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I'm not going to bother reiterating that Stranglehold is the videogame sequel to the Hong Kong action flick that made John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat what they are today. If you didn't already know that, you do now. In the end, the history of the game isn't all that important. Neither is the story really. A number of years ago, a tough cop fell in love with a woman on the other side of the law, knocked her up, and now she and the daughter he's never known have been kidnapped. Tequila needs to get them back by killing everyone and everything that gets in his way.
Stranglehold is a solid single player experience that deserves at least a second run in one of the higher difficulties.
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Stranglehold has pacing that very few games ever aspire to. After a dramatic cut-scene or two, you're tossed into the action, facing wave after wave of suicidal enemies sending superheated trails of lead in your direction. Slow motion dodging onto a conveniently placed hand cart leaves you sliding and guns blazing, building up your Tequila meter for three flavors of action movie style bad ass-ness; sniping them off, mowing them down, or just killing everything in sight. The weapons are your typical assortment of pistol, shotgun, SMG, assault rifle, excreta. Dual wielding is a must and reloading is a myth. The locations for these shootouts are lavishly diverse as they are detailed, from the slums of Hong Kong to a Chicago high rise. All of which are destructive in a way you're not going to believe possible. I'm not just talking squashed watermelon, but entire shacks exploding and sending debris for a mile in all directions. By the time Tequila is through with his one man style justice, these places are going to be pulverized. Played in small bursts, this is the single most intense and satisfying single player shooter on any next-gen console.
However, multiplayer is a blatant afterthought. Limited to six players, you can tear through levels pulled from the single player portion. It's amazing just how boring the action of the main game can be set in another context, or frustrating since the odds are always heavily stacked in the favor of the guy in the lead. There's no sense of weapon balance, and since meters reset on death, people with an early lead can just repeatedly spin attack you into oblivion, which is a one hit kill to everyone in the room. The modes are limited to snooze-worthy deathmatch and team deathmatch. How about a juggernaut mode where the leader has the bombs but the other players are the only one with Tequila time? Or a challenge to see who can rack up the biggest bill for environment destruction? As it is, it's unimaginative and worthless.
Stranglehold is a solid single player experience that deserves at least a second run in one of the higher difficulties, even if it does repeat itself a little too frequently. The weapons feel great, the flips and wall jumps are stylish fun, and it's shocking how much you can tear into your surroundings without a framerate hiccup. At six hours a spin, it comes up a bit short, but it's still a twin pistol slow motion dive through the air while it lasts. |
