Stranglehold

By Rob Fahey Published 8 August, 2007

Chowing down with the Xbox Live demo.

Have you ever considered the plight of the humble fruit-seller? No, of course you bloody haven't. It's below your radar, isn't it? You walk right past these brave guys and girls, courageously hawking their Vitamin C-laden wares outside tube and train stations around the nation, without ever giving a thought to the dangers they face.

For example, did you know that the average fruit seller has his entire stock of watermelons shot up by a gang of heavily armed Chinese triads four times a week?

Did you realise, as you bit into that apple and felt incredibly smugly healthy for buying it rather than chomping into a Mars bar for the fourth time today, that the man who sold it to you will probably have a renegade cop on a mission for revenge dive through an entire table of peaches and oranges in the next ten minutes?

Did you, quite frankly, have the slightest idea that the single largest hazard to the fruit seller's largely uninsured and deliciously succulent inventory is not fruit flies, or black mould, but Chow Yun Fat?

So spare a thought for the humble fruit seller. In fact, perhaps you could take a moment to consider their anguish this very evening, while your Xbox 360 sucks down Midway's own freshest produce - yes, ladies and gents, it's time for you to get your grubby paws on the playable demo of John Woo Presents Stranglehold.

Bruised Plums

'Stranglehold' Screenshot 1

The joys of next-gen - everything breaks. Walls break, pots break, fruit breaks, people's heads break.

Today's demo shows off the entire first level of the game, bringing Chow Yun Fat through the astonishingly mean streets of a Hong Kong market area. As you probably know by now (and if you don't, you could always swot up with our in-depth preview), Chow reprises his role as Inspector Tequila from Woo's 1992 action classic Hard Boiled. In real terms, this translates into two things - paper thin plot, and a hell of a lot of slow motion, dual-fisted action.

As such, we'll forgive the game for throwing wave after wave of pistol-wielding maniacs at us with no explanation - other than a text box informing us that this is a "rough neighbourhood". The conceit of the demo is that you run through this rough neighborhood, learning the ropes by capping a bunch of bandits en-route, and then get ambushed in a busy marketplace. Cue plenty more fighting your way through elaborate set-pieces as you head for a final showdown at a bustling tea-house (where none other than John Woo himself is the bartender).

The whole experience is about 20 minutes long at the outside, but unusually for a demo, there's quite a lot of replayability built into the code. Playing through this section in the full game, we only got handed one of Tequila's special powers ("Tequila Bombs") - a superb slow-motion zoom which allows you to pick off a distant enemy, and showcases the locational damage and astonishing range of death animations.

'Stranglehold' Screenshot 2

Once you've acquired the zoom power-up, the debate can commence - what's more grimly satisfying, the throat shot or the crotch shot?

However, in the demo, completing a play-through unlocks harder difficulty modes - and also unlocks additional Tequila Bomb powers. Play through twice, and you'll have access to all four powers (healing, which is unlocked from the outset; zoom mode, barrage mode, and spin attack). It's a nice mechanism for showing off everything the game has on offer, and means that there's vastly more meat on the Stranglehold demo than you'd expect from the usual Xbox Live demo offerings.

As for how the game is actually shaping up, well, you'll be the ultimate judge of that once you get your paws on the code this evening. However, having played through a significantly larger chunk of the game last month, we can confirm that the first level seems a pretty solid indicator of where Stranglehold goes in subsequent stages.

The demo, like the rest of the game, is essentially built as a series of arenas - each new area you walk into has a certain number of enemies, a certain number of explosive objects or destructible scenery components, and of course, a certain amount of cover. (In this demo, there's generally also a certain amount of fruit to splatter all over the place.)

At heart, the game is about your reaction times, and your ability to take stock of the environment on the fly, working out the optimal way to dispose of your enemies. Shooting overhead objects so that they crush your foes is a key tactic - but even more important is learning to use the slow motion system in the game, called Tequila Time.

You can trigger Tequila Time manually using the right bumper, but you also go automatically into slow motion when you've got an enemy in your sights during a particularly cool manoeuvre. Diving sideways, forwards or backwards counts; sliding over a table or counter (which is triggered simply by running into it) also counts, as does running up or down a railing. The result is that you find yourself looking for the most dramatic route through an arena, since that will give you the most slow-motion carnage opportunities.

