Publisher: Midway Games
Developer: Midway Games
System: PC
Minimum requirements: Intel Core Duo processor or equivalent; 2 GB RAM; 15 GB free hard disk space; 16X DD-ROM drive; DirectX 9.0c compliant sound card; Nvidia GeForce 7800 or ATI x1300; Windows XP Service Pack 2/Vista
Genre: Third-person action
Release date: Available now
Review by: Michael Smith

When “Dirty” Harry Callahan points his .44 Magnum at a downed perp and asks him if he feels lucky, when John McClane taunts German terrorist Hans Gruber with a colorful version of an old cowboy saying and when John Rambo informs the officer who betrayed him that he’s his next objective, first-person shooter fans dream of getting the chance to stand in their heroes’ blood-soaked boots. Midway and famed Hong Kong action director John Woo have made these dreams a reality with Stranglehold, a fast-paced, visceral killfest that ultimately turns out to be too much of a good thing.

You play as Inspector Tequila, the jazz clarinet player and two-fisted death-dealing Hong Kong detective played by a very young-looking Chow Yun-Fat in the 1992 action film, “Hard Boiled.” As the game opens, a cutscene takes you to Chicago, where a group of thugs breaks into the apartment of two Chinese women. One of them is shown in a framed photo with Tequila as the ladies are unceremoniously rushed out of the room. Cut to the streets of Hong Kong, where two men are seen dragging the limp and beaten body of a police officer through an alley, where they lean him against a wall and shoot him through his badge. Later, we find Tequila (voiced by Chow, reprising his film role) in a heated meeting with his superior concerning an arms deal reportedly scheduled for a downtown teahouse. They all know it’s probably a trap, but Tequila decides to go anyway — and the carnage begins.

Stranglehold’s seven levels take you to a variety of settings, from the claustrophobic streets of Hong Kong to a drug dealer-infested island, and from an opulent Chinese restaurant to a natural science museum, complete with giant dinosaur skeletons. After installing the game (which takes a fast DVD drive 20 minutes to complete), a flashy menu screen appears, with a duel pistol-wielding Tequila spinning and lots of doves flying in slow motion. Curiously missing among the menu options is the ability to enable on-screen subtitles, a feature that would’ve been a big help at times during the game’s cutscenes, since Chow’s English isn’t the best. Also missing is a gore setting option, so parents need to beware: there’s a good reason why Stranglehold got its Mature rating.

You take control of Tequila in a Hong Kong neighborhood filled with high buildings, staircases, fences and lots of obstacles. As you move along, messages pop up to help you learn the mechanics of movement and combat; things that you learn are almost instantly put to use after you dismiss the messages. Progress through the levels is very linear, with no opportunity to explore the environment around you. As in most Games for Windows titles, the checkpoint-save system is used, with plenty of health powerups scattered throughout the levels.

Tequila’s arsenal features the standard variety of firepower, including handguns, rifles, automatic pistols and grenades, but he can only carry two types of weapons at a time, so you are constantly forced to decide which ones you think you’re going to need as the game progresses. If enemies get too close, Tequila uses the guns as melee weapons, and when he runs out of ammo, he can be just as deadly with his bare fists. Ammo capacities are reasonable for most weapons (save for the .44s, which somehow manage to hold 120 slugs at one time), but at no time does Tequila have to stop what he’s doing to reload, which keeps the pace fast at the expense of realism.

Two remarkable features set Stranglehold apart from other shooters. First: the almost totally deformable environments. Practically anything you see can be altered or destroyed in some way. Objects sometimes are highlighted by a flash of light, indicating they can be used against your enemies; neon signs, light fixtures and even fire escapes become weapons that can be used to eradicate large numbers of thugs at once. Second: the Tequila Bombs, four abilities you acquire by scoring stylish kills when entering Tequila Time, a brief period of slow motion during which you can carefully target your enemies. Tequila Bomb powerups include a quick health boost, a barrage attack in which you become invincible and your weapon has unlimited ammo, a pinpoint aiming feature that allows you to target any point of a villain’s body from a great distance and a spin attack that turns Tequila into a whirling dervish of death. Tequila Bombs can also be unlocked by collecting paper cranes scattered throughout the levels (a character in “Hard Boiled” folded a crane for every enemy he killed).

All of this sounds like a blast to play, and most of the time it is. But can Stranglehold’s considerable eye candy prevent the lack of gameplay variety from ruining the experience? On to the numbers…