John Woo's Stranglehold ^{(Xbox 360)}

Genre: ? Publisher: Midway Games Developer: Midway Games Players: ?

By Keith B (29th Jan 2008)

Guns. Lots of guns.

When John Woo rings up a game developer and says: “I want to make a video game, lots of killing, lots of explosions”, you might tend to sign your company up for the project despite the fact that, on that idea alone, the game might end up being crap. Well, Midway took up the challenge of developing and publishing it and with John Woo’s Stranglehold, they’ve done a mighty good job.

Bringing back Inspector Tequila from the 80s Hong Kong cinematic hit Hard Boiled, John Woo has created a storyline that would suit the big screen. With Chow Yun Fat voicing Tequila, the authenticity is there, and with a script by Woo the experience and vision are also apparent. But how to you make what is essentially a shooter seem more than just, well, more of the same?

They do it by making it the most destructible game ever made, bar none. That’s right, this game gets a triple-A badge for the sheer level of mayhem you can cause with your array of weapons. From docklands to hotels, run down neighbourhoods to apartment blocks, nothing escapes the Woo treatment.

The actual storyline is pretty acceptable in a world where scriptwriting can tend to take second place. It involves Hong Kong and Russian mobs, betrayal, family, deception and, to quote The Matrix: ‘Guns, lots of guns”.

As Tequila you start the game in the pursuit of a gang who killed a cop, but the plot quickly spirals out from here to include the aforementioned elements. The third person viewpoint allows easy analysis of the surroundings and makes it easy enough to keep things under control when the masses come forth in their attempts to stop you in your tracks. Because when the action starts, it’s frantic and engrossing.

Stranglehold rewards you for the most stylish kills you manage to achieve, and this means that headshots while diving across a table, peppering someone with a shotgun while swinging across a chandelier, or mowing down a wave of enemies as you lie on a cart rolling across the floor sees the star ratings soar. The higher the rating, the more Tequila Time you get, and more access to special moves you can get.

Tequila time is a Max Payne-styled slow motion effect that allows you to slow things down to the level where you can see bullets coming towards you. It works brilliantly. And when things get a little too sticky, you have a selection of four special abilities to tap into. But the abilities require you to create as much havoc as possible in the most stylish way, so the reward against risk element is what it’s all about.

The first ability is to heal yourself, which sounds a bit unusual but incredibly handy when you’re running across a rooftop being shredded by a chopper firing mini-guns at you. The next is precision aim, allowing you to almost bring the game to a standstill while you get off a lone shot with great accuracy (accompanied by some great death animations). Third on the list is barrage, giving you unlimited ammo and making you invincible for a short amount of time, and finally a circle of death move, where Inspector Tequila spins around (with white doves and all), and he kills everyone in the room (except bosses).
And if that sounds juicy, you haven’t even heard the best part. Going back to the destructible environments, and the ‘style reward’ system of advancement – this is where the game really comes into its own. To get reward points, you can shoot down neon signs or air conditioning units, causing them to fall and kill people below them. You can shoot out scaffoldings creating long drops for the fools above. Blow up barrels and send someone spiralling across the screen, and watch the style stars rocket. You can also use the environment, such as running along a dinosaur skeleton while firing twin Uzi’s at people below. Or running along railings and then diving onto a cart while slowing the game down to head shot five or six people in a row.

Am I painting a picture for you? This game is incredible for the simple fact that it does something never done before and is such a rewarding experience that it deserves to be played. There is nothing that quite compares to turning a corned in an alley and being confronted by seven or eight guys, only for you to shoot a barrel that explodes, causes a scaffolding to collapse, and that in turn pulls a huge neon sign off the side of a building and onto the street, killing everyone. You really do just want to sit back and look at the destruction unfold like you were in the movies.

And it even has multiplayer, although it’s not all that great. It uses the same tricks as the single player game, including the special abilities, but can tend to get a little too frantic. But still, another point for having it in such an ambitious title.

Unfortunately, the graphics aren’t superb but when everything in the game is comprised of smaller elements it would be hard to have it as refined as perhaps people playing a third generation console would expect. But this game proves that looks aren’t everything. The sound is excellent and the voice acting is very good indeed. Playing this with mates around is also excellent as you take turns changing Chinatown from a sparkly neon-filled arena into smoking ruin. It may not have the lifespan of something like Halo 3 that will last for a long, long time, but it’s fun while it lasts.

What Midway has done is exciting – blending cinema and home entertainment. It’s broken new ground and shows that, with the right creative team and the right Hollywood (or Hong Kong) pairing there really can be wonderful things achieved. I don’t know if there’s dialogue about this becoming a regular thing between Woo and gaming, but I sincerely hope it does. And if they continue, I’ll be waiting.