John Woo is a prolific Chinese movie director, known for his action films, so when it was announced that he was working with Midway on Stranglehold we knew immediately it would be an action packed game. Anyone who has seen any of his big movies such as Hard Boiled and Face/Off will know that it contains impressively choreographed gun fights and usually a hefty body count. It is fair to say that a lot of the inspiration for Stranglehold has come from his movie Hard Boiled, both star Inspector Tequila as the main character, a trigger happy cop whose answer to every situation seems to involve dual pistols and crate load of ammo. Midway announced they would give gamers a chance to try out the game by releasing a demo and they stuck to their promise as the demo was made available today. Stranglehold is a third person shooter, which has features similar to a variety of other third person shooters however it is probably most comparable to the game Max Payne.
The demo, which is set in the Hong Kong part of the game, has a brief introduction movie but quickly lets the player get straight into the action. Once you start pulling the triggers, one thing which is noticeable very quickly is the destructible environment. Just about everything can be shot up, in the middle of a firefight there will be pieces of fruit and wood flying everywhere. Certain parts of the demo and the game require the player to shoot interactive objects to create paths to progress and sometimes there might be the option to make a path to a better vantage point or to retrieve hidden items. As you would expect, the destructible environments can also play a part in taking down enemies, whether it be shooting air conditioning units so they land on someone’s head or shooting out a big neon light causing instant death to the guy(s) unlucky or stupid enough to be standing below. Using this feature to kill the enemies isn't just for fun, it also serves a useful purpose, in fact it is encouraged to kill enemies in creative ways.
Killing enemies will reward Tequila with stars, how many stars you get depends on how you kill them. The stars fill up the 'Tequila Bomb', which is essentially 4 special abilities which can be used during the game. These can be activated using the D-pad and each ability is assigned a direction. The first is simply a heal function, once you have enough stars, simply press left on the D-pad to restore a bit of health, very useful when there are no health packs around. The other abilities are a bit more exciting as they give you the upper hand during gun fights. One of these abilities is the 'Precision Aiming', this moves the camera into first person mode and will zoom in when an enemy is on the cross hair, all in slow motion. As the name suggests, the idea is to aim at a specific part of the body, a head shot would be a wise choice, but no doubt most will agree the throat shot or the crotch shot is a little more satisfying. The death animations are well done and there is a nice variety of them, don't expect too much realism though, it is after that John Woo 'Hollywood style' effect, for example loud and sometimes humorous cries of pain. On easier levels of difficulty, it seems that you can use these abilities quite sparingly, however on harder difficulties it is worth conserving those health bombs for intense firefights which seem to pop up. To get more stars for a kill, you have to be a little more flamboyant, as mentioned before this could involve using a destructible item to your advantage, but you can also kill enemies in a more 'John Woo' style. Simply pressing the L-trigger when near an interactive part of the environment will allow Tequila to perform stunts which look very cool indeed, such as sliding down a barrier with dual pistols and pumping a hefty amount of lead into foes, all whilst in slow motion or 'Tequila Mode'. There is numerous ways to activate the Tequila Mode, it can be done manually, when you dive it automatically comes on, as well as sliding across tables and running up rails. Tequila will automatically slide across a table or a stall when you walk into it, which will put him into Tequila Mode and add a multiplier to the amount of stars you receive when killing enemies. There's no denying this is a lot of fun, however sometimes it can feel a little clumsy and get frustrating. It is a little too easy to simply walk into a table then somehow gain the momentum to slide across it; this means it can happen accidentally sometimes which can put you off.
Thankfully, with all the action going on the frame rate holds steady. The visuals are nothing amazing, but they look nice. There is plenty of colour, with neon lights, fruit baskets and of course blood. The game looks sharp, but some of the textures are quite low-res, but this is only noticeable close up and most of the time the focus will be on the action anyway. The controls seem tight and smooth, sensitivity and auto-aim can be adjusted in the menu however the standard settings seem to work well. There is the option to take cover, however the cover system is a little unreliable. There are some corners or pillars where it seems sensible to take cover behind, but it’s not allowed. Taking cover behind a stall is also a little tricky, because it’s so easy to walk into it and slide across it, not what you want to happen when you have low health and need some cover from the barrage of bullets coming your way.
The single player demo is quite substantial, especially when compared to a lot of the other demo's on the marketplace, but it is unfortunate that we weren't able to try the multi player mode which looks very interesting indeed. Once the demo is completed the trailer at the end shows off various levels from the game as well as a snippet of multi player action which looks like it should be fun if the slow-mo gameplay is implemented well. The game will not be on everyone’s list, but for fans of Max Payne this is surely a must have. The demo seems to have been well received which should boost the game’s profile, it is one of the few demos which offers a lot of re playability, each play through unlocks a harder difficulty and new Tequila Bomb skills. If the demo is anything like the full game, then there should be plenty moments of madness and lots of fun and creative ways to take down enemies. Hopefully the game has a lengthy single player that doesn't become too repetitive, however given the amount of options available to dispose of enemies and the 'Showdown' moments, it shouldn’t get boring.
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