Greased Behinds

A couple of further observations. The code in this demo is significantly more polished than the version of the game we played for last month's preview, and we're pleased to note that many of the reservations we had about the game have been put to rest. The framerate is now solid and slick, and the game looks great - for the most part. We're not entirely sold on all of the character art, but the environments are superbly detailed and incredibly enjoyable to lay waste to.

'Stranglehold' Screenshot 3

Chow Yun Fat - still unspeakably cool despite a slightly disquieting plastic-textured face.

Moreover, it seems that the control system has been significantly tweaked. The fundamentals remain the same, of course, but some problems we encountered previously with the analogue sticks (Tequila tended to barely move at all before suddenly lurching into fast motion at the very edges of the stick's movement) have been ironed out entirely. Navigating the world still takes a little practise to get right, but it's definitely more enjoyable now.

Some other issues still remain, in our eyes. Sliding over tables, counters and other objects is entirely automatic, but sometimes it feels almost too easy - on multiple occasions we simply brushed against a table by accident, only for Chow Yun Fat (who must spend a good twenty minutes each morning greasing up his backside - draw your own conclusions) to slide dramatically across it for no reason. Requiring a little more deliberate intent - a firm push of the stick, say - to slide across an object would probably feel more natural.

However, there's no denying the game's style - and while, yes, it's basically the same system we saw in Max Payne, it's worth recalling just how much Max Payne borrowed from John Woo in the first place. Stranglehold's graphics, the presence of the superbly emotive Chow Yun Fat and the very cinematic approach to its violence may even give it the edge over Remedy's "game noir".

'Stranglehold' Screenshot 4

The demo boasts a couple of Mexican stand-off moments to show off this aspect of the game. They get much, much tougher later on.

For Xbox Live adherents, a short trailer video at the end for the multiplayer mode may also stoke your interest. It looks like you can play as John Woo in multiplayer. Hell, it looks like you can play as Chow Yun Fat and shoot John Woo in the balls - judging by the sheer breadth of weird porn on the Internet, we're damned sure there's someone out there to whom we've just guaranteed a sale.

Either way, there's a solid chunk of entertainment hitting Xbox Live tonight - it's a hefty 1.28GB though, so you'll want to get your broadband all greased up in preparation. Then it's off to the mean streets of Hong Kong with you - but please, do keep an eye out for the fruit sellers. One man's explosive, pulpy special effect is another man's apples, after all.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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Comments (57) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • doragor #1 5 years ago

    hmm. I had no interest in this up till now. think I'll download the demo tonight.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 14:51

  • RedPanda #2 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • woodnotes #3 5 years ago

    The demo felt a bit cheap to me. Didn't like it at all, very generic.

  • space_ace #4 5 years ago

    so it's not perfectly awesome? :(

  • Mo0k #5 5 years ago

    Any news for the PC demo?

  • Antwandemarco #6 5 years ago

    "Hell, it looks like you can play as Chow Yun Fat and shoot John Woo in the balls"

    Awesome, thanks eurogamer XD

  • PrinzPils #7 5 years ago

    Is the Demo available in Germany as well ???

  • DB2k #8 5 years ago

    looking good can't wait for this.

    hmm Tequila Time.. I get the worm.

  • Monkey_Puncher #9 5 years ago

    I love it, it's like Max Payne on speed with added exploding water melons!

  • Scurrminator #10 5 years ago

    absolutely awesome demo, will be playing through a few fair times of this i can see!

  • Aretak #11 5 years ago

    The demo is fantastic. Pretty much a guaranteed buy for me.

  • Wayne #12 5 years ago

    Can I just say again... WOAH!!! Demos!

  • polymorph #13 5 years ago

    im downloading as we speak, but did anyone else have to download a system update when they signed in?

  • peteb #14 5 years ago

    Is the Demo available in Germany as well ???

    nope, unless you have a UK marketplace account
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 15:23

  • the_dudefather #15 5 years ago

    feels a bit weird at first but once you get the hang of the controls it becomes very awesome

    I really didn't want that demo to end
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 15:30

  • Scurrminator #16 5 years ago

    yeah he melees with his gun if you get close. you can also run up to walls and jump off them, looks v cool.

  • rashes #17 5 years ago

    @polymorph

    I had to do that last night. I don;t think there was any announcement about it.

    @peteb

    So where else is it not available? Can I get it with my Irish account?

