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 enlarge | From: Midway Games Ltd
Category: Video Games
List Price: £49.99
Buy New: £4.99
You Save: £45.00 (90%)
New (24) Used (22) from £4.69
Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 641
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: action-games
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: Video Game
Number Of Items: 1
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Xbox 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 5037930100031
EAN: 5037930100031
ASIN: B000BLE9C8
Release Date: September 14, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: brand new not sealed
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 34
True Woo Style gameplay - challenging but not too difficult - shame about multiplayer though November 6, 2007
Silverfrog (Leeds UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those of you who love John Woo films and his artistic style, this game is for you. The game character Tequila is the character from the movie Hard Boiled (played by Chow Yun Fat) - a badass cop who doesn't mind bending the rules to put bad guys away. As in the movie Hard Boiled, the action scenes are wonderfully played out with a mix of slow motion and manic gun fights or exposions. In this game Stranglehold, this is no exception.
The feature of the game is that you can slow time down for a limited period of time allowing you to aim more precisely and kill more bad guys. You'll find that you want to dive often where time is automatically slowed down (just like in Hard Boiled!!).
You can also run along banisers, chairs, walls etc which is great fun and I really like being able to jump off a wall, kick it and fire my guns falling backwards and also jumping onto a trolley and killing peole as your coast along (also in Hard Boiled in the Hospital). John Woo's trademark is the used throughout the game like the use of two pistols, Woo time (slow motion) and close encouter gunfights, and sliding across tables etc. In the extra's, you can go to a shop with John Woo as the salesman and buy extras after earning them during gameplay.
Similar to Devil May Cry for the PS2, you have Style points and combo points, so the more you kill people with style (e.g. sliding down a banister and killing guys) the more points you gain. Your points are contributed to 'Tequila Bomb gauge' that fills up. As you progress along the game you unlock 4 specials. When the first quarter fills, you have the option of a health boost; the second precision aim (allows a zoom in to bad guys for distance shots); the third quarter allows Tequila to fill up with bullets on whatever weapon he is holding and then blast away very, very quickly without diminishing your ammo count; the final quarter filled up allows Tequila to do a special move, spinning on the spot to kill bad guys (which is really cool to watch).
As in Hard Boiled paper cranes make an appearance. You can collect these throughout the game to increase the 'Tequila Bomb gauge' immediately to help you get to those special moves quickly.
There is a multiplayer option but so far I don't think I've come across anyone on it yet. Maybe I'll take a look on the XBOX forums to see who's interested in some gaming.
All in all a very enjoyable game. The movement for gameplay is easy to get used to and intuitive. The game is not too difficult to play but in places, hard enough to be a challenge. In addition, at any checkpoint, you can play on easy, casual and hard, so if you get stuck, just start the game again and continue the gameplay on an easier level.
If you always wanted to play Tequila and kick some butt, then get this game as you'll have a blast doing the slow motion, jumping over chairs, kicking tables etc. in true Woo style.
 Fun to start with but very repetetive. November 1, 2007
Adam Dutton (Dudley Wood England)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This game is a shooter with nothing more, which for fans of shooters is fine so I haven't given it a bad rating. However I prefer a little more in my games.
The basic format is as follows, a cut scene, followed by a little wondering around, followed by the arrival of generic goons followed by their inevitable slaughter. The cycle then repeats which I found to be the down fall of the game, no variation.
The cut scenes and the action don't seem to flow together as well as some games e.g. Gears of War. The action looks good, not the best graphics but ok. The bullet time is great (when isn't it) especially the precise shot which allows you to put one through someone's throat and watching them gag. But this all becomes very repetitive after a few levels.
The game is a little glitchy in places, and there wasn't really enough depth to it. I got it for half price from Gamestation online and wasn't worth keeping as I was able to trade it in for 10 more than I spent on it.
okay - difficult check points October 29, 2007
R. Healey (U.K)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Game is fun to play, but the check points can be a little far apart making the game annoying.
Great fun but lacks depth October 27, 2007
Doc (UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The game looks good and plays well from the outset. The action is frenetic and the level of damage you can do to the environment is impressive. Unfortunately, the gameplay in the first level is the same as all the others. There's no sense of development. Even the new modes you acquire have more to do with style that substance. Perhaps I was expecting too much but the whole thing feels shallow.
Tequila Time Again! October 18, 2007
A. Russ (Derbyshire)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
After much thought I decided to buy this game, as I didn't have a real action shooter where I could just play and deal some damage (GoW doesn't count as it's a tactical shooter). Now that I've played it I'll be honest with my opinion of the game: it's good, but not great.
