John Woo Presents Stranglehold for Xbox 360
Out of stock |
Similar in Xbox 360 Games
- HDTV Support: HDTV Support
- Publisher: Midway Home Entertainment
- Genre: Action Adventure
- Overview
-
Reviews
-
Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
Stranglehold - A worthy successor to Hardboiled
Pros
loads of action, solid gameplay, great sound effects
Cons
short, bland multiplayer, gets repetitive
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Stranglehold looks and feels like a John Woo movie. That alone is worth the money. Just don?t expect a great narrative.
If you ask the average moviegoer who John Woo is, they might be able to tell you about some of his American films like Face/Off, Windtalkers, Mission Impossible 2 and so forth. But only a few real cinema buffs can say they've seen Woo's original Hong Kong films such as A Better Tomorrow. Of all the Hong Kong films he's known for, Hardboiled stands out as being one of the best and most accessible to American audiences. So naturally, someone made it into a video game. Is it a good fit with the John Woo name? Does it live up to expectations?
Read on, dear reader....
•
•
Story
•
•
You're going to have to forgive me if I can't entirely relay the story. This is simply because there isn't much of one and that which does exist is hampered by Chow Yun Fat's horrible acting. It's something about his daughter being kidnapped. In typical Hong Kong cinema style, this simply means blazing guns to kill the bad guys to rescue the girl who is kidnapped. The story is incidental and this is unfortunate. A good story could have given some great dramatic reason for caring about the characters. Instead, we don't. We play for the sheer joy of blowing stuff up.
•
•
Gameplay
•
•
First and foremost, Stranglehold is a 3rd person shooter. The controls should be familiar to anyone who has ever played this kind of game. And if you're familiar with Max Payne, then you should feel even more at home since this game is nearly a direct rip off. That's not to say it isn't good, because if bullet time isn't most appropriate for a John Woo game, then I don't know what is.
In this game, bullet time is called Tequila Time, named after the main character. And by manually hitting the left trigger, you can go into slow motion mode and have better accuracy and more time to shoot those who need shooting. As well, anytime you jump, roll, slide, grind or do anything remotely awesome, you'll go into Tequila Time. And the environment is littered with cool things to slide on, jump over or ride. Carts, chandeliers, and railings provide ample time for busting into slow motion carnage.
When you're in Tequila time, you get points for style kills which boost your Tequila bomb meter. This meter is used for 4 special tequila bombs. The first is health replenishment. Hit the D-pad in the correct direction, and you'll instantly get healed. Just like in real life! The rest of the Tequila bombs reveal themselves throughout the game and include barrage, pinpoint and rampage. These are fun to use and are just fancy ways to kill more people. Pinpoint accuracy allows you to follow the bullet to its destination and then watch a bloody scene of the person reacting to it depending on where you shot him. Barrage simply allows you to blow through more enemies, as does rampage. They are fun to use, but don't provide much in the way of diverse gameplay.
What does provide more diverse gameplay is the completely destructible environment. Not only will baskets of fruit explode in a cascade of slime along with splinters of wood and glass from anything nearby, but certain things can be shot for more elaborate kills. Hit a sign over head and have it fall on some poor suckers. Shoot a propane tank and it will blow up the guy who was stupid enough the stand by it during a gunfight. Hit a wooden support and watch the bad guy fall to his death. These are all great fun, but seem a little too scripted. Heck, you're even given little glints when there's an object you can shoot to wreak havoc on some unsuspecting soul.
The gameplay of Stranglehold is fun for a while, but if you played the free demo on Xbox Live you've played the best part of it. The gameplay doesn't ever get old and part of that may be due to the fact that the campaign is only about 6 hours long. But if you're looking for deep storyline and complex gameplay, this isn't your game. If you're hoping for mass carnage and destruction you'll enjoy this game. It truly feels like you're playing a John Woo movie, and that in itself may be a hollow experience for some.
