John Woo Presents Stranglehold

[Daragon]

Well, stupid me had this on preorder from PA from a while back. Tragically I had forgotton all about said preorder and have just been sent a dispatch email

Mind you, at the price I paid I can't really complain too much and I did enjoy the demo.

I'm sure I'll get some fun out of it, watching a man get shot right in the bo janglies through slo-mo will probably never get tiring. I actually choked a bit the first time I saw it. Jesus, I'm not right in the head am I?

[TEENWOLF]

Finished this now and wish I hadnt bothered picking it up. Its one of the most tedious games Ive ever played.

Shooting wave after wave of enemies is not something I call fun. Dont even get me started on the multiplayer, its worse than The Darkness.

Only redeeming factor for me is the splat noise the shotgun makes in Tequila Time. Sadly that alone isnt worth ?40 notes.

[Akira]

one of the best pure action games bar none! makes you feel like such a baddass.Awesome on so many levels!

[Bleeders]

Done this earlier today. Crap, absolute crap I thought. Whacked it on Casual just to get through this turgid mess in the end and traded-in it's getting too.

"Fun" bugs I encountered; getting stuck on in the scenery, getting stuck walking across an interactive object for absolutely no reason (does anyone test these things?). They spent $30 million on this piece of wank? Surely that was that John Woo and Chow Yun Fat's combined fee? There's no variety in the game at all, even as a "mindless" shooter, it's boring after the nth Tequila Time moment, it gets old. Fast.

The cut-scenes. Crap. Pixelated mess on my LCD at times and laughably bad as well, especially when your coming from the splendor that is Heavenly Swords' superby acted cut-scenes.

I had to laugh at

->Open Spoiler<-

ol' Tequila's daughter being shot, but showing no signs of an exit wound and walking out quite happily at the end.

It seems to have been well-received amongst print and electronic publications, so its obviously doing something right, I really didn't think much of this tbh. Worse than Enter The Matrix, imo like.

[chopemon]

Worse than Enter The Matrix, imo like.

Testify!!

I got really sick of it towards the end. The

->Open Spoiler<-

museum

level was some kind of sick joke.

When you play through the game, do you notice all of the stupid dog leg corridors between big rooms? That's to 'hide' the streaming. Now compare that to the seamless transition between God of War's amazing looking areas. That **** blows.

Here is a small list of some of my complaints:

• The assault rifle is one of the poorest gun models I have ever seen.
• Red laser beams were bad five years ago. Midway's designers really need to think a little harder.
• They were obviously pushed for time to create all the art and that's why they trap you in on room for ages, to get the most out of it. So what happens is that you are desperately diving around a room and end up getting shot in the back by enemies that just that second spawned right behind you.
• Cover bang next to spawn rooms. Cover denotes that you are safe, not that an enemy will spawn next to it and shoot you in your blind spot.
• Seeing as I can fire a heavy machine gun one handed from behind cover, why not let me throw grenades from cover as well?
• Spawn doors are the worst looking and immersion breaking mechanics for spawning bad guys. Don't do it.
• Human bosses that soak up bullets. It looks ridiculous.
• The game rewards you for collecting all of the paper cranes. It is grade A bull crap if you don't have chance to pick one up during a really intense fire fight and then the game forces you to move out of that area (usually with a cut scene) so you can't pick it up without playing most of the level again.
• Cut scenes where the character does what the player should be able to do. If Tequila shoots a guy in a cut scene, let me do it since the entire game is based around shooting people.
• Non automatic health replenishment. I hated dying because I wasn't quick enough to hit left on the d pad or because the 360 d pad is terrible, wasting the last precious green bar by accidentally getting a precision shot. Max Payne automatically used health replenishment if it dropped below 25% because it realised you might be too busy to do it yourself.
• In one of the final cut scenes, Tequila's daughter walks through a shut door. Nice direction Woo.
• Worse video compression than Gears.
• Protect the band. Why? How is that going to help me? All it does it make me fail the level because too many enemies are spawned and the level is too cluttered to shoot them.
• Instead of running across a beam, the game decides I want to dive towards a shotgun wielding enemy

I can't be arsed anymore. This game annoyed and frustrated me so much. It didn't have to be like this Midway. Leave early PS2 game design behind, catch up with everyone else and stop spunking money at a developer that gave you this.

And for the amount of time its been delayed, I expect more content and gameplay variety.

Oh and the helicopter bit sucked balls.

[MikeF]

I've finished it too and its being chopped in for Sega Rally in 2 weeks unless something else tickles my fancy

It's definatley not worth the price but its not that bad of a game, I cedrtainley enjoyed playing it.

