pretty dishonest to tell you the truth. it's the blunt force of woo's gun ballet without any of artistry behind it, as you might expect from fast forwarding gweilo. woo was allegedly consulted but we're talking about windtalkers woo, paycheck woo, so who cares even if it wasn't a marketing trick. just download a chow yun-fat skin for a better game like the specialists.
A mechanically shallow Max Payne but is so over the top with set pieces and style it can still be a fun time.
"Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God."
With that quote from Woo's Hard Boiled first comes with me admitting that I kind of screwed myself on this playthrough by trying to be the guy with the big dick and playing it on hard mode for the first time (last time I played this was about a decade ago) which just isn't meant for this kind of game. This opinion of mine would be different if the cover system worked and if the controls were programmed to control a human and not a tank. Unfortunately neither of those things are true and I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly have fun playing this on hard. Especially since getting through levels is more based on luck and not skill. Just a couple of bullets and you're dead. Enemies just keep on coming and coming; spraying bullets with no end in sight. In a 2D/side-scroller shooter this is fine. In a 3D shooter where you are primarily planted to the ground (even with all the diving and whatnot) it is not. No strategy, just luck.
Playing on this mode, about the first 40% of the game is fun, the next 50% was just about the most miserable I've ever been playing a game before giving up on the last 10% and switching the mode from hard to easy. That's when the game became fun again (though I probably should’ve switched the mode to medium being easy is a bit too easy) and truly captured the feeling of the quote listed at the top of this review. You should not be hiding in cover for more than a few seconds in this game. You should be out there dipping and diving and sliding all over the damn place with a gun in each hand blasting away enemies and the environment. When you are truly feeling the power of a gun in each hand is when the game is at its best.
I still remember the Best Buy close to my house, back when this was released, set up a station where you could literally play the entire game right there. I think this was the first game that made me realize the big step up graphically from the PS2 to the PS3 with all those destructible environments. Definitely thought this was the greatest game ever made based on that first level. Never played the entire game through until now and when I wasn’t dying from the millions of bullets being shot simultaneously at my head on hard mode I was dying of boredom since there is literally no variety whatsoever here. Just point and shoot. At least it's short. If this wasn’t helmed/influenced by John Woo’s style this would probably be a 2/5 but luckily it is and that’s probably why the story works more than usual (comes with all of Woo’s flourishes, though definitely not as memorable as his films) and probably why we have both destructible environments and hilarious things like a live jazz band playing in the middle of a room as you and the enemies engage in a shootout.
Who would’ve thought that John Woo would ever develop a video game, let alone one that’s a sequel to Hard Boiled where you get to play as Chow Yun-Fat? On that merit alone it’s hard for me to completely hate this for the lack of variety and for the overall presentation (the destructible environments are cool, having the sound go out multiple times having me to restart the disc is not). Only major issue I have here is with the controls that are mostly garbage and really bring the game down. Unbelievably stiff when it comes to movement and aiming and when precise aiming is sometimes required you can expect a controller to be flying out my window. Would pay hard cash for a remaster because there is a damn fine game in here. As is, it’s just fine yet a very cool relic in Woo’s career. Something I’ll replay in a couple years and be faced with a PTSD breakdown for all the horrors I endured by playing this on hard mode.
With that quote from Woo's Hard Boiled first comes with me admitting that I kind of screwed myself on this playthrough by trying to be the guy with the big dick and playing it on hard mode for the first time (last time I played this was about a decade ago) which just isn't meant for this kind of game. This opinion of mine would be different if the cover system worked and if the controls were programmed to control a human and not a tank. Unfortunately neither of those things are true and I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly have fun playing this on hard. Especially since getting through levels is more based on luck and not skill. Just a couple of bullets and you're dead. Enemies just keep on coming and coming; spraying bullets with no end in sight. In a 2D/side-scroller shooter this is fine. In a 3D shooter where you are primarily planted to the ground (even with all the diving and whatnot) it is not. No strategy, just luck.
Playing on this mode, about the first 40% of the game is fun, the next 50% was just about the most miserable I've ever been playing a game before giving up on the last 10% and switching the mode from hard to easy. That's when the game became fun again (though I probably should’ve switched the mode to medium being easy is a bit too easy) and truly captured the feeling of the quote listed at the top of this review. You should not be hiding in cover for more than a few seconds in this game. You should be out there dipping and diving and sliding all over the damn place with a gun in each hand blasting away enemies and the environment. When you are truly feeling the power of a gun in each hand is when the game is at its best.