•
•
Graphics
•
•
Really a mixed bag here. The environments look especially cool and, as mentioned, are almost fully destructible. But the characters leave a bit to be desired. They come off as a bit wooden and they lack any real facial expressions other than angry and not. Chow Yun Fat looks like the actor so it feels like a Chow Yun Fat movie, but that's the extent of it. The bad guys who come at you in droves all start to look the same after a while. Such graphical weakness is most evident in accuracy mode when the camera zooms in on the bad guy you are shooting, Obviously very little care was given to the graphics of this mode, because you get a nice closeup of the low polygon and poorly textured character that was never meant to be seen at this close distance.
•
•
Sound
•
•
First and foremost, the voice acting is pretty bad. In Hong Kong films, Chow Yun Fat is a fine actor, full of emotion, solid handle on the script. The problem is that this game is in English, a language that he is not too comfortable with. As a result, the acting is wooden and flat, with no emotion whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time understandiong half of what he was saying. This film would have been much better in Chinese with subtitles. True, American audiences would have complained, but this is the same audience that probably complained about the widescreen aspect ratio and called support to get rid of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Another note: The sound balancing is off in 5.1. The dialog seems to come out of the right and left speakers when it should come out of the center. I've seen a few games do this and it's a problem because it makes the dialog get drowned out when it should be front and center.
The rest of the acting is also not very good, but only because it is cliche and over the top. Not a single character is believable. Instead they all sound like they came straight out of a cartoon. Part of that is the writing which lends itself to Saturday morning pulp, but certainly the actors could have done better with what they had.
The sound effects, on the other hand, were given the star treatment. Crazy explosions, full resonating gunshots, unique environmental sounds for every object in the game that could be destroyed. Where the sound designers slacked off in the voice acting department, made up for it in the sound effects arena.
•
•
Multiplayer
•
•
Multiplayer is weird. Supporting only 6 players on a handful of maps, the game is mostly a third person shooter in medium sized arenas. The magic f the game, Tequila time is performed by all players at the same time. While I understand the need to be balanced, this balance is what kills that aspect of the game. The whole point of Tequila time is to have an unfair advantange over your opponents. With that taken away, it's rather a bore.
•
•
Parents Should Know
•
•
This game is rated M for Mature and contains a fair amount of blood. Certainly not the most violent game ever made, but not exactly family-friendly either.
•
•
Conclusion
•
•
Stranglehold looks and feels like a John Woo movie. That alone is worth the money. Just don't expect a great narrative.
Read on, dear reader....
•
•
Story
•
•
You're going to have to forgive me if I can't entirely relay the story. This is simply because there isn't much of one and that which does exist is hampered by Chow Yun Fat's horrible acting. It's something about his daughter being kidnapped. In typical Hong Kong cinema style, this simply means blazing guns to kill the bad guys to rescue the girl who is kidnapped. The story is incidental and this is unfortunate. A good story could have given some great dramatic reason for caring about the characters. Instead, we don't. We play for the sheer joy of blowing stuff up.
•
•
Gameplay
•
•
First and foremost, Stranglehold is a 3rd person shooter. The controls should be familiar to anyone who has ever played this kind of game. And if you're familiar with Max Payne, then you should feel even more at home since this game is nearly a direct rip off. That's not to say it isn't good, because if bullet time isn't most appropriate for a John Woo game, then I don't know what is.
In this game, bullet time is called Tequila Time, named after the main character. And by manually hitting the left trigger, you can go into slow motion mode and have better accuracy and more time to shoot those who need shooting. As well, anytime you jump, roll, slide, grind or do anything remotely awesome, you'll go into Tequila Time. And the environment is littered with cool things to slide on, jump over or ride. Carts, chandeliers, and railings provide ample time for busting into slow motion carnage.