[Dazzyman]

Im on level 2 I think now (and its bigger than I thought so far). I think Im very glad Ive started on Hard as for the most point as Im not having any trouble. I think Ive only died three times so far on this level (one suicide cas I got stuck). Im actually really enjoying this game alot more than I thought. Yes it has bugs in it where you can get stuck, yes the cover mode can be very iffy sometimes and yes the auto jump function can get borked on occasion, BUT when it does work for me it works well. Their are some great gungho moments and I can see me actually keeping this than selling it once Ive clocked it.

Id urge anyone though starting out to at least play on normal or Hard if you are used to these type of games as the AI isnt that clever and your going to end up bored I think with no challenge unless you up the difficulty (Im not dying that much because Im using every bit of cover and special moves I can, if I ran about Id be dead in a couple of hits).

I still dont think its worth anymore than &#163;30 though (and of course &#163;10 bargin I got mine for after for me Dirt what I didnt like on 360) and it probably will play better with keyboard and mouse on the PC version. Their is too many better games out I guess at this time of the year, but if you can get it cheaper and want a no hold bars blast (and you like Max Payne) you might want to pick it up. Dont expect anything stunning but it does play a descent action game thats it nothing more nothing less for me.

[chopemon]

The dying will come later. There will also be screaming.

[Akira]

wow! thats definitely your opinion but...i just can't see where your coming from.

eurogamer got it spot on.I started playing through this on hard and it's probally the most fun i've had all year.This game owns!

[Bleeders]

This game definitely has polarised opinions; some like it, others detest it.

[Yoshimax]

Still not got mine Anybody tried it online yet ?

[Dazzyman]

No m8. I got stuck at end of level 2 at 3am hehe! I actually enjoyed it so much instead of going to sleep at 1am I had the urge to keep going again for a "quick go". I think Im going to get a lot of longevity out of this on hard as some of those blokes are abit nuts what come at you. I find the laser sniper great as you can fly in the air past him with a slow mo shot, if you miss land and do a special sniper shot at him and on hard if he hits you twice your dead! Its actually gone up from a bit meh yesterday to really great fun now, just a shame it has a few clipping bugs with getting stuck if you jump out of a scenery arc (ie you fly off a ledge land on a rock below and your stuck, maily their barrierd off but they missed a couple doesnt happen often though). Great harmless fun.

[Akira]

Still not got mine Anybody tried it online yet ?

Yea,and it's actually pretty fun if it's lag free.Just tend to get the one person who runs around collecting all the cranes then unleashing the spin attack thus wiping out everybody in the room.

Basically,i get the **** kicked out of me everytime i play it online.But it's unique enough to have fun with

Edit: also,gotta say,best menu screen this gen

[Grandmaster]

I liked level one, but after that the stages just seemed to get more repetitive and dull. The lack of consistency is pretty astonishing - it's as though two or three different teams with different ability produced the seven levels between them.

The actual level of interaction with the scenery is pretty basic. I was surprised that the mass of explodable scenery in level one peters out to virtual nothingness by the end of the game.

[Dazzyman]

Im up to level 5 now and Im finding it fantastic. I thought near the end of level 2 was poor due to getting stuck alot (10min section at worst though so not bothered) but before and after that Im totally having a blast, so much so I aint selling this no way (I got it to trade as it was only &#163;10 from Blockbuster) for me its a keeper.

I think their is loads to destroy on this, cars, pillars, tables,ornaments, big statues (can hit bosses with shooting a leg out and watch it topple etc... you can destroy tons of stuff, you can even shoot near an enemy and the debris say from the pillar or an vase next to him will put him off. Im playing it on hard and you have to use every bit of cover and acrobat tactic going as they are relentless. I got stuck on Boss 2 for 2hours (played about 10hours now) and I only beat him because it messed up and slowed down to a crawl then when it fixed itself he had frozen, he was nearly dead on that go anyway but it did feel like cheating.

Ive only had one tiny section on level 2 whats peed me off due to Tequila getting stuck on bannisters after that though Ive found it very well done (that bit was just bad level design for me too many intersections and he cant jump on and off them sometimes). Ive even sworn a lot at the bad guys hiding behind a pillar on numerous occasions today as they where firing so much it was actually making me angry and freaking me out seeing the pillar disintigrate so I know I was going to have to move or die, then out I would pop doing a flying side move in slow mo and get 3 with my shotgun.

It wont set the world alight, but I urge anyone who gets it to at least try normal difficulty or hard from the off because on hard it might be yes hard but boy is it alot of fun and a challenge, I can see this being one of those games on easy that you could just run at someone no problem all day long, on hard its duck and cover and use everything.

Edit - Something I forgot to add earlier, if you find it easy or boring turn off the auto aim (or at least reduce it from default medium) makes the game much better same with auto bullet time (which for me makes it more Max Payne style then).

I guess its a marmite game but I love it