This game really wants to be Max Payne but it isn't.
Where do I start? Well, first off 12GB hard drive space, WTF!!!!? No, I do have enough space and don't need to buy a bigger hard drive. My point is, how do you create a 12GB game which ends in less than 6 hours. That actually means that the problem here is how short the game is.
You would think that so much space is taken by flashy graphics, but truth is I haven't seen worse car models since Need for Speed 2!!! And no, I don't mean Underground 2. Environments are OK and pretty destroyable, however one is always very limited where to go. Characters look good, however, movement is animated so bad, you get the feeling Tequilla has swallowed a crutch.
Gameplay is fun, though. It has a nice movie-like feeling and jumping from railings to plots and sliding under tables in bullet-time just happens naturally in this game which really pumps up adrenaline. Well, to be honest, it is all very repetative, but the game is so short as I mentioned before, you actually can't get bored with it before it is over.
The story is plain dull, but you should expect that from the sequel to Hard Boiled and director John Woo. You don't play this game to timetravel and twist fates, you play it to shoot people in the face and that's what's most important about it. You wouldn't really care when Tequilla's girlfriend dies in his hands. You would just be waiting impatiently for the cut-scene to end so you can shoot the bastard in a most spectacular way. Oops, that was a spoiler right there... Don't worry, I haven't ruined your experience even one bit.
One possible problem with the story is total lack of subtitles in the cut-scenes. Usually, this is not a problem for me, but for so many years in Hollywood, Chow Yun-Fat didn't learn how to speak English so one might not catch all his lines missing much of the cliche humour, which is actually fun in a deliberately cliche story.
Another thing is, I experienced a weird bug - on my PC, I couldn't change the default resolution. 1024X768 is not that bad though, especially for a game that's ugly anyway.
Overall, Stranglehold offers two or three relaxing evenings on a working week and then you forget the game. That's all.