|
John Woo's Stranglehold is the video game equivalent of Being Chow Yun-Fat. Or being Inspector Tequila, depending on how
you look at it. The game is inspired by the old Action flick that John Woo directed, Hard Boiled. It is like the video game
sequel to the movie. This game is certainly centered around one thing; Action. Some of the third person action games that
have come out recently have tried to be all things to all people. They have some puzzle elements, they have RPG elements(your
character levels up), and they need to have mini games of some sort. This is all wonderful on paper and probably looks good
on the back of the box but this game has decided that they aren't going to mess with any of that. This game will probably
remind you of Max Payne. If you take a look at the overall game, it's going to sound something like this: Cop needs to fight
drug gangs to get his wife and daughter back form them. That is about as original as fries and a shake. But the quality
of Stranglehold lies in a strange place for this type of title, the gameplay.
The gameplay centers around the slow motion special effects shooting that has been so prolific in every other third person
action game and even some first person shooters. This kind of slow down has been done to death but John Woo being the creator
of this phenomenon in his movies has a more stylish take on this old standby. The game not only has these slow down moments
but it also has everything from ratings of style points like Devil May Cry and Tequila Bombs that give the player a stylish
multi enemy kill. The areas on the map are destructible and the cutting through of everything from wood to concrete is exciting
for about the first 20 minutes of the game.
The necessity on the designers part to shove some of their efforts down the player's throats come to a crescendo in the
last three levels of the game. These instances could be fun and exciting if they were not so bogged down with the funneling
of as many enemies as the memory will take at the player. Perhaps it would have been more impressive to have fewer, smarter
enemies. Perhaps a few that had special moves like the main character. Anything but just funneling as many enemies at the
player as possible.
This only adds to the boredom that the average player will feel playing on casual or normal modes in this title. The first
2/3 of the game is actually well done and well paced. The problems begin around the final third. The game is rather short
at probably around 8-10 hours. The unfortunate part is that the game loses it's excitement and story strength at around 4-7
hours. I cannot believe that a game this short should have been shorter.
The cutscenes are some of the best I've seen in a video game and many of the scenes of drama are actually done extremely
well. The matching of audio and video is amazing. I have to say that the cinematic quality of the game is top notch and
the part that was obviously up to John Woo is certainly the quality of one of his films. The non-cutscene graphics are a
mixed bag of good and very ugly. The backgrounds are generally a little too dark and the constant smoke trails from bullets
constantly whizzing by your head only serve to make the game chug rather than really providing too much drama. If the player
is in such a situation on any level except Casual they will probably be dead before they can do anything about it anyway.
The multiplayer would be fun; if it wasn't for the fact that the weapons do too little damage and everyone's health bar
is too big. The reliance on the Tequila Bombs and Tequila Time; most kills not done with the rocket launcher are done this
way. Which considering the max. number of players is only 6 due to all the crazy effects. It makes the multiplayer more
annoying than exciting.
Finally, John Woo's Stranglehold is a great looking game and is probably the best game that could be a film; game in
history. The real problems with the game seem to only be design based and for a game with this much stuff going on, that
is an achievement. The problem with this really short game is that it is too long. But this isn't a bad game, just not
a great one.
7.5/10, rent it first then buy. You can't go wrong
|
