Hard Boiled, the 1992 film from legendary director John Woo, is probably the best action movie ever made. What you might not know is that it has a sequel, but it isn’t a movie. In 2007, developer Midway and Woo released Stranglehold, an action video game that transfers the director’s signature cinematic flair to fascinating gameplay mechanics. Right now you can get it for just $1.99 on GOG, and let me tell you, it’s worth it.
One of the best parts of Hard Boiled is the incredible performance from Chow Yun-fat as the charismatic Inspector Tequila. Stranglehold puts players directly in Tequila’s shoes, with Yun-fat reprising his role. While the plot of the game is much more melodramatic and less tightly paced than the film’s, it’s still a damn good time. There are crime syndicates aplenty, kidnappings, and more bullets getting fired that you can possibly imagine. It’s a pulpy action fever dream worthy of Woo’s name.
That action is exactly what makes Stranglehold so much fun, as the game works overtime to translate the signature style of Woo’s films into something you can actually play. It plays out as a third-person shooter with some unique flair. If you’ve seen a Woo film, you’ll know that the director has a penchant for incredibly choreographed action scenes with slow-motion, dual-wielded weapons, and—yes—lots of doves flying around.
One of the best aspects of Stranglehold is its decision to forgo the need to reload the many weapons you will use to take down enemies. Instead you start off with a hefty amount of ammo and run through levels, never needing to worry about resource scarcity. This means you can just run and gun to your heart’s content. And you will do a lot of this considering how many enemies each level is filled with. To emulate the action ballet of Woo’s films, Tequila can also dive around in slow motion—a la Max Payne—and fire off rounds with more time to take aim in the air.
To encourage you to play with cinematic flair yourself, there is also a style mechanic during combat, something you might expect to see more in hack-n-slash games like Devil May Cry rather than a third-person shooter. By taking down enemies, using slow-motion dives, and activating special abilities called Tequila Bombs during combat, you build up stars rating how stylish you’ve been. This all combines to make Stranglehold a frenetic and fun action game with a cinematic twist that puts you in the director’s seat of every scene. For two bucks, it’s an absolute steal worth spending a weekend with. Also, go watch Hard Boiled.
.
