Shoot them... shoot them... shoot them!
The basic premise behind John Woo’s Stranglehold is that you get to play through what is essentially an action film, loosely based in the last film Woo made in Hong Kong before he was lured away to the big white Hollywood sing and the big green American dollar. And if I sound a bit cynical, it’s because since his move to Hollywood, Woo’s films haven’t quite lived up to the masterpieces he made in Hong Kong.I mean, Face/Off and Broken Arrow, whilst watchable enough, just don’t have any of those ‘Oh wow!’ moments that made Woo such a hit in the first place. Interestingly, John Woo’s Stranglehold is loosely based on Hard Boiled, Woo’s last Hong Kong film before he left for the States. Hard Boiled, as with John Woo’s Stranglehold, stars Chow Yun Fat as the no-nonsense, Dirty Harry style, Inspector Tequila and as the game follows the plot of Hard Boiled, with loads of extra bits, it’s only right that Chow Yun Fat has lent his likeness and voice to the game.
Click for larger imageSo what have we got with John Woo’s Stranglehold? Well, it’s a third person shooter with a heavy emphasis on the gun action and an even heavier emphasis on bullet time slow motion gun battles... and that’s just about it. No really, there’s little else to tell you. Sure, I’ll give you some info on the weapons and special moves but as far as gameplay goes, I’ve just about covered it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that John Woo’s Stranglehold has all the depth of puddle… and a very shallow puddle at that.
So you play the role of Inspector Tequila, a hard bitten, no-nonsense cop. It helps if you think along the lines of Dirty Harry but with dual pistols and some karate action. The basic plot of John Woo’s Stranglehold is that you’re on the trail of a gang, trying to stop a drug deal, subsequent take over and shift in balance of power of the gang lords and save your ex-girlfriend and the daughter you’ve never met as your girlfriend is the daughter of one of the gang bosses, so he imprisoned her when he found out about the two of you… And if you’ve kept up with that lot, I’ll just throw in an usurping gang junior, a double crossing Russian mobster and an undercover cop who may or may not be working for the gangs…
Click for larger imageSo, as far as the storyline goes, it’s your typical boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl plan to run off but interfering gang lord father kidnaps girl who’s pregnant with your baby, boy eventually tracks boss down, boy stops drug deal, boy’s mate helps him track boss… Ok, so it’s not your typical love story but it is typical of the excellent films Woo made in Hong Kong… plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested.
But sadly, other than in some of the longest cutscenes you’ve ever sat through, all this plot boils down to loads of shooting. And I mean loads of shooting. Forget puzzle solving, forget any sort of finesse in creeping along to snipe an enemy or taking an enemy down before they sound an alarm, this is pure out and out gunplay from start to finish. Gang boss stolen your girl? Shoot everyone. Need to get to a nightclub to meet a contact? Shoot everyone. Teaming up with an honourable gang boss to take out a double crossing Russian? Shoot everyone. Yep, if in doubt, pull out the hardware and shoot everyone.
Click for larger imageBut it’d be wrong to mark John Woo’s Stranglehold down just because all you do is shoot everyone. After all, there’s plenty of games that are based on exactly the same premise, aren’t there? But what does drag John Woo’s Stranglehold down is the execution of the game itself. It never stops feeling like a game and most often this is down to the mechanics Midway use for the gameplay itself.