Stranglehold

This game rules. 15 years after its release, it’s still a blast to play, and it remains a rare example of a movie-to-game adaptation done right. Stranglehold is short but extremely intense. It is often said to be a Max Payne clone, which seems reductive: sure, it’s a third-person shooter with slow-mo mechanics, but it feels a lot more “arcady”, and follows a very different design philosophy. It offers gunfight after gunfight and barely anything in-between, and lets you use a wider and crazier variety of cool moves. You can dodge mid-air! Jump and slide on handrails! Perform “special attacks” involving slow-mo and temporary invincibility! The gunplay is quite sleek and smartly implemented overall: everything is fun, works as intended, and does a great job of emulating the action scenes of Hard Boiled (and John Woo movies in general). Each combat is a glorious ballet of ultraviolence where everything and everyone explodes around you. It’s just beautiful. The story is fine but not too memorable, has only a few tie-ins to Hard Boiled, and mostly serves as a pretext to send you to kill bad guys. Graphically, it looks neither uniquely great nor bad for 2007 but the character animations are solid and the environments are pretty varied, believable and atmospheric – plus, they are destructible to a remarkable extent! Alas, the game has a few issues: the FOV is messed up and can only be fixed through a fan-made patch; I sometimes had trouble interacting with usable items and covers, since you need to get very close to them before pressing the “action” key, which is hard to do in the middle of a hectic gunfight; finally, enemies often spawn right behind your back and chew through your health in a few instants, which can be annoying. Fortunately, these problems never spoil the fun. So yeah, Stranglehold is an underrated shooter I’ll probably often come back to. If you love over-the-top action and want something to play over the course of the next weekend, look no further!

I am going to review the technical state of the game. I am on windows 10 and have most of the updates with a GTX 1070. It works just fine even with a 21:9 screen , on top of that got this on a sale. So its awesome for the price.

Had this game on the Xbox 360, happy to see it here, instant purchase. Such an underrated gem of an action game. Runs great on Ryzen 5 5500, Intel Arc A770 16GB GDDR6 and Windows 11. Only issue upon start up was super high mouse sensitivity, which can be changed during gameplay.

Stranglehold is a third-person shooter which serves as a sequel to the Hong Kong action movie Hard Boiled. Its director John Woo, best known for stylish gunfights and slow-mo, also took part in the making of this game. You play as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, voiced by the same actor from the movie, Chow Yun-fat as he goes against gangsters to safe a woman he once loved and their daughter. Gameplay is very similar to Max Payne, which in turn takes inspiration from Woo's films. You can trigger slow-mo anytime you wish, as long as the bar isn't empty. Some events automatically trigger them, like when jumping or peeking. There are also some special abilities like healing and shooting all around you. The more stylish the kills are, the more points you get for the unlock shop. It unlocks several concept arts and videos. One thing I notice is that this game has many, perhaps kinda too many, combat scenes. While yes I understand that it's the main attraction of the game, I would love if the game were slower-paced, allowing us to explore and feel the atmosphere, like in MP. Length-wise it's also kinda short, can be finished around 5-6 hours. If you think slow-mo shooting like in Max Payne and FEAR are awesome, you should definitely check out Stranglehold, and I guarantee you'll have a great time. Also, other than that, check out John Woo's films, you might discover new movies that you'll love.

A fantastic game in the classic style of action movies with the maximum use of a famous director. Fantastic graphics, combat system and dizzying speed of the game, as well as a neatly written plot. However, there is one drawback: the single-player campaign is unfortunately very short. But as they say, small is beautiful. However, the game is still worth the price and I highly recommend it to every fan of movies and fast-paced action games. This game is an unstoppable, explosive rollercoaster that will keep you breathless. 5/5