Today the demo for John Woo presents Stranglehold arrived at Xbox Live, so why not write about it?

The first thing I noticed on Stranglehold was that it looked far worst than what I remembered from trailers I had seen before, not only because the textures are washed out and the characters look all jagged, but because the animations look too artificial and there is no smooth transition between them.

The odd animations fit well with the controls of the game, it feels much like any other third person shooter (especially Dead To Rights and Max Payne, games that Stranglehold seems to draw much from), but sliding over every surface on the level makes it look artificial and sometimes confusing, including momments where you are walking backwards during a shootig and you hit a table, you will automaticaly slide stylish over it in slow motion.

The music is almost unnoticible and the sound effects are very well done, gun shots, screams and watermelons being squashed by Tequila’s butt sound just like the real deal.

If you have a Xbox 360 download the demo and see what you think of it.

For now the game looks a like a sub-par third person shooter. But with no direct competition and a whole month before Halo 3, Stranglehold might just find its niche.

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