Oh yes baby. After the dissapointment of Bullet-Proof Monk being cancelled, I thought I'd never get to play as Mr Chow.
But thanks to the good people at Midway it seems that not only will I get to play as one of my screen idols, but I'll also get to control one of the coolest characters ever created.
http://www.1up.com/do/download?cId=3140444
Stranglehold. It's a videogame sequel to Hard Boiled (probably my most watched film). Looks like John Woo and Chow Yun Fat are involved in the development somehow. Putting the action to one side, the great thing about Hard Boiled was the build up to an action sequence. Woo keeps the suspense turned up high with clever little montages and periods or relative calm right before it all kicks off. If this game can deliver a similar experience then it could be breathtaking.
O
M
G
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"For the next year most of the 360s will end up in the hands of the hardcore gamers because they are the most eager ones. So the first wave of software will reflect that." - Gerhard Florin, Head of EA Europe
This is your "Driver Parallel Lines" isn't it?
It certainly is and if it's half decent will force me kicking and screeming into the next generation.
Move over Master Cheif and Max Payne, the master of dual wield is back in town.
YEAH KICKASS!
Sorry lost myself for a moment there.
Seriously Jib if you've not seen Hard Boiled (I thought everyone had) then nip down to blockbuster and rent a copy. About halfway through there is a sceen in a drugs warehouse that to my mind is the best action scene ever. The musical score by Micheal Gibb (yes I have the soundtrack CD) perfectly complements the on screen action as Chow Yun drops down on a zip line from a skylight whilst blasting away with a machine gun. sliding over the roof of a car before hitting the ground still firing. It's just
It seems this game will feature a context sensitive button that will allow you to pull of balletic moves like these using bits of the environment. PLEASE DON'T FUCK THIS UP MIDWAY! Get the SF Rush 2049 boys on it.
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"For the next year most of the 360s will end up in the hands of the hardcore gamers because they are the most eager ones. So the first wave of software will reflect that." - Gerhard Florin, Head of EA Europe
Dude, you are so middlecore...
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Dude, you are so middlecore...
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You can brand me as 'middlecore', 'casual', 'fucktard' or whatever you like.
A smell a new sig!
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Chavbury: "You can brand me as 'middlecore', 'casual', 'fucktard' or whatever you like."
This takes the heat off my Driver debauchery quite nicely...
My purchase and inevitable dissappointment awaits...
Hmm, maybe I should by 24 tomorrow and complete the circle of shite.
You guys are just a bunch of Hi-Def WHORES!
pffft, Mr I want a 70" LCD
Seriously though you need HD for this game to get the full range of emotion on Yun Fat's face across to the player. Check out the trailer.
1. Surley scowl
2. Surly scowl whilst shooting
3. Relaxed
4. Relaxed whilst shooting
The man's a GOD I tell you not only of Gamblers but everything. If Chow had got the part of NEO in the Matrix the infernal machine would have been offline halfway through the second movie (saving us the shit third installment)
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"For the next year most of the 360s will end up in the hands of the hardcore gamers because they are the most eager ones. So the first wave of software will reflect that." - Gerhard Florin, Head of EA Europe
Forgive me whilst I BLOW UP over this game.
Midway in semi-decent game shocker
This morning I played through the XBox Demo of Stranglehold. Hopefully peeps on here with a 360 will give this one a chance. It's a 1.3GB dl.
First up some excuses. As I mentioned previously I'm a huge fan of Hard Boiled and Woo, so this game is already pushing the right buttons before It's even loaded. So what's the deal.
Weeeeellll It's a 3rd Person action game similar I suppose to Max Payne or Enter the Matrix. We've got totally linear level design, highly detailed and destructable environments (thanks to Unreal 3 and Havok) meshed with a couple of interesting game mechanics. Most importantly the game is 100% designed around enemy setups. The designers have placed the bad guys in such a way as to reward reckless, but fluid play. An example. I'm standing at the top of a massive flight of step with a central handrail. I tap the left trigger (context sensitive interaction) to hop onto the railing and begin sliding down. The game automatically engages 'Tequila Time' (it's version of bullet time) allowing me to pivot my aim and take out guys on the left and right as I slide down. At the bottom of the rail a couple more guys step out. There's no reloads
so I unload a couple of clips into them. At the bottom of the railing I tap L-trigger again and leap from the bottom of the rail onto a trolley. This then starts moving. I'm now surrounded. No problem I'm still in Tequila Time giving me enough advantage to spin my aim through 360 degrees taking them all out.
The game awards stars for stylish kills (sadly there's no combo system) stars boost my Tequila Bomb gauge and I can trade segments of the gauge for special effects. These range from a health boost (only effective if you're below 50%) a precision shot (more on this later), a barrage move and a spin move (not experienced these yet).
The environments are highly destructable and highly interactive. Run up to an object that is at waiste level and Tequila automatically enters a slide again if you're sliding for any considerable time it enters Tequila time. Incidentally you can enter tequila time at any point provided you have gauge by tapping the right bumper, the left bumper is used for cover, but I haven't worked out how this works yet. Left trigger out in the open performs a dive. Pretty much everything can be smashed through shot, blown up and destroyed, which means that a lot of the time you'll be executing environmental kills using conveniently placed propane canisters (well this is John Woo afterall), bits of roof, neon signs etc etc.
