samuelk
08-09-2007, 05:37 PM
John Woo's Stranglehold will be released for the XBox 360, PC and PS3 in a few weeks. The 360 demo hit the XBox Live Marketplace yesterday, and I gave it a whirl.
If over-the-top action, almost-fully-destructible environments, solid physics and Max-Payne-slash-Matrix-slash-John-Woo-slo-motion action sequences are your bag, then you'll love Stranglehold
In the game, you play Inspector Tequila, played by Chow Yun-Fat. Chow provides the voice and face of Tequila, reprising the role he played in the film Hard Boiled (Stranglehold is said to be a sequel to Hard Boiled; I think producing concepts into games in lieu of films is a trend we'll start seeing more and more of as movies become more expensive to produce, and as game revenues begin to equal and surpass box office sales).
I'm sure there's a storyline to this game, but to be honest, I didn't really pay much attention to it -- though the in-engine cutscenes that lay out the plot are well produced, with good voice acting and strong virtual camera work (Many of Woo's signature directing trademarks are present -- super slow motion action shots, doves flying past the camera, intense gunfights -- it's all here. I do know that the plot opens with a search for a missing cop. Eh, then there's lots of shooting and blood and stuff.
While we've all seen gunfights in games before, there are some things that help Stranglehold to stand out. First of all, the game is built on a pretty robust physics engine with a metric ton of destructible and interactive objects. One particularly impressive demonstration of this is a part of the demo that takes place in a market square complete with central fountain. As enemies appear from doorways and around corners and bullets start whizzing in all directions, some of them smack into the fountain, causing chunks of it to break off. Stone fish on the side of the fountains central column break away and cause water to spray into the air. The sides of the fountain can also break away, spilling the fountains contents everywhere. Wooden fences splinter piece by piece, and overturned tables can be cut in half or ruined one chunk at a time. Most of the broken debris hangs around in the level instead of fading away, so when gunfights are over, the place is a mess.
The interactivity goes beyond just shooting and breaking stuff, though. Your character is blessed with super-human agility, which allows you to use the environment to pull off some neat moves. When you walk or run near an interactive object, it will usually glow, and one click of the use button will have you sliding down ralings, flipping off walls, swinging from lanterns and sliding across tables (Duke's of Hazzard style). When you pull off these moves, the game switches to its version of bullet-time, called "Tequila Time". The screen becomes washed in red and everything become super slow-mo. Going into dives, sliding across tables and other moves will trigger Tequila Time automatically, but you can also manually use TT, which you store up by killing enemies in flashy and unique ways.
Another cool mode in the game is Precision Targeting. You're given this ability about halfway through the demo, and once you get it, it's hard to stop using it. When you aim at an enemy and press up on the D-pad, the game slows to a super-super slo-mo crawl, and your view zooms in to the enemy you were aiming at, and a crosshair appears on the screen. You simply use the analog stick to point the crosshair at any part of the enemy's anatomy, and pull the trigger. The view switches to a slow-motion view of the bullet you just fired, and the "camera" rides the bullet all the way to the target. Then you're treated to a close-up slow-motion death scene, which is context sensitive -- if you hit the guy in the eye, he grabs his head as blood sprays from the socket; hit him in his gun hand, and his weapon will go flying; hit him in the throat, and ... well, you get the idea -- it's crazy fun.
There's a third sequence that uses many of the same slow-motion and precision targeting called "Stand Off". At certain parts in the game, your character will be surrounded on all sides by enemies (usually prefaced by a cut-scene). As the camera rotates around you showing where the bad guys are located, it eventually zooms into an over-the-shoulder third person view. At this point, you use the crosshair to aim at one of the enemies and shoot him, while at the same time, using the analog stick to dodge his bullets (which creep towards you in super slow motion as the air behind it ripples and distorts, Matrix-style). As the first bad guy drops, the camera whilrs around to the next one, and so on, until you drop them all (or you're killed). It's a pretty easy sequence to complete, but it's a nice change of pace.
Over all, the game is pretty fun. I played it through 3 times, and although the bad guys always appear in the same place at the same time, how you dispatch them is up to you.
Some of the interactive objects in the game are very obvious (bad guys tend to stand under neon signs and window air conditioning units), but it's still fun to watch.
The demo was a blast to play, and as long as the full game offers up more of the same without getting to repetitive, it'll be a solid buy. I'll probably wait for the PC version, but the 360 version was pretty fun. No multiplayer was included in the demo, but there is a video of multiplayer that runs after you finish the demo level.
