Stranglehold is one of those games, you just know what to expect going in.  You are Inspector Tequila from the John Woo action film Hard Boiled.  You are going into battles with hundreds upon hundreds of enemies ready to blow your brains out.  Your mission is to pretty much grab any type of firearm you can and blast them into the next millennium.  If you succeed, mission accomplished, if not, load your game and start over.  Either way this is one incredibly fun action game!

Stranglehold really is like a John Woo action film come to life the way in which it is presented visually on the PS3.  Midway Studios, Chicago has done a fantastic job with the graphics here.  It is clear that this is a next-gen PS3 game as it uses a great physics engine.  The way in which the visuals work is that they really do not focus all that much on the actual enemies you will be facing.  To be quite honest the enemies are not that detailed at all and kind of look the same throughout the game.  The locations which you will be blowing away though are highly detailed.  They are occupied by a lot of interactive items, have nice textures, and are very well-built.  They really give you the feel that you are in an action film.

Where the visuals shine though is with the environments and the amount of sheer action that is going to be whizzing by your head at all times.  Run into a market and start firing away and you will see watermelons get shattered into pieces, food carts go flying by, gas containers blowing up.  There is truly an incredible amount of destruction going on around you in these battle sequences and they come across as extremely enjoyable to view.  It is like you are watching an action film, it truly is.

The animations are also pretty well done.  There could have been more variation with the animations in the way which you interact with the environment as things seem jumpy at times, lacking a few fluid motions here and there.  Overall though the movements come across smooth no matter if you are running down a railing, sliding across a table, etc.

The audio is lacking only because the characters truly should not have been speaking English in this.  And if Midway really wanted them to speak English, these actors needed some better lines and some talent added in as well.  The story is told, but the voice acting is nothing that is going to draw you in as the voice-work is rather mediocre.  Sound effects on the other hand are stellar.  When you run out and guns start firing and blazing around, bouncing off walls and metal carts, tearing through skin left and right, you will feel like you are in a mafia war zone.  It is quite intense in a great surround sound system to say the least.