Stranglehold could not have picked a worse time to be released. Between BioShock and Halo 3 is almost certainly suicide. Nevertheless, this is one of Gamefly’s most rented games. Does it deserve to be considered a top title of 2007?

Presentation and Graphics: Stranglehold has some incredible detail when it comes to the faces of the characters. This is almost and exact replica of Chow Yun Fat. Shooting a man in the face from afar never seemed so real. The level design varies a little. Sometimes there is incredible detail as in the Mega restaurant and other times as in the outdoor sea town, they seem generic. The destructible environments are a blast and enemies cover their face when shrapnel is near. There is not much to the menus; the design is creative but there is not much to do besides play the game. There is some DVD content stuff if you are really into John Woo. The animations are a little bland though. Enemies fall the same way everytime it seems. The enemies are also cookie cutter which takes away some style points. 4 of 5

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Sometimes, there’s some priceless game glitches that make you laugh. This is one of them. Watch as Inspector Tequila from Stranglehold gets his groove on.

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.

A community moderator over the official Midway forums has confirmed that a demo for their new hit game, Stranglehold, will be hitting the PS3 this week.

The demo, already available for Xbox 360 and PC, has been long awaited by PS3 owners. The demo will go live Thursday during the regularly scheduled weekly update to the PlayStation Store.

I’m looking forward to seeing the differences (if any) in the graphics and controls between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. I’m getting the PS3 version since it has Hard Boiled on the disc for the limited edition.

The polls have been closed and your voice has been heard. It really came down to the wire on this one. As a reminder, your choices were BioShock, Halo 3, and Stranglehold.

And the winner is… BioShock. The potential game of the year candidate literally won by 1 vote over Halo 3. A total of 353 of you voted.

Thanks for voting, everyone! Check back more polls coming soon from your friends at Loot Ninja.

Just a reminder that our FPS poll is still running until this Friday to find out what you think will be the best FPS in the coming weeks. Hit the poll to let us know.

Looks like right now Halo 3 is edging out Bioshock by a handful of votes. Surprisingly Stranglehold has been left in the dust.

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With some great titles coming out very shortly, we here at Loot Ninja are curious what our readers are leaning toward between Halo 3, Stranglehold and Bioshock. What will give these titles the edge, will it be space aliens, underwater mayhem or slow motion gunshots?

Let us know and we will let you know who the winner is next week.

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I really got a chance to sit down with the Stranglehold Demo and man I am impressed as all hell. I know my fellow editor gave his impressions but this demo deserves even more kudos.

I confess to being a big John Woo and Chow Yun Phat fan, thoroughly enjoying their movies, Hardboiled, The Killer, God of Gamblers, Better Tomorrow, etc., so hearing about this game really got me excited. I had my reservations after seeing so many other Movie franchises crash and burn, but this demo made me a believer. The demo gives a great feel for the voice acting, gameplay, graphics and controls. It allows you to get a great feel for the interactive nature of the game and what you can expect.

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I wasn’t too excited for Stranglehold. That is, until the demo came out on the Xbox 360. Now it’s one of my most anticipated titles of September. Here’s a video showing how the developers came up with all the ideas for the interactive environments and such.

Here’s some HD goodness.

If you have not checked out Stranglehold demo on Xbox LIVE yet, here is what you are missing. You too could be busting a cap in some guys junk in bullet time.