sort of advantage amongst each other is a bit of a joke. It makes gun battles cumbersome and time consuming and ultimately not much fun. The Xbox Live component to Stranglehold feels like an obligatorily tacked on feature that was never well thought out.

Going over this title as a whole, Stranglehold surely delivers in what it promises to bring; non-stop popcorn action. While some may see its length as inexcusable, I must give it credit for being a fun romp for the short time you'll play it. I strongly suggest going the route I did by renting it and returning it when you beat it a few days later.