First off, the graphics: whilst not up the standard of Bioshock, Halo or Gears of War, Stranglehold still has a decent enough quality about it that warrants its position as a 360 game - the graphica are similar to those of Dead Rising. Tequila himself looks perfect, excellently modelled on Chow Yun Fat, and resembles the Inspector as he looked in Hard Boiled. Down to his clothing, Tequila really does look like he's returned to the screen, with his fate in your hands. The enemies, however, are short in variations and lack the detail that we see in the Inspector. However, as in the film, they are merely there for you to shoot and kill and you won't really care about their appearance once you've put them down. The enviroments look quite nice - not in the same league as Rapture, but the cities do have the HK/ Chicago feel that you would expect. In terms of the graphics during 'Massive D' (destruction), everything looks great: from the flying chips of wood off of wooden pillars to the chunks of rock falling from statues, it all looks just like it does in Master Woo's epic.
Soundwise, Strangehold isn't actually that bad. Whilst it doesn't feature beautiful musical scores that you would find in Halo or whilst exploring Rapture, there are some nice Jazz pieces and oriental-sounding tracks that really allow you to sink into the game's atmosphere. The weapons also sound pretty much what you might expect them to sound like, as do the impact of bullets on wood, rock, water etc. The voice work is good, but not as good as Halo or Bioshock. Each of the characters that you expect to return from the film are here, and each of them sounds right - Yun Fat actually did the voice work for Tequila. The only downside is that the words are spoken in English, which I felt took away the 'original' feel that existed in the Catonese film.
Gameplay. This is the main reason you'll be buying Stranglehold: you will want to become Tequila and act as the tough Hong Kong cop as he battles through the hordes of enemies that block his path. Thankfully, repeating all of the smooth, bird-like moves that Tequila performs in the film is actually very easy. Sliding over tables and bars and running up and down stair banisters to diving from a second story floor onto a delivery cart and mowing down enemies as you roll, it's all very simplistic, and allows even the worst of players to look like a gaming professional. It's fast, exciting, and a great representation of Woo's Hard Boiled brought into the videogame world. However, whilst all of the cool gameplay is nice, it does become repetitive after a while, and you won't want to play the game in one go. It's not that any of the gameplay itself is bad, quality wise; it's just that shooting is literally all you do. However, if you are a fan of Tequila/ Chow Yun Fat then you could well ignore the issue of repetition and just enjoy the game without considering it's flaws.
Tequila Time is the second major point in Stranglehold. Essentially it is the same as Bullet Time in Max Payne and The Matrix games. However, despite being created after these games, Stranglehold is actually the original user, as Payne and The Matrix took the Bullet Time idea out of John Woo's 1992 Hard Boiled film. Anyway, back to the game: Tequila Time allows you to slow down the game to a snails pace, giving you to the opportunity to take out enemies before they can get you. From diving around each area, in which the action automatically slows down when you are aimed at an enemy, to just giving yourself a quick chance to gain some cover, Tequila Time is a much needed accessory during your experience in the world of Stranglehold.
Now onto the Tequila Bombs: whilst they are merely a branch of Tequila Time, the Tequila Bombs are four unique features that give you an advantage over your enemies. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll just say that each ability is effective in certain situations, and once used you must gain more skill points - through stylish kills - to refill the Bomb grid. Once you have a Tequila Bomb, you simply press the D-Pad in a particular direction to activate that particular Bomb.
Now onto the story. As in Hard Boiled, Stranglehold has only a small emphasis on the story, with the plot only being unravelled at the beginning and end of each chapter (of which there are 7 in total). It's similar to most Gun-Fu films in that it's about a lone warrior battling for justice to save two innocent women from a Russian terrorist group. But whilst the story is simple, it's all about the action really and you could skip all the cutscenes and still have a good gaming experience.
I can't comment on the multiplayer as I don't have XBox Live, and you can't play Splitscreen on the game.
So, overall, whilst it doesn't have a greatly in-depth storyline, Strangehold does deliver on some entertaining gun fights, and allows you to become the legendary Inspector Tequila in what is actually a solid action game. Forget the fact that the game last for only 7 or so hours; if you want to have a bit of fun, without thinking too much, or if you're a die-hard Tequila/ Yun Fat fan, then buy Stranglehold. It'll keep you entertained until Assassin's Creed/ Call of Duty 4/ Clive Barker's Jericho comes out, and it's got enough replay value to warrant a second run through on the appropriately titled Hard Boiled difficulty.
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