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| Source // PlayStation |
At what point did people start thinking that video games could truly be cinematic? It must have been around the time of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, right? When graphics were a clear leap above and beyond the previous consoles, which simply couldn't come anywhere close, and PC gamers didn't care. A cinematic game that pushes the hardware and delivers all the action and thrills of a Hollywood film is something now within the reach of a storyteller. Visually, I mean. To some degree.
So how do you go about showing that these modern machines are capable of such a spectacle? Maybe you reunite director John Woo with star Chow Yun-fat to make a sequel to their 1992 hit Hard Boiled. Maybe you show Stephen Spielberg that there really are better things than the Nintendo Wii to make- oh, you really do want a sequel to Hard Boiled? Okay, uhm, what about John Woo Presents Stranglehold?
Inspector Tequila Yuen returns, weapons in both hands, muscled stretched and limbered up ready for diving and clambering and showing off how stylish John Woo can make his movies. Only this time, it's a game.
How's that going to work?
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| Source // MobyGames |
Fun Times
Stranglehold jumps right in, showing us a corridor somewhere in Chicago where four goons walk menacingly towards the camera. Or they would if they didn't look so bizarre. I must remind myself that for all the talk of cinematic experiences, games are still very much chained to hardware limitations and you shouldn't expect anything but a more detailed character model.
As they walk past the camera, we're immediately whisked away to Hong Kong, where something actually does take place. A cop is kidnapped and beaten and threatened with a gun, a situation the Hong Kong police take quite seriously, but the demands are simple: Only one man is to come in and talk, or whatever. Which one man will that be?
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
It's Tequilla, of course. The only cop with enough balls to disregard what his superiors tell him and march headfirst into an inevitable ambush. There's a life at stake, damnit, and unbeknownst to him, those thugs in Chicago kidnapped his daughter and grand-daughter. Huh. Looking good for an old man, old man.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
So here we are in Hong Kong, heading towards a meeting with some criminals, and if that last screenshot hasn't given it away, it's not exactly going to be a smooth meeting. This is an action game after all, and I'm playing it on the PS3 for the first time since playing a demo long, long ago.
The gunplay is the main attraction here, make no mistake about that. Chow Yun-fat's likeness may make us feel more connected to the character, but once lead starts flying, it's going to be the combat mechanics that win us over, and they certainly stand out amongst the crowd.
The R1 button squeezes Tequilla's trigger finger around a variety of weapons that, in true Hong Kong action movie style seem to have an infinite amount of rounds, but don't actually. The R2 button slows down time, turns the screen bronze, and lets you line up your shots a little better so that the bunch of gangsters that have just burst through the door don't have much chance to fire at you first.
But that, in John Woo's eyes, isn't cool. What is cool is looking around for a glowing object, like a railing, and hitting the L1 button to interact with it, at which point Tequilla will leap on it, slide down it, slow-motion killing whomever you're able to hit.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Stranglehold isn't about killing, it's about style, and killing in style, either while standing on a rail, or dropping air conditioning units and neon signs on peoples heads, or blowing up gas canisters or just pulling off Max Payne-like dives everywhere will net you points you can cash in for things like boosts of health, precision aiming, overwhelming firepower and maybe even concept art and other extras. Truth be told, I wasn't paying attention to the details, I just knew that being stylish was more important than anything else.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
So you run around, shooting at basically everyone - the innocent just don't exist here - looking out for glowing hints that will trigger a stylish environmental kill when shot, and sliding across all the tables like they're covered in grease.
Everything explodes, wood splinters, fruit disappears in a shower of fleshy bits, and an Uncharted-esque panflute and bongo jingle clues you into the area now being safe to proceed through, where you walk through a door or two before doing it all over again.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
It's not all stylish shootouts, however. Sometimes it's stylish standoffs. Surrounded by enemies, Tequilla moves at the speed of light to dodge bullets and return fire in a sort of standoff mini-game that breaks the action up a little bit. If you don't kill a target before Tequilla decides it's time to move on, they'll still be alive once the standoff wraps up, which means they'll just start shooting at you, so do try your best.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Yeah, this screenshot is from much later in the game, but you get the idea. Flow like water and dodge those bullets.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
After clearing up the streets, Tequilla heads to a bar to grab a drink (no prizes for guessing which) but happens to pick one where some kind of gangland deal is taking place. It ends in a shootout, with us cowering behind a pillar as it's chipped away, bullet by bullet.
It's a shame because peaking out of cover - which you can snap to with the L2 button - slows down time for a stylish kill, so it's a nice way to farm points and stay alive, but as more and more of the pillar explodes behind you, you do need to get moving - especially when a mini-boss with a rocket launcher decides that that's the best approach to get rid of you.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
After this, the level wrapped up, and I was told that I'd killed some 160odd people and caused nearly $10m in damages. Such is the life of a Hong Kong cop, eh?
