Stranglehold (Page 2 of 2)

But...

Chicago Loop

As empowering as all these options are, the whole business is fundamentally repetitive. With only rare exceptions--like controlling a helicopter's gun, or manually deploying guitar cases packed with supplies--your job is to simply stampede from one colossal set-piece to another while killing anything that moves.

That enemies react realistically when shot in particular body parts is a nice touch, but every thug seems to withdraw from the same animation bank, causing them to blend together into one generic bad-ass, whether wielding a sniper rifle or a set of throwing blades. Similarly, you'll run into showdowns pretty regularly, where you must lean away from gunfire Matrix-style with the left thumbstick while targeting with the right, but these encounters quickly come to feel hollow and gimmicky, and fail to capture the true tension of John Woo's signature Mexican stand-offs.

Saving Grace

Apart from its inventive destructible environments, there are two things that save Stranglehold. The first is its shrewd pacing: new weapons, abilities, and environmental interaction options are introduced often enough to sustain strong interest, and the difficulty ramps seamlessly from early grunts that drop from a single gunshot to psychotic charging bulwarks that absorb entire clips.

The other is the flexibility of the combat system. You might die too often because a particular pillar or wall corner won't let you adhere to it the way it's supposed to, but whether you play run-and-gun or stop-and-pop is up to you and your skill level more than blind luck or developer handholding will determine your rate of progress. Freedom of play style makes up for a lot in a world that comes apart at the seams too readily, even if it can't quite elevate the experience as a whole to must-buy status.

All Dressed Up, Nobody to Shoot

Unfortunately, as compelling as the single-player campaign is, the multiplayer mode is woefully underdeveloped. Featuring only deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, a maximum of six players, downgraded online graphics, and less impressive versions of the seven main environments, there's just not much to keep you coming back for more. Even Tequila's unique powers don't quite fit, with slo-mo that can only be triggered with a full meter, and painfully unbalanced insta-kill maneuvers granted to whoever best memorizes paper crane power-up locations. Expect a hard time finding matches before long.

As disappointing as the lack of a compelling online component is, playing action hero is pretty much a solo activity anyway. Stranglehold might stumble occasionally under its own ambitious weight, and might not quite deliver on all its promises and potential, but it's still a unique and absorbing 8-hour tour through a legendary action director's potent unfilmable dreams.

PROS: Stylish and beautiful visuals, environmental destruction, action hero acrobatics.
CONS: Fundamentally repetitive, using cover doesn't always work, generic multiplayer.

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