John Woo is a directorial enigma. Putting out simply breathtaking Hong Kong action masterpieces from the early Seventies through to the early Nineties, he almost singlehandedly changed the face of action cinema. When it comes to set-piece gunplay, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled still stand head and shoulders above all attempts to remove them from their bullet-nibbled thrones, standing for all time as testament to the genius of his earlier work. With Woo’s move to Hollywood, though, cracks started to appear in his otherwise enviable filmography. Suddenly, the ‘Woo’ seal of quality started to carry less weight and dross such as the decidedly average Face/Off was highlight to the horrific awfulness of Broken Arrow and Paycheck. In an ironic twist of fate, Stranglehold is not entirely unlike the career of its stylistic creator, showing a distinctive personality that’s split between gleeful schoolboy genius and ‘must do better’ detentionite. For every great aspect of this game, something hideous rears up and sinks its teeth in.

Far be it from us to break up this seemingly natural flow of all things Woo, so let’s instead go with it, separating the good and the bad into two easily manageable exploding chunks of concrete. Starting with the good: Chow Yun-Fat may well be the coolest man in Asia, which, considering it’s the most populous part of the planet, really is saying something. Reprising his role as Inspector ‘Tequila’ Yuen, his dulcet tones are unmistakable to any fan of The Fat, and taking control of him for the first time feels as cool as the man himself.

Moving around the environment is a pretty standard affair for a thirdperson shooter, taking the synonymous approach of move, duck, cover, shoot. Where Stranglehold differs is through its extensive use of ‘Tequila Time’. Being essentially Matrix-style bullet time, it’ll activate automatically whenever you pull off a special move – or ‘Woove’ as we’ve decided they should have been called. The Wooves on offer range from the trademark dive from cover, duel pistols blazing (this will get you shot in the face in real life), to running up banisters, sliding across tables, whizzing down zip-lines and swinging from chandeliers. And these are immensely satisfying once you’re able to string them seamlessly together. In fact, it’s Stranglehold’s set pieces that really make the game stand out, varying from the trivial, such as shooting brightly coloured and obviously explosive barrels, to the deep and involving complexities involved in each room or map – each one a vast set-piece unto itself.

At your disposal in a tight spot, you’ll have more than just Tequila’s arsenal of ordnance-flingers, too. As you progress, you’ll also unlock ‘Tequila Bombs’. Occupying the bottom-left of your display, you’ll find the circular Tequila-style meter, which fills by executing multiple takedowns as stylishly as possible. It’s a sort of rage gauge, punctuated by four nodes, each connected to an ability. Starting on the left and moving clockwise, you’ll get a small health boost. At the top of the gauge, you’ll find the awesomely pleasing ‘Precision Aim’, which, while giving you uber-zoom, will slow time to a standstill and allow you to align your reticule with the distant head of an unsuspecting henchman at your leisure. Best of all, the camera will track behind the bullet for a nice slow-mo close-up of the resulting chin rupture. The death animations are completely different depending on where you choose to put the bullet: in the eye, the nose, the neck or, indeed (*guilty shrug*), the nads. Actually, make that a couple of hundred guilty shrugs. Oops.

Next stop on your style gauge is ‘Barrage’, which, for a limited period, will make you invulnerable, while providing you with infinite ammo and heavily increased damage. Finally, and demanding one hell of a lot of Tequila power, is ‘Spin Attack’, which will take down every enemy in the area and deal a modicum of damage to any boss that happens to be about.

As joyous as Stranglehold is in places, it also sports an extensive list of bum. The visuals are extremely inconsistent, with earlier levels leaving you wondering where on earth the game’s $30 million budget went, with later maps, such as the museum, provoking you to exclaim, “oh, there’s all the dosh’, while coolly dropping your jaw into your lap. The animation can be extremely jumpy at times, especially during transitions, the voice acting is poor throughout (except, of course, from Mr Fat) and your progress through some of the levels is often stained by the need to complete arbitrary and pointless tasks.

Destroy 16 drug tables to proceed it says, as you hit an invisible wall. It’s also full of lengthy cut-scenes and, last but not least, the game is criminally short at around 4-5 hours. The only replay value comes from trying to achieve ‘A’ rank in the same levels ad infinitum, which, for a penny short of 50 quid, will feel like you’re the recipient of one of our ‘special’ takedowns, Midway shrugging guiltily for every copy it sells.

Dan Howdle