Stranglehold is a video game sequel to the the 1992 movie, Hard Boiled, from John Woo. You play as Inspector Tequila, reprised by Chow Yun-fat, from the movie, as he attempts to rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter in Hong Kong, while in the middle of a dispute between to triad groups, The Golden Kane and The Dragon Claw.
Released in 2007, a product of Midway Games, now defunct, features impressive facial graphics and fun game mechanics. 'Tequila Time' is a huge feature and immensely similar to 'Bullet Time', in games like Max Payne. Any time Tequila dives or swings from a chandelier, enter Tequila Time and can dispatch of enemies in slow motion. You can also enter it manually with a button press, or when you jump on a cart. Tequila also has a cool set of abilities. There is a full circle of four abilities, the first is health and let's you refill your own. Precision shot let's you instantly kill an enemy and follows a bullet to where you aimed it. Barrage let's you rampage and constantly fire your gun without reloading or getting damaged. And finally, the spin attack, the most powerful of all as Tequila spins around firing and kills all enemies in sight.
The graphics and cutscenes were stellar, you can tell it was meant to be a movie. The facial detail was fantastic to look at, they all looked like real people. There was also a huge arsenal of weapons, even better, all weapons could be used with the barrage and spin attack abilities. There was a unique encounter with enemies, a standoff. You'd be outnumbered and surrounded by enemies, you have to quickly dispatch of them all while dodgy bullets. There's a number of high profile enemies, most of whom have a boss fight. Most boss fights are great and very challenging. You can also find collectable cranes, these speed up the process to getting your abilities.
On harder difficulties, it can be really hard. To make up for that, there's plenty of health packs around. You can also sacrifice your special moves in favour of refilling your health, the closer you are to a full circle of abilities, the more health you can refill instead. You can't enter Tequila Time manually all the time, you have a bar under your health that regenerates over time, so you can keep entering TT. You can crouch and take cover, sounds normal, but in a game that's as fast paced as this, it seems out of place and unnecessary.
The cutscene audio was so low, it was difficult to hear and I find myself constantly switching the audio up and down in between gameplay and cutscenes. Every time you click continues on the main menu, it asks you to pick a difficulty instead of just carrying on. If you die, you're often reloaded and left with different weapons to what you had, and if you had a full circle of abilities can be reset. It's so dumb, you could have saved up a spin attack and have golden guns, then lose them all on a reload. It can be difficult to aim, as Tequila is usually in the way and you have to aim through him. You often have to trigger enemy spawns, this can usually mean walking past a door which enemies spawn from, leaving you open to be killed. Using the reticle and aiming right at someone doesn't always hit them and you're left just hitting air. There was a poor turret section that was completely out of place and way too long, clearly put in the wrong game. Another thing that frustrated me was, I did the whole game on hard, and two chapters completely ignored that and said they were done on normal. I had to do them again...
A really fun game, with great graphics (at the time) and an interesting story. Unfortunately, due the the closure of Midway, the sequel was cancelled. I'd one hundred percent have played the sequel, I'm always down for games with bullet time. I'll be sure to now watch the John Woo film, Hard Boiled.
7/10
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