  • Additive #18 5 years ago

    Go over to Major Nelson's site http://www.majornelson.co m to see the locations the demo is available in. Everywhere bar Germany it seems.

    Played through the demo once, it looks OK if a little too "unreal" for my liking. The demo is a lot of fun and with the unlocks there is suitable replay value to keep you coming back for more. Especially when you work out routes through the level to look even better. it really does encourage you to work with the environment

    I concur with the article that Tequilla does seem to slide over objects too easily.

    All in all a good demo of a title that may have got lost amongst the wealth of other titles that are heading our way come Xmas.

  • Paukl #19 5 years ago

    @polymorph

    the update was just a small one for the wireless guitars in Guitar Hero II and Rock Band.

  • mattigan #20 5 years ago

    The system update is for wireless guitar support. nothing to do with the demo

    See http://www.majornelson.co m for details.

  • rashes #21 5 years ago

    cheers.. thats answered an earlier question I had about Fatal Inertia too. US and Japan only...

  • spliffhead #22 5 years ago

    Great demo, ever so slight framerate drop in the cutscenes but in actual gameplay there's so much shit blowing up and chipping off i was amazed it held everything together nicely, go coders!

    Only niggle I had was that the camera was too close in for some of the tight areas, other than that, very nice.

    Can't imagine the actual game would last more than 5-6 hours first time through.

    Makes poor old school Red Steel seem so lacking in the presentation department.

  • SniperWolf #23 5 years ago

    Time for Gears of war to hit the old peoples home, this game has more action in its little finger than Gears has in its whole body.

  • polymorph #24 5 years ago

    @rashes & Paukl ,
    Cheers lads, i was just curious as i had heard nothing about a update, just wondered if they were trying to block people with a UK & US acounts again.

    @Paukl, surely thats 3? although 2 was in my drive when i updated, interesting.
    EDIT, cheers mattigan .
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 15:43

  • polymorph #25 5 years ago

    @ spliffhead,
    you not passing that shit again?
    Oh well thats what my kingsize rizzlas are for i spose;)

  • the_dudefather #26 5 years ago

    math time, 1st level = 20mins * 7 level in full game= a little over 2 and a half hours long :p (unlikely, but its going to be a short-ish game by the look of it)

    the game should hopefully offer plenty of playability (multiplayer and higher difficulties), because as awesome as it is, paying full price might sting a little if you only play through once

  • symmetry #27 5 years ago

    Shouldn't this be called "Second Impressions"?

  • Waldo #28 5 years ago

    For the supposed $30,000,000 US they spent making this, you'd think they could have come up with character models that looked better than the ones from Max Payne 2.

  • Monkey_Puncher #29 5 years ago

    I shouldn't think this is the whole of the first level, once you get into the tea room the level ends so I'm guess there's some way to go.

    The first time you do precision aiming is up there with the first time you use the chainsaw on gear for shear "HOLY FUCK THAT'S COOL!" factor.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 16:37

  • Monkey_Puncher #30 5 years ago

    If the patch is broken how come Major Nelson's blogsite isn't being bombarded by red faced kids complaining that they can't get online?

    Infact I've not heard of a single person having problems with the patch.

  • hokuto_no_rob #31 5 years ago

    Fun for 5 minutes.

  • Dizzy #32 5 years ago

    >Infact I've not heard of a single person having problems with the patch.

    The patch is broken. A lot of people (including me) are having problems. Live Support said they are having problems with the patch servers... should be up soon-ish.

    >Way to go Microsoft, another little notch towards the PS3 for many thousands of people.

    Hehe.. yea... they are surely enjoying that Stranglehold demo.

    NOT!
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/07 @ 17:15

  • mattigan #33 5 years ago

    Took me 2 tries to apply the patch and when it did apply it was slow, but other than that it all went fine!

  • Shinji #34 5 years ago

    Monkey_Puncher: I shouldn't think this is the whole of the first level, once you get into the tea room the level ends so I'm guess there's some way to go.

    Yeah, fair point - it's missing what is basically the "boss battle" at the end of the level, where you take on a bunch of guys in the tearoom (and the awesome chap in the gold suit, with a rocket launcher). Aside from that it's the complete first level though - the tearoom is the last arena.

  • el_pollo_diablo #35 5 years ago

    Any ideas on when the demo will hit PSN?

