A friend recommended that I play this game, because he and I share a terrible curse: we both have what most doctors would term an "unhealthy obsession" with Chow-Yun Fat and John Woo. Playing through this, I have to say that I enjoyed the game immensely, but I doubt anyone who doesn't have Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, and the Black Lagoon anime enshrined on their DVD case would enjoy this game nearly as much as I did. That said, let's break this down for people who don't know Chow-Yun Fat's American cinema debut (you know who you are) and those who never played the Max Payne series (I don't know who you are).
Much like the three examples I listed above, Stranglehold probably went below the radar for most people. The game came out in 2007, and it was mostly advertised in the same vein as Bayonette in 2010, i.e. "if you liked this really popular series, you'll love this new game." However, unlike the Bayonetta-Devil May Cry relationship, this did not become a critical success. Another selling point was the relatively new Massive Damage (abbreviated Massive D) system that allows you to destroy pretty much everything that doesn't have a concrete foundation certified by the Board of Public Safety, which was much truer than the first sales pitch.
Graphics-wise, the visuals are sadly unimpressive. Textures and environments are fairly bland, and the game shows its age, which given the game is now three and a half years old, says something in equal measure about both the game and how console game design is progressing. The developers added an interesting flare that randomized AI skins somewhat, having the game engine construct your generic opponents with swappable parts, allowing for combinations such as Face B + Torse D + Lower Body A. Still, even though the city is no longer full of identical multi-tuplets with identical fashion senses, it is filled with a lot of siblings who have the same tailor. And given that you're slaughtering the entire population of Hong Kong and the more mundane half of the Chicago mafia, all in about 7 to 10 hours of game play, you don't really notice this feature too much.
What you'll likely remember the most is the Stand-off scenes, which are an homage to John Woo's movies. At critical moments you'll have a Hong Kong-Mexican standoff with multiple enemies, with the number increasing with every encounter. You'll enter bullet-time to take them down one by one, dodging incoming fire all the while. These are fairly enjoyable, and are the parts I (voluntarily) replayed the most.
The AI has about two settings: run at you like a bat that's dine-n-dashing out of Hell's Kitchen, or stand behind a pillar, determined to drill through it with its pistol/Uzi/shotgun to get to you. Typically, the game only throws four enemies at you at a time, and only two or three levels make you fight a boss at the same time as those four people. Also, until you've hit the body count for the area, killing one enemy spawns the next one almost immediately, making for some very hectic battles. The AI remains the same throughout the game in terms of tactics, but higher difficulties have the enemies do increased damage. A melee at Hard Boiled (highest difficulty) will take you from full to within an inch of your life, so don't let them get close to you, especially since the other three are probably also shooting at you concurrently. Overall, the AI is fairly exploitable, but the higher damage can make the enemy's lucky shot into your Load Checkpoint. And given their numbers and the fact you personally fire ~10,000 bullets in three levels (when I got the achievement), they have a lot of chances to get lucky. Get ready for frustration, but good planning, a good guide, and/or a lot of luck should get you through. Most people have decided that it's better to be a living Hardened detective as opposed to a rigor mortis Hard Boiled detective.
In terms of physics and reactions, the environment is fairly realistic, and a lot of overhanging structures can level the battlefield if you make them collapse on your enemies. Explosions, rock slides, and falling AC units all happen at the pull of a trigger. The ragdoll physics are hilariously overdone, though. If Halo 3 made you wonder how dead bodies can be contortionists, get ready for Circ de Cadaver. Those are good for a laugh, and hearing Tequila fight one-liners with one-liners after being shotgunned by a boss into a pretzel offers a bit of a bittersweet reprieve from frustration.
Enemies also react to wounds depending on where you shot them. Tequila Time and Tequila Bomb Gauges--yes, that's what they're called--help smooth things over in terms of difficulty, and the Precision Aim ability makes enemy reactions very clear. Using this ability, which kills everyone but bosses in one shot, makes the enemy clutch their respective injury as they collapse. For those familiar with the phrase but not the origin, "Testikill" comes from this game and this ability, and that Penny Arcade joke later became an achievement in the DLC.
The storyline is fair-to-decent. It's a well told and complete story that's standard fare for shooting games, meant as a sequel to the Hard Boiled movie starring Chow-Yun Fat and directed by John Woo. There was talk of making an actual movie sequel to Hard Boiled based on this game, but little enough has been heard from that. The story will be nothing new but nothing bad, and though predictable, it's still enjoyable.
Outside the single-player campaign, however, all's quiet on the multiplayer front. Literally no one plays this online, largely due to the absurdly long loading times for each map (between 45 seconds to a minute-fifteen and upwards), and the fact that the game sends you back to the lobby without saving any of the online settings like what map you were playing or the time and score limits. The online retail achievements are all grinding, from hosting and completely 10 matches on every single one of the maps (which is where the post-game settings reset gets annoying) to killing 307 people and so on. The DLC is priced at $15/1200 M$ and unlikely to ever go down, and it's entirely multiplayer-based. If you do fork out the money, it's only an hour or so of boosting for these, as they're mostly for fulfilling conditions on certain DLC maps as opposed to grinding.
Overall, Stranglehold is an average game. It flew under the radar, sonar, and visual confirmation of most of the gaming community, and those who have played it mostly agree that it's about as good as any other game you'll find in a used game store's bargain bin. Hard-boiled is extremely difficult, but in the end more just tedious as opposed to frustrating. Nothing overly remarkable aside from the Stand-off moments, which are arguably the best part. Most people will probably want to pass on this game, unless you want to take on the persona of the Chinese equivalent to Antonio Banderas.
3.0