I still remember the Best Buy close to my house, back when this was released, set up a station where you could literally play the entire game right there. I think this was the first game that made me realize the big step up graphically from the PS2 to the PS3 with all those destructible environments. Definitely thought this was the greatest game ever made based on that first level. Never played the entire game through until now and when I wasn’t dying from the millions of bullets being shot simultaneously at my head on hard mode I was dying of boredom since there is literally no variety whatsoever here. Just point and shoot. At least it's short. If this wasn’t helmed/influenced by John Woo’s style this would probably be a 2/5 but luckily it is and that’s probably why the story works more than usual (comes with all of Woo’s flourishes, though definitely not as memorable as his films) and probably why we have both destructible environments and hilarious things like a live jazz band playing in the middle of a room as you and the enemies engage in a shootout.
Who would’ve thought that John Woo would ever develop a video game, let alone one that’s a sequel to Hard Boiled where you get to play as Chow Yun-Fat? On that merit alone it’s hard for me to completely hate this for the lack of variety and for the overall presentation (the destructible environments are cool, having the sound go out multiple times having me to restart the disc is not). Only major issue I have here is with the controls that are mostly garbage and really bring the game down. Unbelievably stiff when it comes to movement and aiming and when precise aiming is sometimes required you can expect a controller to be flying out my window. Would pay hard cash for a remaster because there is a damn fine game in here. As is, it’s just fine yet a very cool relic in Woo’s career. Something I’ll replay in a couple years and be faced with a PTSD breakdown for all the horrors I endured by playing this on hard mode.
It's like diet-Max Payne with really spongy boss fights, fun for a single playthrough. Online is dead on all platforms.
STREETS DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS ONE
Fairly enjoyable Max Payne clone, doesn't overstay its welcome and I dig the setting.
max john woo. no pain
So damn underrated
Tremendamente divertido
The HD era of gaming was a rough one, especially in the beginning years. Games had to transition from dated aging hardware and design choices that had to work around that and open up more. Bigger levels, better AI, better graphics, and just overall more content. Stranglehold was a AAA blockbuster of a game due to the names attached to the game and Midway’s push to let celebrities in on this new HD era of gaming to bring Hollywood-style action to consoles.
Stranglehold is a successor to John Woo’s Hardboiled Hong Kong cop action movie from the ’90s starring Chow Yun Fat. Both star in this game and Chow reprises his role as Inspector Tequila. I will say that the story is really stupid and this has a lot to do with the 4-hour run time of the game. It’s incredibly short unless you die a million times which can be possible. The story is something lame and typical. Tequila’s daughter and ex-girlfriend get captured and he gets stuck in the middle of two rival Hong Kong gangs, the I-9s and the Dragon Claws. One is new blood and one wants the “old ways” back and Tequila’s daughter is the bargaining chip to get the police off their back. The voice acting is pretty bad, even Chow’s acting is kind of phoned in. The main star of the game is the gameplay, however.
I remember when this game came out it was pretty impressive on a technical level. We finally got an unofficial new Max Payne game. I say that because the entire game is incredibly shallow gameplay-wise. You get “Tequila Time” which lets Chow use bullet-time just like in Max Payne. There’s a meter and everything. However, the difference here is using your environments as well. Certain objects like rails, tables, and carts will have a white line on them if you can mount them. This activates Tequila Time automatically but also gives you a score ranking and boosts your ability gauge. That’s as deep as this game goes. I’m not joking either. You unlock abilities during the first few levels. These allow you to sacrifice one of the four-bar to heal, use a bullet cam that does extra damage, a rampage mode that is a longer Tequila Time, and the last one takes four bars and eliminates all enemies in the area. These actually came in really handy for the most part. The bullet cam ability was great during boss fights as a few of these and they were done.
The issue with all of this is the level design. It’s just too cramped and too small. After the first level the rails become too short, the objects are scattered everywhere, and while the destructible environments are nice, the tables can be destroyed that you need as well. Because of this, I got tired of constantly finding small objects to hop on and off of. The novelty wears off after the first level anyways. I just manually activated my bullet time and ran around shooting everyone in sight. There is a cover system, but it’s a little stuff and is kind of useless in this kind of a game where enemies are designed to come at you in every direction, and because of hit you can’t really hide. So, that essentially makes the ability to rack up your ability gauge and score meter mostly pointless because it’s a chore constantly finding objects to ride on.
When it comes to the actual shooting it’s fine. It works. You get all of your typical weapons. Pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and heavy machine guns plus grenades. The game is very arcade-like and every enemy has the same amount of hit points. A few shots take them down. There are trigger points to kill enemies with the environment but these are forgotten about mostly after the first couple of levels. As for the design outside of that, it’s actually still last-gen. Enemies pop out of open doors that lead to nowhere, cramped level design, and not to mention that every level looks really bland and boring.
