I just finished playing the demo I got off the PSN, and I have to say I am way more impressed by Stranglehold than I thought I would be. The game is what games like Max Payne should be. It is really stylized which adds a lot to a game that would otherwise be little more than a mindless shoot 'em up. The story looks kind of campy, and the graphics could be better, but I had a hell of a lot of fun playing the game.
I would say the best things about the game are the bullet-time, which is actually done well and that means a lot from me because I hate unecessary bullet-time, and the extremely interactive environments. I thought it was pretty damn cool when I was able to hop on a four-wheeled cart while it slid across the room and blast away the enemies in slow motion with my shotgun. John Woo's sense of style MAKES this game. It transforms the game into something much more than I expected. The game has a few glitches with detection, but that is largely because there is so much going on with the environment. The IGN guy says there is some option in the menu that solves most of the camera problems.
This game went from completely off my list to a definite consideration after playing the demo. If I decide to pick up this game, I will definitely go with the special edition because Hard Boiled is supposed to be an absolute classic (it is part of the Criterion Collection after all). I think the movie packaged in will probably seal the deal for me getting the game.
Simply put, I highly recommend checking out the demo on Xbox Live or the PSN.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
