Occasionally, Tequila will enter into “Standoffs” with multiple enemy characters attacking him simultaneously, but they shoot at Tequila only in one-on-one situations. With the analogue sticks, the player must dodge bullets (in slow-mo of course) while killing the enemies. The standoffs are fairly enjoyable and get very hectic. Of course, in Stranglehold, shooting your enemies is not the only way to get rid of them. Nearly every part of the environment can be destroyed or shredded to pieces with any weapon you get. Occasionally, the game uses the destructibility to create some simple environmental puzzles that are just plain annoying.

Game play is similar to Max Payne, but there are some notable differences to help differentiate Stranglehold.

 
Stranglehold doesn’t break any new ground visually; in fact the graphical quality is slightly above average. The actual textures themselves aren’t anything special. However, explosions and Tequila himself look and feel polished. The fact that the environment is so destructible completely makes up for the fact that the visuals could have been better. Overall, the general animations could have been executed in a better fashion.

The guns in Stranglehold (pistols, shotguns, rifles, etc.) all sound fairly generic, but the sounds of bullets penetrating and hitting different surfaces are great. The developers did a good job on this end, for example when Tequila shoots a brick pillar, the sound effect is just as the player would expect a bullet hitting bricks to sound like. The voice acting in the game is good for the most part, but Chow Yun-Fat does say a few lines rather flatly, but to be fair he doesn’t speak perfect English.

The main flaw of Stranglehold is the game’s length. The average game player will finish the single player game within six to eight hours. However, the game does feel satisfying once beat and the unlocked harder difficulty setting gives it a bit more replay value. The unlock shop also adds some motivation to replay the game. The multiplayer feels very tacked on with just two modes: deathmatch, and team deathmatch. Only the Barrage and the Spin Attack Tequila Bombs are useful, as Tequila time is not executed well at all due to the fact that everyone has to have it in order for it to be used. Precision aiming is also useless because while the other players move in real time, the player in the mode has his cross-hair moving in slow motion.

Ultimately, Stranglehold is a good game, but a short one. It doesn’t change the way we play games, but the game delivers on its over-the-top action promise. With poor replay value, John Woo Presents Stranglehold may not be a worthy purchase for full price, unless the consumer is a big John Woo or Chow Yun-Fat fan.