Cheesier than mozzarella, Cornier than Nebraska, but unlike the two, Stranglehold is Fun, but don't expect anything deep
This game is none stop action which is good and bad. First off, it is good because waves of enemies are always around every corner waiting to be massacred, but then it is bad because the game throws an unlimited amount of enemies your way. Now games do this all the time, where multiple enemies come from every direction, but in this game, you kill one group of enemies just so another group of enemies can come so they can get killed so the next group of enemies can come out and so on. It gets quite repetitive and very annoying at times. It's fun killing people over and over, but enough is enough. I know it's a video game, but even kids will question why some many people keep popping out of nowhere for such a long period of time. On top of that the gameplay is so fast and enemies are positioned in locations that will have you confused. This is the biggest problem with the game.
Aside from that issue, the gameplay is just plain crazy. When I first ran into a table and Woo just slid over it, me and my roommate could not stop laughing. Then after that just keep jumping on handle bars and sliding on tables shooting people. This had to have been some of the corniest sh*t I have ever seen in a video game...ever, but at the same time it was cool and fun. No longer did a table keep me from moving out of harms way, like in other games, because my man Woo just smoothly slides over them with ease. Then we get to the killing which is just plain fun. You can go full force and play it like a third person shooter, or you can just go at it Woo style. Diving and shooing enemies in slow-mo or you can use your special attacks which really come in handy, especially at the end of the game. Their are three special moves. The first is too hard to explain, but lets just say it's a one hitter quiter. The second attack is called Barrage, and pretty much you have unlimited life and ammo for 20 seconds or more, depending on the difficulty. The most useful, but risky attack is level 3, this is where gameplay comes to a halt, and a cutscene starts which shows Woo killing everyone in sight which is very entertaining. It never got old and gave me time to breath for a second. This special sounds great, but unlike the other two specials, you can not stop it mid way and it drains all of you special bar which means you have to reset the bar meaning you have to kill everyone in a fashionable way (slow-mo) to do it all over again. All three specials are effective, and like any true gamer, you will know which one is just right for that certain situation. The environment also takes as much punishment as your enemies which is cool because while you are just shooting the sh*t out of everyone, the place begins to look like sh*t too due to you shooting every thing and every one. Almost everything in the environment can be destroyed or used for "special skill" attacks, but most of the time, you do not need to use the environment to kill enemies, it just makes the gameplay fun. One real bad thing about this game is checkpoints are far and few at times. In the last level, I was killing people in a courtyard for about 10 to 15 minutes. I never died, but waves and waves of enemies keep coming out of no where. It was funny because people had machine guns, rocket launchers, AK's, you know big boy guns, and then there was a guy with blades. That was random as hell.
The environments are all varied and all have their own feel to them. The game is all over the place like Uncharted, but it is not as risky or as rewarding nor is it as beautiful as Uncharted. But it is nice to have a change of scenery, though the action in these places just gets plain repetitive. Anyway, the graphics are whatever by today standards. Probably back in 2007, these graphics may have been considered great, but as it stands, I think they are whatever. The voice acting is flat and the story is just cliche action movie crap. It involves a city, gang lords, and your daughter and did I forget guns and stupid henchman. Nothing special about this story, but it help makes the gameplay make sense.
Overall, this game was fun, but it was too short and corny. If you do not care for the gameplay, it is worth a rental just to get a few laughs out. Also, the way the game uses unlimited enemies to make seven chapters long is very poor on their part, but hey if this creams your twinkie, then go rent it. Don't buy this game because it will be a waste of money.