There's a couple of other neat features too. The first is the precision shot, which you access by tapping up on the dpad. This effectively zooms you in a bit like Too Spicy and freezes time. You can take precise aim at an enemy and let a single bullet fly. The view then switches to a bullet cam view and then just before the bullet hits home an enemy cam view is engaged to give a close up on the results. I experimented a bit with shooting different body parts and the results were always satisfying.
The second cool feature is the stand-offs. At certain scripted points you'll get into a Mexican stand-off and the game switches into fixed point shooting gallery slow-mo mode. In this mode the analogue stick bobs and weaves Tequilas body to avoid incoming fire wilst you take aim and attack back. Each enemy in the stand-off is targeted one at a time and there's usually more than one way to off them.
The demo finishes with a vid showing some highlights from later on and the multiplayer mode. I don't really see how multiplayer will work with the whole time dialation thing. I've still not figured out how Sega fudged it in Afterburner Climax and this game is equally baffling :?
In short you are Chow Yun Fat you are in a John Woo film, if either of those things sound cool then you'll likely get some enjoyment out of this demo. I'm seriously thinking about the full game now. Although there's some confusion over whether it will be region free for import purposes (well documented at ntsc-uk). I believe the PS3 special ed. also contains the BR version of Hard Boiled on the same disk (good use of the 50GB no doubt
)
Dammit. 2 weeks to wait for this to hit and I appear to be on my own here
Maybe if I keep bumping this thread someone will reply?
http://uk.ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/stranglehold/811736p1.html
Some interesting details on the demo compared to earlier builds and a run down of the special video options (Plasma, LCD etc.). I haven't played with those yet, but it sounds like there's a wealth of tuning in there to get the picture looking how you want. Like the idea of vivid mode
In short you are Chow Yun Fat you are in a John Woo film, if either of those things sound cool then you'll likely get some enjoyment out of this demo.
As a game, that just makes me think bleh, Max Payne - Max Shite.
I'll give the demo a go though, seeing as you are enjoying it so much
You almost certainly won't like it as it's pretty derivative, but you might get some enjoyment out of it. Not being overly fancy and good execution are its strengths.
You might struggle with the controls as you are given complete control over the camera and consequently the shooting direction. It feels a little bit Gears of War in places. Getting used to sliding over the huge number of objects and springing up off of walls into a dive takes some getting used to too.
The demo is pretty short, only takes about 30 minutes to clear it. Once through unlocks more specials and a harder difficulty mode. I need to play it through again to check out Tequila's other abilities and to see how much tougher it gets.
Basically it's relentless no frills balletic gunplay action. Total disposable popcorn gaming done well and I'm loving it for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM0Z_haPj4s
Looks like there's plenty of stuff I missed like how to fip over the tables and the whole cover mechanic. This vid is an earlier build too. The gague in the bottom left is much clearer and intuitive in the demo.
Played through the demo 3 times last night (final time on the hardest Hard Boiled difficulty) and the more I play the more I learn and the more I'm beginning to love it.
The final play through I had all of the Tequila bombs unlocked.
The Spin Bomb is probably the least interesting essentially a smart bomb the camera goes all cinematic as you spin around 360 degrees killing all the enemies in an area. Might come in handy during the full game, but it's pretty redundant in the demo.
The Barrage Bomb is very nice though. Activating barrage Tequila loads whatever the current weapon is and then you get rapid fire-infinite ammo-bullet time-invincibility. It's brutal with the shot gun; totally devastating.
Also by performing a dive (L-Trigger) and holding the L-Trigger you do not recover from your landing. Whilst prone you still have complete aiming control plus you can roll left or right. Yun-Fat fans will know what this means. Basically you can roll underneath bad guys on platforms and fire up at them from below with massive fun.
There are also some melee attacks, but these seem risky as enemey melee strikes are equally deadly.
Finally I've got the whole cover mechanic working. It's not immediately obvious which objects you can take cover behind, but in general if it's solid and flat you can take cover. It's a bit like Gears in this respect you can pop out from either side of cover to shoot at the bad guys, but cover can be destroyed. It's particularly cool when covering behind a pillar that's getting shot away, popping out to shoot and then diving out into the open in Tequila time
. The cover button also flips over tables, which afford some limited protection. Cool, but not all that useful.
It's been a while since I've dreamt about a game, but this one has invaded my sub-concious not because it's brilliant, but because of the non-stop heart in mouth action and my deep love of the source material.
There's no bollocks puzzles or switches or keys, it's just straight out action. This is the way an action game should be. relentless, linear, but freeform combat. It's not going to rival more technical games like DMC, but it's not aiming for that. This is a straight up arcade blast fest dressed up in different clothes.
One final thing before I shutup and let Papercut tell you how wrong I am for liking this game.
