Stranglehold is a fast-paced 3^rd person action game, based on the Unreal 3.0 modified graphic engine and draws many influences from Max Payne franchise which ironically draws influences from John Woo's Hard Boiled movie. Anyway he wanted to revive the movie and Inspector's Tequila character, so with the help of Midway Games Studios, he did the game.

The key element of the game is the Tequila Time equivalent to Bullet Time in Max Payne. Inspector Tequila can slow time when jumping, interacting or aiming an opponent. This technique will generate a cinematic effect originally invented by Woo in Hard Boiled, and not by Rockstar's franchise Max Payne.

Tequila will encounter lots of enemies into a dynamic fast-paced gun-shooting sequence. The whole gameplay relies on this, so don't be surprised if you don't stop in shooting opponents. As boring as it may seem, the game will make you sweat a lot and become a part of it. The whole action is very artistically implemented, so that you will want more and more to continue the game. Every situation that you encounter can be different and more spectacular. Using interaction with the environment, Tequila can cause huge destruction and kill the opponents in a less usual way.

Imagine that you can destroy anyones cover, by shooting several times the crate, table, wall he uses to hide. You can also cause accidents, by destroying parts of the environment: shoot a billboard and it will drop on the head of your enemy.

To be more dramatic, the game uses a location-based damage system. The A.I. responds differently to various hit locations. This effect can be seen with the help of the Precision Aim (a part of Tequila Bombs).

By using it you can actually see the trajectory of the bullet with a dynamic view angle until the bullet hits the target in the specific spot. Otherwise the effects of the system can hardly be seen because of the fast action.

The Standoff mode is a new way to slow down the game's rhythm by introducing a new way of shooting when you are surrounded by several enemies. The game automatically enters in this mode in which you have to just aim the enemy and shoot while dodging their bullets in Tequila Time manner. Unfortunately these scenes are scripted and appear always in the same places.

The ingame cinematic scenes achieve their goal to increase the dramatic atmosphere of the game, but in the demo version is hard to create an opinion about the whole story. I hope that the story will be as valuable as it was in Hard Boiled so that it could work as a reward for the player.