A Shot of Tequila (Time)

I logged into the multiplayer mode of Stranglehold today to see if there is anyone around for a quick game and sure enough, i did managed to find someone this time. With him hosting, we quickly engage a game of mano a mano deathmatch with just the two of us trapped in that teahouse. The game runs surprisingly smooth on multiplayer online even smoother than the actual single player campaign i believed, perhaps because it's just two players in one largely destructible environment.

The first 8 minutes were pure fun as the tequila time gauge has yet to fill up so both of us were on even ground more or less, the nice thing is there are healthpacks and weapons all around so you can easily engage in a very long duel of running and gunning without actually killing anyone. Once the tequila time gauge finally tops up however, a player can easily dispatch the other away by using the tequila time to their advantage because the other player has no idea when their opponent is in tequila time or not. The game also doesn't engage tequila time automatically like the single player campaign so i die a few times before i realised my opponent was using tequila time to his advantage. The worst part was when i actually got my first kill and by doing so, resetting my opponent tequila time made him go into hiding while waiting for his gauge to fill up again. Having being new to the multiplayer mode, i was certainly surprised by this move but maybe it's the same for everyone else because of how invaluable tequila time advantage is.

Handsome Devil with the Cigarette

When i first saw the japanese box art of Yakuza 3 revealed, i immediately thought of John Woo's Hard Boiled. Some one on the Yakuza 3 team must be a fan of the John Woo classic as there is a scene in the film where Tony leads his head back lost in his thoughts, the same manner as kazuma does here. Sure it could be a coincidence as i'm sure there are many other similar pose of one smoking but here's another coincident for you, when Hard Boiled was first released on DVD in Japan, it featured the same iconic shot of Tony Leung on the cover of the DVD box art. While i don't have the DVD in my possession to show or any reference for that matter, i certainly remembered it well enough. I also remember watching my Criterion Collection of WKW's In The Mood for Love and inside, Kar-Wai casually referred to Tony Leung as the handsome devil with a cigarette when they first worked together in Days of Being Wild.

Yakuza 3 is scheduled for release in February next year and i haven't even finish playing Yakuza 2 or heard anything of the Kenzan spin-off getting localised. If there is ever a reason to feel proud as a PS3 owner, this is it. Third-party exclusive doesn't get any better than this.

Fearsome Combination

While debating on a local forum on whether multiple-disc games has already become a relic of past generation gaming, i can't help but to reminisce about Fear Effect on the original Playstation. Heavily influenced by the films of Hong Kong cinema which i also happened to be a long-time fan of, Fear Effect was probably my first love affair with cel-shaded games. Long before Suda51 was pushing the envelope on sex and violence portrayed in cel-shaded games, Stan Liu and his team of talented designers at Kronos Digital were already giving it their best shot on Fear Effect.

Aside from the eye-catching cel-shaded graphics they had another ace up their sleeves, pre-rendered backgrounds unlike any you have seen in the 32-bit era. Often critised for looking static, Fear Effect featured a looping-effect on their pre-rendered background where a bunch of effects could be incoporated into the background, making it lively instead of having your character just walking through a painting. That all came at a price of having to put up with four discs to swap through an essentially one disc long game with these looping-backgrounds taking up all the space. Fear effect had a trio of interesting and very likable leads and they would proceed to add another female to the mix in their follow-up prequel, Retro Helix also on the Playstation. With two successful outings on the original Playstation, Fear Effect was set to make the jump to PS2 and indeed, screenshots released indicated that a third title was well in the works however it never saw the light of day.

Apart from a movie adaption being developed with Uwe Boll and Stanley Tong participation very little is known of the fate of the Fear Effect series. However Fear Effect remains as probably the best game to pay homage to HK cinema, a generation before the likes of Jet Li's Rise to Honour and John Woo's Stranglehold. It has all my favourite elements which i still hold dear to me now; survival horror, cel-shaded graphic sand HK cinema so it's little wonder why i still reminisce fondly about Fear Effect.

