Stranglehold is fun for what it is
If you are looking for a game that has a compelling story to keep you moving through it or a game that is able to keep things fresh and new throughout, Stranglehold is not that game. Stranglehold's story is present, but it is threadbare at best. You play as Inspector Tequila, a Hong Kong cop, who must track down his daughter's kidnappers. That sounds like a simple enough story, but it gets convoluted because there are no less than three different interacting kidnapping gangs at any given time. In fact the story is there to provide the player with an excuse to visit some new locale to blow the crap out of.
Along the way of Tequila's hunt you will shoot (a lot), and kill (a lot). It's reasonable to expect a shooter to have a high body count, and Stranglehold does not disappoint there; however, the body count is so high that by the end of the game I thought things were getting a little ridiculous (even for a video game).
The best part of Stranglehold is the John Woo influence (which is how the game was designed). Inspector Tequila can dive any direction, slide across tables, run up railings or slide down them, swing from chandeliers, ride and shoot from rolling carts, and any number of other cool looking moves. Once Tequila begins a move and aims at an enemy "Tequila Time" engages, which is similar to a Max Payne type bullet time. All in all that part of the game is really really cool. The other great part of Stranglehold is the destructible environments. Everything, and I mean everything, can be destroyed. If you shoot a pillar, that pillar is going to fragment and throw debris everywhere which can get into the bad guy's eye and cause him to stop dead in his tracks for an easy kill. You can shoot signs which can fall on enemy's or exploding barrels, or glass windows, or shoot through wooden walls, or lights to fall on somebody. You name it, it probably falls apart some how. That kind of destructibility mixed with the bullet time makes for some pretty spectacular kills.
My only real complaint about the game is that it tends to get repetitive after the first three or four levels. The overwhelming number of enemies, Tequila Time, and destruction is repeated over and over and over again through the entire game. Sometimes the locale doesn't even change. You just have to fight wave after wave of bad guys coming into the same room. With its repetitive nature, it is a good thing the game is relatively short (maybe 6-7 hours). Stranglehold is a fun and entertaining game with plenty of memorable moments stuffed into it, so if you are looking for a shorter cheaper game to pick up while you wait for E3 2008, then give Stranglehold a shot. If you don't, I can't say you are missing out on too terrible much either.