Chow Yun Fan is lending both his likeness and voice to the project, although his in game character looks younger than the actor does today, to reflect the short period of time between Hard Boiled and Stranglehold. The first thing that viewers will notice in Stranglehold is the incredible detail in the visuals. Midway has chosen to utilize Epic’s powerful Unreal Engine 3 for Stranglehold, and the results speak for themselves. The character models are amongst the most realistic yet seen in a game. This is really the next generation of gaming, taking full advantage of the graphical horsepower behind its engine. Chow Yun’s character model is distinctly recognizable, and the other characters look similarly realistic. Their skin is particularly impressive, lacking the plastic-like sheen seen in several early Xbox 360 titles. Also scheduled for PLAYSTATION 3 and PC, Midway promises that the characters will look equally beautiful on all three systems.
Its (Stranglehold) biggest feature is what the team calls “Massive Destruction†or Massive D.
Heroic violence films are filled with objects getting blown to pieces, and thus Stranglehold can be no different. Over the course of a shootout, nearly everything in an area will be blown to bits. In the teahouse, table splinter, bottles shatter, food flies off plates, and light streams through bullet holes in windows. Individual tiles can be shot off walls and floors, and bullets leave crater in brick. Dust fill the air as things get destroyed, stuffing flies out of punctured seat cushions, and wood breaks apart into slivers. After a gunfight is over, the damage remains, leaving behind piles of ruble for the player to wade though.
After witnessing a demo of how fully destructible Stranglehold’s environments are, we have no doubt that players will spend time blowing things up just for the heck of it. As much fun as it is to cause random chaos, there‘s more to the game’s massive destruction than simply emulating the look of the John Woo Movie. It actually figures into the gameplay. If the player is taking cover behind a pillar, the enemies’ rounds will chip away at it until it’s no longer a suitable hiding place. You can kick up tables for cover, but they’ll break into several pieces after a few rounds, forcing you to look for a new safe zone. You can use the destructible environments against you enemies, as well, Some objects, like large neon signs, can be shot off walls, causing them to crush the enemies underneath. Perhaps the most impressive example, though, is one of the levels that we were shown during our visit.
