I am a John Woo fan. Ever since I saw “The Replacement Killers”, I was hooked on his style and Chow Yun Fat is about as good as an action star as you can get. Needless, to say, I waited in anticipation until our good friends at Midway sent us a copy to check out. Stranglehold does not pull any punches. This is an over the top 3rd person shooter that makes no attempt to be realistic. But hey, its a video game. I have to deal with reality for 10 hours everyday at work. I am just about halfway through and they game has been mostly good. Tequila(main character) is a bonafide killing machine. And killing is fun as hell. Especially the Tequila Bomb power ups. Hitting a guy square in the nuts from 100 feet away and seeing his reaction puts a smile on my face. The environments are overall very good and basically completely destructible. Using the surrounding for style kills is something out of the old James Bond games that Midway nailed. The bullet time action is a little played out, but changing the screen to faded colors when used was something new. The issues I have is first, the game is very, very repetitive. I understand the game is supposed to be a slaughterhouse, but 15 minute segments of just guys aimlessly running at you from every direction gets boring. The enemy AI is strange. They will cover their face when you shoot a pillar to protect from shrapnel, but will charge you kamikaze. Weird. Also, the LT trigger can be your best friend, but many times you are trying to dive out of the way, but end up sliding onto a rail in the wrong direction. I hope their are some more varied weapons in the later stages.