Overall, this was a fun weekend rental and nothing more. It had a lot of Hollywood attached to it but didn’t feel truly next-gen like Gears of War or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter did at the time. Stranglehold has one foot in the sixth generation door and it shows. The lame story, cramped level design, half-baked “object riding” idea, and the overall generic arcade feeling are very forgettable, but still a fun evening.
Stranglehold is a successor to John Woo’s Hardboiled Hong Kong cop action movie from the ’90s starring Chow Yun Fat. Both star in this game and Chow reprises his role as Inspector Tequila. I will say that the story is really stupid and this has a lot to do with the 4-hour run time of the game. It’s incredibly short unless you die a million times which can be possible. The story is something lame and typical. Tequila’s daughter and ex-girlfriend get captured and he gets stuck in the middle of two rival Hong Kong gangs, the I-9s and the Dragon Claws. One is new blood and one wants the “old ways” back and Tequila’s daughter is the bargaining chip to get the police off their back. The voice acting is pretty bad, even Chow’s acting is kind of phoned in. The main star of the game is the gameplay, however.
I remember when this game came out it was pretty impressive on a technical level. We finally got an unofficial new Max Payne game. I say that because the entire game is incredibly shallow gameplay-wise. You get “Tequila Time” which lets Chow use bullet-time just like in Max Payne. There’s a meter and everything. However, the difference here is using your environments as well. Certain objects like rails, tables, and carts will have a white line on them if you can mount them. This activates Tequila Time automatically but also gives you a score ranking and boosts your ability gauge. That’s as deep as this game goes. I’m not joking either. You unlock abilities during the first few levels. These allow you to sacrifice one of the four-bar to heal, use a bullet cam that does extra damage, a rampage mode that is a longer Tequila Time, and the last one takes four bars and eliminates all enemies in the area. These actually came in really handy for the most part. The bullet cam ability was great during boss fights as a few of these and they were done.
The issue with all of this is the level design. It’s just too cramped and too small. After the first level the rails become too short, the objects are scattered everywhere, and while the destructible environments are nice, the tables can be destroyed that you need as well. Because of this, I got tired of constantly finding small objects to hop on and off of. The novelty wears off after the first level anyways. I just manually activated my bullet time and ran around shooting everyone in sight. There is a cover system, but it’s a little stuff and is kind of useless in this kind of a game where enemies are designed to come at you in every direction, and because of hit you can’t really hide. So, that essentially makes the ability to rack up your ability gauge and score meter mostly pointless because it’s a chore constantly finding objects to ride on.
When it comes to the actual shooting it’s fine. It works. You get all of your typical weapons. Pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and heavy machine guns plus grenades. The game is very arcade-like and every enemy has the same amount of hit points. A few shots take them down. There are trigger points to kill enemies with the environment but these are forgotten about mostly after the first couple of levels. As for the design outside of that, it’s actually still last-gen. Enemies pop out of open doors that lead to nowhere, cramped level design, and not to mention that every level looks really bland and boring.
Overall, this was a fun weekend rental and nothing more. It had a lot of Hollywood attached to it but didn’t feel truly next-gen like Gears of War or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter did at the time. Stranglehold has one foot in the sixth generation door and it shows. The lame story, cramped level design, half-baked “object riding” idea, and the overall generic arcade feeling are very forgettable, but still a fun evening.
Ehhh
jank and fun, jfank
It's a bit rough but man this game is fun as hell. The slow-mo is unbeatable.
Reprising the role, Chow Yun-fat is Inspector Tequila and he rocks. The plot is nothing special (pretty funny though). The chief of police or whatever he is comes very, very close to saying "give me your gun and your badge".
The game features bullet time and a style meter which fills up your Cop Mana which is needed to unleash Tequila's powers on the poor goons gunning for you. Pretty cool.
I gotta say, the game looks nice for it's age. The visuals are clean and the character models are fairly expressive when you're shooting them in the eye or crotch.
The first two and very last levels drag this game down pretty bad since there are only seven levels total. The game hits a good stride in the middle with cool set pieces and nicely detailed interiors which are impressively destructible, especially the penthouse level. The second mission sucks hard, I mean damn.
Anyway, I would like to give this game a higher rating basically for it's engine alone, but it can get too repetitive. Sure, it's all about guns, but gunning down wave after wave of guys can only hold my attention for so long without something else going on.
Decent fun, OK PC port from GOG. Worth it to go back to? Only if it's really cheap.
The game features bullet time and a style meter which fills up your Cop Mana which is needed to unleash Tequila's powers on the poor goons gunning for you. Pretty cool.
I gotta say, the game looks nice for it's age. The visuals are clean and the character models are fairly expressive when you're shooting them in the eye or crotch.
The first two and very last levels drag this game down pretty bad since there are only seven levels total. The game hits a good stride in the middle with cool set pieces and nicely detailed interiors which are impressively destructible, especially the penthouse level. The second mission sucks hard, I mean damn.