    /retreats to hole

  • Brogan #36 5 years ago

    Dammit! had settled on the 3 games I was going to buy for the rest of the year (halo, bio, and mass) now looks like a fourth has been added. Curse you MS don't you care that in Dec/Jan I have Xmas and 2 brothers getting married (not to each other more's the pitty, would be a lot cheaper)
    Not only that now tomorrow I've got this funny feeling that i'm going to go out and buy "hard boiled".

  • Monkey_Puncher #37 5 years ago

    "Check out the thread about the system update on major nelsons blog asshat before you come here talking shite. "

    Don't cry mate, you're acting like I just insulted your mother or something.

  • Darkedge #38 5 years ago

    Oh my God - now that is FUN with a capital bullet.
    Not most graphically fantastic but a bloody good laugh

  • InsoFox #39 5 years ago

    Fun, certainly.

    But dated. And considering the emphasis is on stylish moves, why are some of the animations so weird? There's an attempt to make it so that when ever you run into a surface that's a table or table height you do a sort of dive/slide over it. But there's no sense of friction or impact so instead it just makes him look a bit like Mary Poppins when she does that glidey thing.

    I have a confession to make. I kinda liked Enter the Matrix, even if it was essentially shallow. Seriously. I did. This game reminds me of that. Except not done as well.

    Having said that, there were certain things that were very cool about it. I love the aiming upgrade you get halfway through and some of the diving is sufficiently wooey. I had fun, but I doubt I'd get a whole lot more enjoyment out of the full game.

  • smurphs #40 5 years ago

    'must spend a good twenty minutes each morning greasing up his backside'

    ha ha! maybe he's a lard-arse?

    'you'll want to get your broadband all greased up in preparation'

    been watching last tango in paris recently? Bit of a grease theme going on.

    The defining feature of the next-gen for me has been the advent of downloadable demos. I'm one very happy grease-monkey.

  • captainrentboy #41 5 years ago

    'twas a fannytastic demo in my opinion, certainly a lot of fun, not sure how much of a lifespan the full title will have mind, that's the only downer I can see.
    Like a few have said, some of the graphics are a lil ropey, but they do the job, the destructable enviroments are great too.
    Best part was getting that super accurate slow-mo shot thing (testicle shots galore), ohh and shooting dead pigs of course.

  • IronGiant #42 5 years ago

    Game and Hard Boiled in HD on Blu Ray.. yes please!

  • Freelancepolice #43 5 years ago

    I think you have to suspend a little bit of disbelief with the no friction on sliding. A) its a game and B) its woo

    I thought it was tremendously good fun. Repetition might set in but the video of the later levels certainly looked like plenty of decent set pieces. I found myself doing things in the game that weren't necessarily the best way to tackle things but I did them as it looked cooler.

  • InsoFox #44 5 years ago

    "I think you have to suspend a little bit of disbelief with the no friction on sliding. A) its a game and B) its woo"

    Yes, that's all well and good, but my point is that at the moment when he does the table sliding thing it doesn't look like a) a plausible game mechanic or b) a woo film... it just looks a bit broken.

    What I sort of mean is that at the moment it feels like you encounter the edge of a surface that the game says is 'slidable over' and this tells the game to play 'slide-over animation' until I get to the other side of the obstacle. Particularly ridiculous on long surfaces, where it seems to pause the animation halfway through while he gets to the other side. In other words it looks and feels fake.

    That stuff might be happening in the background, but if the game is about fancy moves, the mechanics behind those fancy moves should be a bit more transparent and work a bit more smoothly, that's all I'm saying. Same deal for when I'm in a dive and an unexpected surface gets in the way, and he just seems to stop mid dive until you let go of the trigger.

    Not gonna look Woo enough until those sorts of problems are ironed out. So I hope they do.

  • Shinji #45 5 years ago

    "been watching last tango in paris recently? Bit of a grease theme going on."

    I confess that we were playing the demo in my flat last night, all sat around making lewd comments regarding Chow Yun Fat's ulterior motives for his clearly very slippery arse. It was inevitable that some of that was going to slip into the feature. As it were :)

  • Freelancepolice #46 5 years ago

    @Insofox
    right ok, misunderstood what you were trying to say. I have noticed that once or twice, I only notice it when I'm sliding as you say on a particularly long table and when not in slow motion.