After diving and styling my way through all these fools, I was liking what Stranglehold was giving me. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was fun, and when the next level showed me what might as well have been an island paradise in comparison, I was interested enough to stay on and see some more - after all, I didn't really know what the plot was...
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
There were no subtitle options in Stranglehold, and no real written explanation of what's going on for you to stay focused on, save for your mobile phone buzzing with a mission objective whenever it needs to.
The cop we were trying to save was killed, and I think someone wants us dead too. But who and why is beyond me, as it how we ended up here on this island. We're ignoring our superiors, I gather, on the trail of someone or other who is up to no good. That much is obvious in an action film, I suppose, but the details in Stranglehold require paying more attention than I was giving it, it seemed.
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| Source // MobyGames |
My goal for this level was to destroy a bunch of drug tables. Not only are they the only real things of note in a given room, apart from the five enemies that spawn out of each one, but they're also explosive, and wrack up your style points when you shoot them through a window while standing on a broken pole, or after having dived onto a trolley and steered it around the courtyard with the momentum.
Once that's done, the next area opens up and you're taken through to the next little shack village where we have to... find and destroy 16 more drug tables. Which you do, move through the next stage of the island and have to... find and destroy 10 more drug tables.
Really? Really now? It was already bad that I started to feel my eyes pick with fatigue, but now you want me to repeat the last objective yet again, but in a new area? What's next, more drug tables? If the level isn't complete, I'm going to be a bit annoyed. Oh, good, a helicopter is coming to pick me up. That's surely a good point to leave it. Level complete, right?
Wrong. On-rails shooter section. A change of pace, perhaps, but it too lasts four times as long as you want it to, as you repeat the same fight again and again. Were you paying attention while firing at these guys? You should have been because you're about to be dropped down to these boats so that you can set explosive charges on them to sink them!
So you run around another part of the level sinking boat after boat, the odd small cutscene letting you know that someone is taking an interest in you from a flashy boat out on the waters. After sinking four boats you're brought on board to have a chat with someone who informs you of your families kidnapping - which apparently took place two weeks ago - and finally, eyes desperately in need of rest and lunch on the go I welcome the end of the second level.
Only I don't, because I am dumped right back where I just was and told to plant 14 C4 charges to destroy yet another list of something or others.
Hell no, Mr. Woo. That's just ridiculous.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Final Word
I tag my games collection, mostly so that I know which ones are part of the 1001 list but also to give me a quick idea of where I am with them in the form of "Completed" or "Abandoned". Stranglehold, were it to be in my PC library, would now be tagged as abandoned.
That is not to say I won't ever find out what the story actually is, or get around to finishing level two by planting those 14 charges, but it does remind me that for whatever fun I may have had at some point, I ultimately gave up and left it alone, the flaws overwhelming my attitude towards it.
Stranglehold has some fun gameplay, or indeed gunplay. It's often hectic and doesn't quite come off as you intend, but when you'd think it would be stylish, it generally is stylish, as far as an early PS3 title could pull it off, at least.
It is, however, painfully repetitive. Yes the environments differ wildly, and in turn, so do the list of environmental kills, but you will ultimately be shooting bullets at people who are shooting bullets at you, over and over, again and again, arena after arena.
You can say that's all a lot of games are, but not to this degree. This actively feels like padding. This feels like milking the mechanics for everything they could possibly offer, and it all gets in the way of what could and maybe should have been more of a story and less of a shooter.
But I say that having not watched Hard Boiled. Maybe it is all about the guns and diving across tables and the sliding down bannisters firing dual pistols all the while. Maybe the plot doesn't matter. I'd have to hope the plot doesn't matter because I don't have a clue what's going on in Stranglehold.
Will I ever? I don't know. It feels good to have played the actual game, rather than a demo, but I am glad I don't have to play it through to the end. I'm not desperate to see where it goes and I get the idea of how it plays. That's enough for me, personally, and it's enough for me to conclude that it's a nice, albeit heavily repetitive action game.
A solid rental, perhaps, to use the cinematic lingo like a pro.
No, I don't know what I'm waffling on about any more either.
Fun Facts
While the gameplay feels repetitive, the enemies you encounter shouldn't, as various parts of their models and swapped in and out to mix up clothing and the like, reducing the likelihood of you just seeing clone after clone of nameless obstacles to your progress. I can't say it works perfectly, but well done for trying.
John Woo Presents Stranglehold, developed by Midway Chicago, Tiger Hill Entertainment, first released in 2007.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2007.