When you're in Tequila time, you get points for style kills which boost your Tequila bomb meter. This meter is used for 4 special tequila bombs. The first is health replenishment. Hit the D-pad in the correct direction, and you'll instantly get healed. Just like in real life! The rest of the Tequila bombs reveal themselves throughout the game and include barrage, pinpoint and rampage. These are fun to use and are just fancy ways to kill more people. Pinpoint accuracy allows you to follow the bullet to its destination and then watch a bloody scene of the person reacting to it depending on where you shot him. Barrage simply allows you to blow through more enemies, as does rampage. They are fun to use, but don't provide much in the way of diverse gameplay.
What does provide more diverse gameplay is the completely destructible environment. Not only will baskets of fruit explode in a cascade of slime along with splinters of wood and glass from anything nearby, but certain things can be shot for more elaborate kills. Hit a sign over head and have it fall on some poor suckers. Shoot a propane tank and it will blow up the guy who was stupid enough the stand by it during a gunfight. Hit a wooden support and watch the bad guy fall to his death. These are all great fun, but seem a little too scripted. Heck, you're even given little glints when there's an object you can shoot to wreak havoc on some unsuspecting soul.
The gameplay of Stranglehold is fun for a while, but if you played the free demo on Xbox Live you've played the best part of it. The gameplay doesn't ever get old and part of that may be due to the fact that the campaign is only about 6 hours long. But if you're looking for deep storyline and complex gameplay, this isn't your game. If you're hoping for mass carnage and destruction you'll enjoy this game. It truly feels like you're playing a John Woo movie, and that in itself may be a hollow experience for some.
•
•
Graphics
•
•
Really a mixed bag here. The environments look especially cool and, as mentioned, are almost fully destructible. But the characters leave a bit to be desired. They come off as a bit wooden and they lack any real facial expressions other than angry and not. Chow Yun Fat looks like the actor so it feels like a Chow Yun Fat movie, but that's the extent of it. The bad guys who come at you in droves all start to look the same after a while. Such graphical weakness is most evident in accuracy mode when the camera zooms in on the bad guy you are shooting, Obviously very little care was given to the graphics of this mode, because you get a nice closeup of the low polygon and poorly textured character that was never meant to be seen at this close distance.
•
•
Sound
•
•
First and foremost, the voice acting is pretty bad. In Hong Kong films, Chow Yun Fat is a fine actor, full of emotion, solid handle on the script. The problem is that this game is in English, a language that he is not too comfortable with. As a result, the acting is wooden and flat, with no emotion whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time understandiong half of what he was saying. This film would have been much better in Chinese with subtitles. True, American audiences would have complained, but this is the same audience that probably complained about the widescreen aspect ratio and called support to get rid of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Another note: The sound balancing is off in 5.1. The dialog seems to come out of the right and left speakers when it should come out of the center. I've seen a few games do this and it's a problem because it makes the dialog get drowned out when it should be front and center.
The rest of the acting is also not very good, but only because it is cliche and over the top. Not a single character is believable. Instead they all sound like they came straight out of a cartoon. Part of that is the writing which lends itself to Saturday morning pulp, but certainly the actors could have done better with what they had.
The sound effects, on the other hand, were given the star treatment. Crazy explosions, full resonating gunshots, unique environmental sounds for every object in the game that could be destroyed. Where the sound designers slacked off in the voice acting department, made up for it in the sound effects arena.
•
•
Multiplayer
•
•
Multiplayer is weird. Supporting only 6 players on a handful of maps, the game is mostly a third person shooter in medium sized arenas. The magic f the game, Tequila time is performed by all players at the same time. While I understand the need to be balanced, this balance is what kills that aspect of the game. The whole point of Tequila time is to have an unfair advantange over your opponents. With that taken away, it's rather a bore.
•
•
Parents Should Know
•
•
This game is rated M for Mature and contains a fair amount of blood. Certainly not the most violent game ever made, but not exactly family-friendly either.
•
•
Conclusion
•
•
Stranglehold looks and feels like a John Woo movie. That alone is worth the money. Just don't expect a great narrative.