    From what I can see that's not an animation problem, it looks more like the way the animations are handled when touching a table. IMO it's unlikely to be sorted out at this stage. Personally I'd prefer they stopped just touching the table causing me to slide over it, I'd prefer having to proper slam into the table or use one of the face buttons instead of suddenly doing one over the table

  • spidermanalf #47 5 years ago

    I liked it, very much like Dead to Rights, without the dog!

    Anyone else chuckle when they saw the demo pic - a dove!

  • afghan_jones #48 5 years ago

    I kinda liked it. some the animations are bit weird still but its a right old laff.

    not a fan of it going into sepia when in slo mo as the screen gets so busy during a firefight, as soon as the colour drains away it gets hard to distinguish things.

    That said, the stand offs are ace, as is the 'scrote-sniper' mode.

    Could have done with more interaction though. Some wall running might have been cool, like in that mexican game on PS2 where you could flip off walls and that.

    also the cover is a pain if you want to hide behind a low wall or counter and end up arse sliding over it.



  • afghan_jones #49 5 years ago

    @manic MinerUK

    agreed on the cutscene cinematography. It was awesome. really stood out from the cutscenes in genre equivalents like true crime etc which looked toilet.

    also, yeah the whole thing of capping a bunch of guys then having a bunch more spawn behind you and shoot you was pretty gay. The game could do with mapping a 'quick turn' to the Y button where he spins 180 in slo mo and takes out people behind him.

  • Monkey_Puncher #50 5 years ago

    "I'm neither crying nor your mate, twat."

    Me thinks you need to take a deep breath and calm down, all this anger is not good for your heart.

  • JunglistVIP #51 5 years ago

    Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind!

  • alkeygs01 #52 5 years ago

    played it love it, when you play it through the first time yes you look a bit of a tit, sliding, flipping and flopping, but as you become more aware of the environment and the whole place starts to make more sense, the visual clues are normally good enough for you to really start to appreciate how best to get around the level. then its simply awesome.....i love the bit sliding down the stairs taking out the guys with the scenery jumping onto the trolley killing 6 guys in succession, jumping up the stairs and taking out 3 guys with an exploding barrel killing another with the scenery jumping off the rail into the wall into a backflip spinning round in slow mo and shotting the last guy at the top of the stairs in the nuts...Christ just explaining it leaves you little breathless....

  • MrMarbles #53 5 years ago

    I was mostly underwhelmed by this on my first playthrough. I literally had no idea what I was doing, couldn't make head-nor-tail of all the scenery clutter that was flying in the air and spent most of my time diving blindly in all directions.

    But the excellent decision to add an increased difficulty level and additional Tequila Bomb with each completion of the demo encourages repeated play.

    And it is during the repeated play that it suddenly hits you - this game is less a frantic Max Payne, but more like an action equivalent of Stuntman. It's not really about simply completing the level - it's about repeatedly playing through the level until you've choreographed each set-piece immaculately. Put simply, you won't get through the levels in Hard-Boiled difficulty by spasmodically diving around - you have to make every move, every shot, every piece of scenery count.

    And it invariably looks good when you manage this.

    Sure, some of the physics are questionable, especially when you have to run through a pile of debris that's settled on the ground. But I think it was a wise design decision to keep Fat's buttocks as slippery as they are - the last thing you'd want during one of the hectic fire-fights is to be stopped dead by a table whilst you were focusing on something else.

    In conclusion: better than Windtalkers.

  • onyx_elite #54 5 years ago

    I thought this was frickin ace! Run down a banister (whilst capping some asses) then jump onto a trolley (whilst capping some asses) then slide your arse over a table and dive over a pile of boxes (all the while capping more asses) before finishing off by shooting one guy in the mouth and the other guy in the cock.

    What more could you ask for? I really appreciated the stand-off sections and the weird slo-mo sniper mode. Plus hats off for making a demo that encourages replayability with minor unlocks.

  • pemat #55 5 years ago

    Repetitive, linear, mediocre character design, not enough freedom in movement.

  • afghan_jones #56 5 years ago

    @onyx-elite

    Its true, the game is all about what I like to call the 'cock-sniping' mode.

    I still reckon a slo mo 180 spin mapped to Y is needed.

    The only other thing that would be cool would be to shoot in more than one direction at once kind of like in that jango fett game but you know, not shit.

  • onyx_elite #57 5 years ago

    @ afghan_jones

    "I still reckon a slo mo 180 spin mapped to Y is needed. "

    \o/

    Genius.