Stranglehold
Preview
Famous movie director John Woo is deeply involved in the development of Stranglehold. Need we say more?
by Rook
previewed on PC
Truly destructible
Saying 'destructible environment' is an often-heard marketing phrase but in this case, it is actually a slight understatement. Midway Games is developing Stranglehold with use of the Unreal 3 graphics and Havoc physics engines. It is needless to say that the combination of these two engines opens up a slew of graphical and physical possibilities. The environment isn't your average 'shoot and explode' destructible. If you shoot through a window, shards of glass not only explode in all directions and then disappear. The broken shards will remain and this goes for everything that you do. World detail will not just fade away after a few moments never to be seen again. The newly created 'landscape' will directly be integrated into your game experience. The crackle of glass under Chow Yun-Fats shoe as he runs across the window front with his signature twin pistols, brass casing flying, smoke billowing and the bad guys being graphically flung out windows and against walls from the impact of bullets. All quality ingredients to yet another blockbuster title for John Woo.
Stranglehold may already sound appetizing to some, but it gets better. The game is scheduled to be released with online multiplayer support. Though Midway has reported they have a unique way to handle multiplayer 'Tequila Time' events, they have yet to release any details about its functionality.
Perfect marriage?
It goes without saying that Stranglehold is definitely a title that warrants attention on a variety of levels. Not only is the title shaping up to be an amazing game, it is a true merging of Hollywood and the gaming industry. The two have come together many times in the past but how many of those 'movie based' titles really came with the quality and funding that Midway has already committed to Stranglehold? In its own way, Stranglehold is a first of its kind being labeled as a sequel to a Hollywood movie by the director himself. With movie based games being the tread for 2007, close attention will be given to this as gaming and movies merge to hopefully bring us high quality, cinematically entertaining gaming experiences.
Groundbreaking gameplay, Hollywood acting and storyline, top of the line graphics/physics engines and huge accurately detailed real-life locations. All of it fully destructible in the high-octane multiplayer world, in a way that only John Woo could bring us. What more could one wish for?
