Customer Reviews

Stranglehold

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are a number of great FPS and TPS coming out this season (CRYSIS, CALL OF DUTY 4 and UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 - just to name a few). Advanced graphics, new weapons, excellent gameplay, new ideas...all true. However, NONE HAS HALF THE STYLE OF STRANGLEHOLD!

This game is getting the bum wrap all over - for reasons unfathomable. From gaming magazines (I guess they have to rate some games badly to balance out giving the likes of BIOSHOCK full marks...) to gaming sites, the reviews STRANGLEHOLD gets seem to be written by people that have not played the game more than 20 minutes.

Sure, this is a game that takes up almost 13GB of your HDD and it yet runs for about 9-10 hours. Sure, if sports checkpoints (a cheap trick of game developers to artificially augment the game's length by having us replaying the same segments over and over). That is where it looses the 5th star. But the game IS FUN!

When was the last time that you had REAL FUN with a shooter? Dive-shoot in the rain, dodge bullets while sliding on table-tops or cat-walk up a stairs balustrade and pick out the bad guys one by one...And you get to do all these IN STYLE! Yes, this is the best TPS since MAX PAYNE!

Remember the movie THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS? Well, this is the game equivalent - and it is GREAT!

RECOMMENDED!

I have to agree with "SBJ400" and "Zodiac". Since they both said pretty much everything i was going to say, i won't repeat them. except I strongly recommend waiting til the price comes down a bit.

$50 for this game is WAAAAAAAAAAAYYY TOO MUCH!!! The game play is redundant, this game is SHORT...it only took me a measly 8 hours to finish on the hardest setting, and the replay value is very low.

Basically, yes, this is like Max Payne in a small way. You can slow down time and get the advantage on your enemies. The similarities end there.

Game play is nice and fast paced. I had a lot of video display crashes, have read others have had same problems. I suspect NVIDIA will release better drivers and the crashes will go away, unless it is the game itself.

Your weapons, like the game play, are always the same. Dual pistols, dual submachine gun, M16, shotgun, a heavy machine gun(no ammo to be found so when it runs out, too bad) and toward the very end...grenades and rocket launcher.

The lack of new goals and weapons gets old and by the start of the 3rd level you are worn out and somewhat bored. Best to walk away for a day or so and start each level fresh to prevent it going stale. Every level plays the same, shoot everything, survive and get to the next checkpoint. Kind of like Serious Sam. Nope, you cannot save when you want either. CHECKPOINTS BABY.

On the cool side, this game gives you an environment that is about 75% destructible. Tiles fly apart, columns come crashing down, lights fall and crush your enemies. you score points and survive better if you run and jump and hop across everything while gunning down baddies. Think Jackie Chan meets Tony Hawk.

On the easy setting this game is way too EASY! Medium was a pretty good fight but the hardest setting was the most fun for me.

honestly, I expected more and was disappointed. I really REALLY suggest you either pass this up or wait till the price drops below $25. SERIOUSLY! Consider the fact that Bioshock is available, Medal Of Honor : Airborne is available (not great but not bad ) and you have Crisys, F.E.A.R. expansion pack and Half Life 2's expansion pack coming all before X-mas!!!

I think the people behind Stranglehold worked hard and gave it their best but spent way too much time with too narrow a focus and forgot about making the levels different and refreshing. the graphics and video experience as a whole is lovely. There just isn't anything to make me want to play it again and I almost didn't finish the game because I was so sick of doing the same thing over and over and over.


I say this is - if you can truly afford to blow $50 on this and not feel bad when the disappointment comes, then go for it. If you need to be careful how you spend your money, PASS THIS UP or borrow it from your stupid, rich friend. No serial code, or online validation baloney. Just install and play.

Stranglehold for the PC is a very, very large game. It took up to 12 GB on my harddrive after full installation. However, the game is surprisingly short, but also difficult. If I just ran through without dying you could easily beat this game in as little as 8 hours, but dying and retrying things extends the length. It has a fair amount of replay value and it's great when you're in the mood to just shoot up a street or musuem. It's extremely action packed and even if it ends up being a short ride, it's entertaining and fun the whole time through. The graphics are really good, only slightly lower than Bioshock (which was sort of disappointing in the graphics department).

The bonus material to unlock was wonderful, and some were extremely funny. Not a lot of games have such great unlockables. Tons of mulitplayer skins and lots of videos and concept art.

The only thing that is bringing this game down is the online play. It is very glitched and some people are having problems with no servers coming up and failing to make their own.

Your best bet is save up for some of the highly anticipated PC games coming out soon and by then hopefully this game will be patched and you can enjoy it along with a more fitting price tag.

I am a hardcore violence loving gamer. When I saw this I was hesitant to buy it, I'm glad I did. It brings a new meaning to the word "action" with totally destroyable enviornments and stylish killing sequences. To put it simply, if you liked Darksector, you'll love Stranglehold.
The Unreal Engine shines and always delivers. My system is more than adequate but even a mid-ranged system would handle this game on rather high settings.
BUY, BUY, BUY!

The game is not terrible. There is an addictiveness to the "tequila time" feature. Also the game physics are pretty good. However the one major problem I have with this game is that the first "boss" you have to beat to finish a level is almost unbeatable! It took me dozens of tries and I was bout to give up and then I made it. The rest of the game is relatively smooth sailing. There are difficult parts but you have power ups, and better weapons by that point. That first boss, well he has a rocket launcher! Sure you can shoot him a ton of times between rockets, but that early in the game you only have pistols.
Also a big negative is the odd aiming controls. It is generally upside from how it works in every other FPS or adventure game I have played such as Quake, Doom, GTAIII, etc. While it does allow you to customize this behavior, it reverts to defaults during certain melee rounds! Silly and really sloppy.
It does look kinda good if you have a decent video card. Though the corny opaque-ness of some of the night time scenes remind me of Shinobi!
If you are a huge Woo fan you may as well buy it, it's so cheap it's hard to pass up. However, don't expect to be enthralled by the genius of John Woo. All you will get are Chow Yun Fat's voice and some overly difficult gameplay.

When I first got into gaming, one of the first games I got into was Max Payne-it was really cool how you could slow down the action, and take out a bunch of thugs without worry. In this game, you can do the same thing, however instead of Bullet time as in Max Payne, in this game, it's called Tequila Time. Also, while in Tequila Time, you can jump over tables, etc, but it gets really annoying when doing so, b/c the character in the game makes this really irritating sound, like he's dying or what you. I just could not see what the big deal about this game was. Another blatant rip off of this Game was, in Max Payne, towards the end, you have to fight a helicopter in Nichole Horne's building. In Stranglehold, you do the same thing-different setting, but still, same idea. In essence, this game was/is repetitive, and boring, as in Max Payne, well, I'm sure I need not say, but Max won over this game, Hands down.

Only played demo, liked the demo so much had to have this game. Haven't played full game yet.

Overall the game is alot of fun. My gripe is that the graphics should be better.

came as described and a little sooner than expected. that was nice
learning curve on game kinda steep but game was easier with controller as it said