Stranglehold – Completed

John Woo is making a video game? Well that’s just a fantastic idea and after playing the demo I fought back not buying it on opening day. That turned out to be a pretty good decision on my part. Mike T rented and beat the game quickly enough to give me a shot at it.

The game like a John Woo movie centers around Chow Yung Fat’s character affectionately named “Tequila”. A cop bent on stopping a mob war at any cost, I will even call him a super cop. With a few plot twists and some Russian the story plays out as you would expect from an action movie. Not particularly moving by any means, but has its share of gun battles and explosions.

It’s a third person shooter with destructible environments, a decent range of weapons, and Tequila bombs! No I do not mean drinks, but Tequilas special ability’s, heal him self, aimed shot, barrage attack, and the spin attack. Each one unique and powerful in its own right and giving you options when you approach different situations. It cracked me up every time I did a spin attack, doves fly as a slow motion sequence ensues and you kill every enemy in site. Perhaps the doves were a ploy to distract the ESRB!

Now the crappy part, the game is short and I mean like Halo 3 short. For the sake of achievements I beat the game twice in the day I had it. It probably would take anyone four hours maximum to finish the game.

On that note the game is 6 out of 10 for me. It is fun, but short and there is nothing overly unique about the game play.