There's an option to turn off the automatic Tequila time feature. I'm thinking this would probably be better once you've got a feel for the game. The automatic mode seems to activate when you pop from cover, which is actually pretty frustrating as more often than not you don't need it then.
Just neet to work out whether the 360 collectors edition is region free otherwise it's another expensive PAL purchase
Can't say that I "get" Stranglehold. I played the demo and it was all "jump, slo-mo, shoot" over and over and over again. Oh and the slippy, slidy tables piss me off no end; it's so annoying, I just want to hide behind them but the game wants me slide over them like a wet fish.
Yep it's the same deal over and over. Shooting bad guys. It's more how you shoot them. You have to use the environment to your advantage both offensively and defensively. You can combo style kills which is something I hadn't realised before.
Ah the tables. That's a videogame paradigm right there! Normally in a game of this ilk a table would be an impassable immovable object that maybe just maybe you might be able to jump onto. Stranglehold shifts the paradigm. You have to imagine the tables aren't really there in terms of movement they're as relevant as stepping over a puddle in real life. However stand next to a table and tap the cover button (left bumper) and Mr Chow flips it over to make some improvised cover. If you can get over this then it will all start to fall into place I promise.
ahhhh, I see. I was under the impression that there wasn't a cover system. That makes things a little better.
By the way, the most notable thing about this game is that Mark Dacascos does one of the voices. Anyone who's seen Drive, Crying Freeman or Brotherhood of the Wolf should know why that interests me. Dacascos rules.
Dacascos does indeed rule. Britney Murphy was in Drive too wasn't she? Cool film.
I think John Woo reprises his role as the bar tender from Hard Boiled in this game. I think it's him in the last cutscene of the demo and he's playable as one of the Multiplayer characters. When it comes to dual wield though accept no substitute; Chow Yun-Fat has not been bettered imo.
The cover system takes a little getting used to, but once you do it opens up more tactical play something which is a must on the hardest difficulty setting. I found myself hiding out a lot more only breaking cover when my handgun ammo was exhausted, switching to shotgun to go on a mad ammo scavanging slo-mo dash.
So far I've found the golden pistols (dual wield), but apparently there's a couple of sub machine guns hidden near the end of the level. Loving the precision shot too. It's funny when you hit, funny when you miss and even more satisfying to use it in combination with an environmental kill. Haven't quite got to grips with the style combo system or diving from a rail run into a wall spring. I think I'll stop playing this now and wait for the full game
Dacascos does indeed rule. Britney Murphy was in Drive too wasn't she? Cool film.
Indeed she is.
My copy arrived today from Play-Asia. Some impressions to bore you with later if I get a chance to play it. There are supposed to be fewer objects in the full game, so might play a little differently.
Hell if I finish it quick, you might even get a review of this non-game.
Well it's crap.
They've completely cocked it up with some dire level design. It might get better later on or with repeat play. I'll see.
I'd read that the level design was less busy compared to the demo - is that right? Does it make that much difference though, I thought you liked the demo?
I liked the demo a lot. Mostly because it was well structured and linear. You shoot some bad guys in one area and then move to the next. Yes there are slightly less objects in the final version (I think), but really that's not my beef.
The problems start in the second level. It's far more open and free roaming, with (shudder) objectives. You have to find and destroy these drug tables before you can move on to the next area where you have to find and destroy some more. It's all so damned fuzzy and without a map it's too easy to get turned around and disorientated. One of the things I liked about the demo was it's simplicity. Looks like Midway bottled it for the other levels and decided to put some "game" in there. In doing so they've basically wrecked it. The thing is I know it will feel better on repeat play once I've learnt the maps, but feeling your way around the environment isn't much fun first time through.
It gets even worse later on as there's a pretty average helicopter shooting section and then you have to plant some explosives on four ships. All of which look the same and are reached by this intricate network of wooden gangplanks and platforms. It's a nightmare I just couldn't work out where I was supposed to go or what the hell was going on to be honest.
There were some highlights. The assault rifle and uzis are excellent fun and barrage attacking your way through the shacks of the drug runners is brutally satisfying as is flying down the zip wires, but it all lacks the choreography and finesse of the demo level.
The section I'm in now is even worse it took me a good 20 minutes of fumbling around to progress beyond a particularly stupid sticking point. It was some half arsed Half Life 2 style physics showcase. I had to shoot this tiny prop out which dropped a load of barrels into a gap and allowed me to progress. It's absolutely baffling why is this kind of lazy guff in there. All I want to do is shoot stuff in style.
Enemy variety is reasonably decent. There's a few different types so far including sniper dudes complete with laser sights, taking them down with a precision shot is nice.
I'm really hoping the game sorts itself out later on as at the moment it's a horrid mess of confusing levels and stupid objectives. Basically I was hoping for Shinobi (PS2), but with guns. Based on what I've played so far it's not delivering on the promise of the demo
Boy does this game have real quality spike issues. Once you reach the restaurant things start to pick up again. Nicely set out single room environments plus you have to strategically place some guitar cases full of guns and health power ups before things kick off. You can then revisit these to recharge during the fight. Nice touch.
Mechanically though nothing thrilling.