Fun at first, chore to finish even when it's pretty short. Definite rent first.

User Rating: 7 | Stranglehold X360
By Lopur94 | Review Date:
Bullet time is a really fun mechanic and only very few games does it great enough to make it enjoyable and not repetitive. Most notably Max Payne on the Original Xbox demonstrated that they can make shooting in slow motion fun. Many players who have played any of the Max Payne games may look at Stranglehold and comment on how it's just Max Payne with improved graphics. You play as a police officer named Tequila and your chasing enemies throughout the world.

Now your bullet time or "Tequila Time" is limited as you need to recharge a bar every time you use it. When you dive, roll over stuff or slide down rails and you are aiming at an enemy, you will enter Tequila Time which is very necessary as the enemies you encounter are as dumb as a rock and will just continue to fire at you and never stop. Towards the end, the game will be very annoying as they up the difficulty by adding more enemies on the map at once so you will have to dodge fire from everywhere.

You should also aim for stylish kills as they fill up your gauge meter that has special Tequila powers. The first power is to heal yourself a bit; the next is precision aim where you use any gun to aim through a scope at any enemy and shoot him with deadly precision. Third is barrage where you have unlimited ammo and make your shots very powerful. Make you pretty much invincible for a short while because your gauge meter depletes when you use it. The last power is a spiral move that eliminates everyone in the room, pretty useful in the last couple of missions.

The story is very predictable and with the game length pretty short which can be finished in a weekend. The voice acting for Tequila is pretty good although almost everyone else is weak. The gameplay can get repetitive after a while or sometimes impossible but there are some good parts to Stranglehold.
Most of the environment is destructible and destroys tremendously well. There are some set pieces which you can roll over or onto like the food trolley and go into Tequila Time while shooting all the enemies. There are some moments like the shootouts that make you feel like a badass that Tequila is.
I couldn't even play multiplayer because there was no one to play online with! I spent 15 minutes sitting in the lobby and found only 2 or 3 people who eventually left.

Stranglehold is a short game and has some fun moments in the game but this game is not something you will replay. If you want to play it, definitely rent it first. You will enjoy it first but feel like finishing it like it's a chore. But if you've played Max Payne or similar games, this game is nothing new.

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