The jump from the first generation of 3D-centric consoles to the second was pretty impressive. But the generation after – the PS3/360/Wii period – kind of sucked. Whenever I think of the games I played at that time, they were always just kind of… enh. Except, like, Earth Defense Force 2017 or No More Heroes or maybe Motorstorm. Nah, scratch Motorstorm. I still get bored of all the brown and never finish the game.

Like, look at it this way: 2005 brought us some great games. Shadow of the Colossus, We Love Katamari, Guitar Hero, Chibi-Robo (in Japan). And then a lot of colour got sucked out, so while I played and mostly enjoyed games like Dead Rising or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I wasn’t impressed. Every game I played at that time felt somehow compromised and never really satisfied me. I wasn’t even into Bioshock. Even the year’s Zelda game, Twilight Princess, felt drab and lifeless in comparison to what came before. Although, Midna can tug my leash anytime, if you know what I mean.

And then there was Stranglehold (also 2007). And maybe you think I’m going to say something like, “Finally a game blew me away.” But, no, and that’s probably because I played F.E.A.R., which was, again, 2005.

JOHN WOO PRESENTS EXPLODING WATERMELONS

When it was coming down the pipe, Stranglehold (or John Woo Presents Stranglehold if you’re feeling frisky) promised slow motion “tequila time” and destruction, which was pretty tantalizing at the time. Gears of War was the new big thing, but it didn’t have masonry falling apart under gunfire and watermelons exploding. And bullet, er, tequila time is always fun, even if it wasn’t a very new idea. It looked dynamic and bombastic.

And it is. You’re encouraged to do ridiculous stunts like sliding down handrails while shooting or riding around on a little service cart, shooting dudes in the face. Being creative with your murder, fills up a circular gauge that feeds into your “Tequila Bombs” (neither literal bombs nor tequila). While you unlock the ability to use the skills pretty slowly, the Tequila Bombs are ridiculously overpowered. At their base level, you can heal a small portion of your health. Fill two bars, and you can use Precision Shot to blow up enemy testicles. If you max out all four, you can do a little twirl and kill everyone in your vicinity. But filling three bars is where it gets the most ridiculous. That’s when you can use barrage.

Barrage is a power where Tequila loads infinite ammo into his gun and becomes invincible for a little while. It allows you to just tear through enemies or, more importantly, feed bullets into a boss’s face while they just helplessly shoot back to no avail.

Jumping around like a sugar-filled chipmunk is already awesome, but on a more practical level, you fill up your tequila bombs by doing neat stunts. It’s good incentive to keep diving through the air even if gluing your back to a wall and using the cover system would probably help absorb fewer bullets.

WHOZITS AND WHATZITS

Yet, despite all the flying whozits and slow motion whatzits, it pretty quickly settles into a predictable formula of corridor-arena-corridor-arena. All the destruction kind of just bleeds into the background, making for a rather generic game that is very representative of the era.

The plot is similarly trite. It sets itself as a sequel to John Woo’s film, Hard Boiled, which I’ve been intending to watch, but still haven’t. I’m not sure that’s necessary, however, because I don’t think there’s much of a connection beyond a couple of characters. There are flashbacks, but they don’t flash back to stuff from the movie. There’s a broken romance, but I don’t think it broke in the movie, as far as I know. And beyond that, I’m not sure much is even referenced from the film. Inspector Tequila doesn’t even play clarinet here.

And the story that it chooses to tell instead of a narrative continuation is just a sequence of action movie clichés. Tequila’s always saying, “I’ll do things my way,” and his superior is telling him, “I’ll have your badge.” That sort of shit. McBain shit. Supporting characters play roles so heavily trodden that you can probably guess where their character arc is going to land them, anyway.

On the other hand, it works as a decent parody of the genre. I just don’t think it was intentional.

BOMBASTIC PROMISES

So, despite all its bombastic promises, it’s actually a bland little game. It’s only, like, four hours long, so it doesn’t get torturous or anything. It just doesn’t exactly re-write the third-person rulebook. It actually comes across as less stimulating than, say, F.E.A.R.. Or, to stop suckling at that teat, Max Payne 2.

On the other hand, the level of detail it presents is still pretty impressive. Environments are cluttered with exploding barrels and objects that break in interesting ways. Structural columns disintegrate under gunfire. Or, better yet, if you pistol whip a dude at the correct angle, masonry will shatter against their face.

Some levels are a bit more sparse when it comes to environmental props, but there’s clearly been a lot of thought put into what would be fun to destroy. Throwing a history museum into the mix is just perfect. It’s actually a shame that this game came out before photo modes became so prevalent, because the ridiculous action is great for it. In fact, a lot about it suggests that you should have the opportunity to step back and take it all in. A replay system would be fun. If there was more to it than just wave after wave of dudes, that would be fun too.

HOLLOW-POINT

I’m not without respect for Stranglehold. Part of that is that I still hold a candle for Midway, who would be defunct by 2009. The homogenization of video games resulted in a lot of mid-tier publishers dying out as the market became dominated by a few big names. In a lot of ways, it was chasing the status quo set by Gears of War, Halo, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto that likely forced them out. Games were expensive, taking risks rarely worked out, and you needed big budgets to compete with the established pantheon. That, or you needed to be a beloved Japanese publisher with a stable of recognizable classics.

So from ‘06 to, I don’t know, ‘11 at the earliest, games kind of sucked. The “Real is Brown” era. I’m not saying that every game was terrible; I’m generalizing. I just mean that the landscape was polluted with a smog that kills taste buds. Strangehold is emblematic of that era. It’s something that, despite all its promise, despite all its bombastic trickery, there’s something very hollow about it. It has its successes, it’s still mostly fun to play, but there’s very little reason to dive right into it.

5/10

This review was conducted using a digital PC version of the game purchased from GOG. A mod was used to change the FOV (and maybe the resolution, I can’t remember). It was paid for by the author.