Anyway, I would like to give this game a higher rating basically for it's engine alone, but it can get too repetitive. Sure, it's all about guns, but gunning down wave after wave of guys can only hold my attention for so long without something else going on.
Decent fun, OK PC port from GOG. Worth it to go back to? Only if it's really cheap.
Not great, with wonky context sensitive mechanics and obnoxious bullet sponge bosses, but generally a fun time. Better than Max Payne 3, even with its faults.
Otro excelente Shotter en 3era persona de Midway, Su unico defecto es no estar del todo pulido con mas mecanicas defensivas y ofensivas ademas la incosistencia de la vida de los enemigos es bastante molesta para la idea de jugar con estilo, hacer una ruta es complicado debido a que el primer nivel es el mejor diseñado en este aspecto (y el segundo es el peor). Aun asi supera por completo a la larga sus errores haciendo un loop de disparos como ninguno.
feels like a video game tie-in for a film that doesn't exist. pretty fun, though.
I like John Woo man, what can I say?
Some bosses are a bit broken BUT ACTUAL 3D STAGES? 3D MOVEMENT? MOVING GRACELY (EVEN VERTICALLY) THROUGH FURNITURE, WALLS AND ELEVATIONS? IN A SHOOTER????
Give me TEN
Give me TEN
Can you even how amazing a follow-up game would be on next gen consoles?
John Woo's Pro Skater
This review contains spoilers
The game is super repetitive, the way they increase difficulty later in the game is make enemies bullet sponges, bosses are also bullet sponges but you can tell they love John Woo movies and tried to make something faithful to them. It would however feel more authentic in Cantonese. The comparisons to Max Payne are inevitable but the way you can move on railings and swing from chandeliers etc. and the special abilities differentiate the gameplay.
It's too bad the coolest level comes fairly early where you go in a restaurant carrying guitar cases and a jazz band plays while you have a shoot-out. After that it feels like a bit of a slog.
Recommended for John Woo fans.
It's too bad the coolest level comes fairly early where you go in a restaurant carrying guitar cases and a jazz band plays while you have a shoot-out. After that it feels like a bit of a slog.
Recommended for John Woo fans.
Pues muy buen juego de acción es un no parar de disparos y muerte, es como Max Payne pero con John Woo de prota que los escenarios sean destructibles y puedas interactuar con el es un puntazo.
It's tequila time, baby.
Delicious playable Woo kino. I wish there were Cantonese voices and a sequel but we can’t have everything
If you've ever watched Hard Boiled or any of Chow Yun-fat's classic action thrillers, this is basically that but in video game form. There's tons of slow motion bullet time to hammer home just how badass you are as you pick off waves of thugs, and there are tons of banisters and chandeliers for you to do cool trick shots off of. There's even a level where you can belly flop onto a moving cart to replicate the classic scene from Hard Boiled while mowing down your foes. Anyways, this is a short but sweet hidden gem and is most definitely not perfect (boss fights can be pretty easily cheesed, enemies can be a bit stubborn to die at times, physics can be a bit strange, etc), but it's classic distilled John Woo with over the top violence and tons of guns and explosions, and if you're a fan of goofy and wild gun fu, this is absolutely a must play.
E QUE SE FODA A LUDONARRATIVA
I remember the slow-mo being really fun.
Pasa el segundo nivel lo más rápido que puedas y juégalo en pc para más placer.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/stranglehold
https://www.gog.com/en/game/stranglehold
Solid, fun shooter with fantastic shooting mechanics, but ultimately held down by a sub par engine, awful bosses, and some levels that are just completely awful.
I'm a huge John Woo fan as well as Max Payne fan, with the entire A Better Tomorrow series being in my favorites along with Hard Boiled. I came into this expecting something that plays akin to Woo films, and for the most part, they do. The shooting itself is fantastic and snappy, but the interactions such as jumping on rails etc feel really spacey and unresponsive. The bosses, all of them, are awful, and a terrible edition to the game no matter how you look at it. I really have no clue why they felt the need to shove them into the game, but here we are.
If you're a fan of Woo or Max Payne, this game is sure to entertain you.
I'm a huge John Woo fan as well as Max Payne fan, with the entire A Better Tomorrow series being in my favorites along with Hard Boiled. I came into this expecting something that plays akin to Woo films, and for the most part, they do. The shooting itself is fantastic and snappy, but the interactions such as jumping on rails etc feel really spacey and unresponsive. The bosses, all of them, are awful, and a terrible edition to the game no matter how you look at it. I really have no clue why they felt the need to shove them into the game, but here we are.
If you're a fan of Woo or Max Payne, this game is sure to entertain you.