If over-the-top action, almost-fully-destructible environments, solid physics and Max-Payne-slash-Matrix-slash-John-Woo-slo-motion action sequences are your bag, then you'll love Stranglehold
In the game, you play Inspector Tequila, played by Chow Yun-Fat. Chow provides the voice and face of Tequila, reprising the role he played in the film Hard Boiled (Stranglehold is said to be a sequel to Hard Boiled; I think producing concepts into games in lieu of films is a trend we'll start seeing more and more of as movies become more expensive to produce, and as game revenues begin to equal and surpass box office sales).
I'm sure there's a storyline to this game, but to be honest, I didn't really pay much attention to it -- though the in-engine cutscenes that lay out the plot are well produced, with good voice acting and strong virtual camera work (Many of Woo's signature directing trademarks are present -- super slow motion action shots, doves flying past the camera, intense gunfights -- it's all here. I do know that the plot opens with a search for a missing cop. Eh, then there's lots of shooting and blood and stuff.
While we've all seen gunfights in games before, there are some things that help Stranglehold to stand out. First of all, the game is built on a pretty robust physics engine with a metric ton of destructible and interactive objects. One particularly impressive demonstration of this is a part of the demo that takes place in a market square complete with central fountain. As enemies appear from doorways and around corners and bullets start whizzing in all directions, some of them smack into the fountain, causing chunks of it to break off. Stone fish on the side of the fountains central column break away and cause water to spray into the air. The sides of the fountain can also break away, spilling the fountains contents everywhere. Wooden fences splinter piece by piece, and overturned tables can be cut in half or ruined one chunk at a time. Most of the broken debris hangs around in the level instead of fading away, so when gunfights are over, the place is a mess.
The interactivity goes beyond just shooting and breaking stuff, though. Your character is blessed with super-human agility, which allows you to use the environment to pull off some neat moves. When you walk or run near an interactive object, it will usually glow, and one click of the use button will have you sliding down ralings, flipping off walls, swinging from lanterns and sliding across tables (Duke's of Hazzard style). When you pull off these moves, the game switches to its version of bullet-time, called "Tequila Time". The screen becomes washed in red and everything become super slow-mo. Going into dives, sliding across tables and other moves will trigger Tequila Time automatically, but you can also manually use TT, which you store up by killing enemies in flashy and unique ways.
Another cool mode in the game is Precision Targeting. You're given this ability about halfway through the demo, and once you get it, it's hard to stop using it. When you aim at an enemy and press up on the D-pad, the game slows to a super-super slo-mo crawl, and your view zooms in to the enemy you were aiming at, and a crosshair appears on the screen. You simply use the analog stick to point the crosshair at any part of the enemy's anatomy, and pull the trigger. The view switches to a slow-motion view of the bullet you just fired, and the "camera" rides the bullet all the way to the target. Then you're treated to a close-up slow-motion death scene, which is context sensitive -- if you hit the guy in the eye, he grabs his head as blood sprays from the socket; hit him in his gun hand, and his weapon will go flying; hit him in the throat, and ... well, you get the idea -- it's crazy fun.
There's a third sequence that uses many of the same slow-motion and precision targeting called "Stand Off". At certain parts in the game, your character will be surrounded on all sides by enemies (usually prefaced by a cut-scene). As the camera rotates around you showing where the bad guys are located, it eventually zooms into an over-the-shoulder third person view. At this point, you use the crosshair to aim at one of the enemies and shoot him, while at the same time, using the analog stick to dodge his bullets (which creep towards you in super slow motion as the air behind it ripples and distorts, Matrix-style). As the first bad guy drops, the camera whilrs around to the next one, and so on, until you drop them all (or you're killed). It's a pretty easy sequence to complete, but it's a nice change of pace.
Over all, the game is pretty fun. I played it through 3 times, and although the bad guys always appear in the same place at the same time, how you dispatch them is up to you.
Some of the interactive objects in the game are very obvious (bad guys tend to stand under neon signs and window air conditioning units), but it's still fun to watch.
The demo was a blast to play, and as long as the full game offers up more of the same without getting to repetitive, it'll be a solid buy. I'll probably wait for the PC version, but the 360 version was pretty fun. No multiplayer was included in the demo, but there is a video of multiplayer that runs after you finish the demo level.