John Woo Presents Stranglehold is an enjoyable third person shooter that (nearly) manages to emulate an authentic John Woo experience. You have everything from frantic, hyper kinetic action to massive destruction to stylish moves to your clichéd tough guy who faces innumerable odds to get the job done, courtesy his "True Friends" AKA his trusty arsenal. Now I could go on and on about how awesome the action in this game is but you already know that by either playing the demo or watching in-game videos, so let’s concentrate on why this game falls short of being the Max Payne killer.
One of the first things that hit me as soon as I played through a couple of levels was that Midway started developing this game with major gusto and enthusiasm but after designing the very first level they just ran out of steam and completed the game in a massive hurry. The sheer awesomeness that the very first level (which by the way is the demo level) exudes is nowhere to be found later on in the game (except for maybe the penthouse level) and even stuff like Standoffs that drove me batshit crazy felt pretty watered down in the subsequent levels.
Boss fights in this game are a complete annoyance that could have easily been eliminated completely. Every boss fight is mundane, boring and boils down to using the exact same technique every single time; take cover while he unloads his weapon at you then while he reloads, you peek out and empty your clip into him in slow motion. Repeat this most boring exercise four to five times and yeah, you get the drift right?
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