’m concerned that this review is going to sound a bit more negative than I intend it to be. If so, I apologize. However, I had high hopes for Stranglehold. On paper, it was a slam-dunk. A partnership between Midway, a company that I think has revitalized its internal development over the past few years, and legendary director John Woo seemed like a match made in heaven. Woo appears to really care about gaming, and even stated that this was to be the sequel to his film Hard Boiled, an all-time classic. To top it off, it was running on Unreal 3 tech, one of the industry’s best looking engines. After having played a few impressive demos over the past couple of years, Stranglehold had become one of the games I was really looking forward to playing this fall.

So what went wrong? Not one thing in particular, but rather a number of failings that combine to make Stranglehold a mediocre (although sometimes invigorating) action title rather than a true next-gen masterpiece.

The main problem lies in the game’s pacing and total lack of variety. Playing the game, you quickly realize that the frantic gun battles, which were so exciting in small demo form, are all there is to this experience. Aside from a few boss battles (which aren’t really that dissimilar to the main game) and helicopter shooting sequence, it settles into a numbing rut. Run down a corridor, killing enemy after enemy. Enter a room and kill wave after wave of gangsters. Repeat ad nauseam.

At first, this is fairly entertaining. The environments are ultra-destructible; it’s fun to see how much carnage and mayhem you can cause in a Japanese restaurant. The Max Payne style “Tequila Time” works well, allowing you to jump to and fro while administering expertly placed headshots. This is augmented by unlocking the game’s special attacks, which allows you to use energy points for health boosts, quick headshots, and a couple of very powerful special attacks. However, the visceral thrills of combat are quickly dulled by the game’s unrelenting repetitiveness. At this point, Stranglehold’s flaws come to the fore, like the unwieldy and sloppy rail and table-sliding mechanics and the poor level designs and goals (Destroy 10 drug tables – no thanks!).

Maybe this would be excusable if the game offered up a good story or multiplayer features. Sadly, this is not the case. The plot and dialogue, which revolve around familiar themes like a damsel in distress, gang warfare, and myriad double-crosses, is not particularly involving. Woo’s influence occasionally shows itself in a novel camera angle or nifty zoom shot, but that’s about the extent of it. Multiplayer is bare-boned (a scant number of simple environments from the game) and poorly balanced.

Now, as I said, the tone of this review is partially colored by my own disappointment. Stranglehold is not a disaster. If you desire nothing more than to kill criminals on a massive scale, turn nightclubs into a war zone, and look cool doing it – this is your game. For me, Stranglehold was like guzzling a case of Mountain Dew. After the initial sugar rush wears off, you realize there’s not much substance there to sustain you over the long haul.