Stranglehold Scores

Stranglehold as a game alone is such a hard-sell seeing that the whole campaign last for roughly less than ten hours. Sure Midway could have made it a bit longer but there is really no point to it as the whole game is rather repetitive and any longer would not have serve the game any good. In the end, the whole John Woo experience feels unfulfilled because while the game does play like a John Woo film, it lacks that cinema flair of it's silver screen predecessor. The cutscenes in Stranglehold are just plain bad and i found myself wishing that there were less cutscenes in the game, it was that bad.

Thankfully the Hard Boiled movie which inspired the game is also included on the Collector Edition, making the purchase worthwhile at its current price which is about the price of a blu-ray movie alone. Hard Boiled isn't just any movie, if you have not seen it i strongly urge you to watch it if you have any love for action films.

Enemies defeated - 1264
Highest style combo - 32
Style point earned - 2857
Paper cranes found - 110
Damage to world - $ 146,048,617

Overall ranking - C -

Coyote Chow

Remember the Wile E. Coyote and the Road runner show from Looney Tunes where the bird is constantly on the run from the hungry coyote? Somehow the coyote will always lay the most obvious of trap, like a boulder hanging right above a bait just to lure the unsuspecting coyote so he can eat him.

The enemies in Stranglehold are often strategically placed under such circumstances and unfortunately they lack the AI or the good fortune of our roadrunner to escape their impending doom. So it's all up to our Inspector Tequila to play the big bad coyote and put them out of their misery. I wish Stranglehold would have better level design so you have to somehow lure these guys under the traps before setting it off. This is the sort of level design you can excuse from maybe a generation ago but now in this generation where every piece of the environment is destructible (such is the selling point of Stranglehold) and the enemy AI is expected to provide some kind of challenge, this is really not acceptable. Welcome to the world of Stranglehold, where all your guilty pleasure fantasies come to life like the ultimate John Woo movie.

Into the Blu

Apart from the bonus blu-ray i received from the bundle and the MGS4 bonus disc, i don't actually have any blu-ray movies. This Stranglehold Collector's Edition which contain the full-length feature film of Hard Boiled will be my first though essentially it's not exactly a blu-ray movie disc.

I always made the excuse that i can barely keep up collecting games so that's why i don't collect blu-ray movies. Judging from my pattern of owning multiple copies of the same game, it's a probably good idea to keep away from the temptation of blu-rays. The truth is i used to be an avid collector of DVD during the DVD boom and it pains me to have to start all over again. Sure i'm sure many faced the same dilemma and i have seen some new blu-ray collector letting go of their old DVD collection to fund their new interest. I for one do not intend to do the same though it's not to say that i would completely ignore the format, the blu-ray version of newer films are still the most viable way to go. As for older movies, those that i already owned i intend to keep and won't necessarily upgrade to blu-ray unless the new version happens to have some new features.

Prepare to Go Ballistic

Blogging has its own perks too even if you are not a babe with a hundred visitors a day. So there i was dreaming up my post yesterday and finishing it up over the evening by posting the appropriate links to each item on my shopping list. I intentionally put links to each item from Play-asia because i knew they aren't available on Play anymore so it should be obvious why i'm eager to go down to Singapore to look for them. So there i was at Play-asia looking for the links and lo and behold, Stranglehold Collector Edition was back in stock again!

I immediately ordered it along with a little something else to make up the numbers so by this time week now, my Playstation3 should be busy again. Hopefully i would have finished Okami by then but it's really not necessary anymore as i realise there is little point to rush through a game like that. Stranglehold on the other hand is not, it's the kind of mindless fun that you can quickly rush through and pick it up again every now and again. It should make a nice little distraction before i settle down to play Lost Planet.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

Whenever a long weekend is around the corner, everyone starts thinking about a vacation be it a long or a short one. Well i don't really need a vacation but i have been meaning to go down to Singapore to do some major game-hunting for quite some time now.
You see, since i got the new console i haven't really got the chance to go shopping for games especially early generation games which i might have missed, or even some old PS2 gems since i got a BC unit. I'm the sort of guy who likes having a stack (a small one, preferably) of games by my side just waiting for me to play and I have compiled a list of games which i have been meaning to make a trip down to Singapore to look for.

1. Zack & Wiki
Yes, i haven't given up on looking for this title and i'm fairly confident i should be able to find it there. i've seen it selling in several stores and since most asian wii users don't normally buy original games there's a good chance it might still be there.

2. Ace Attorney 3
The final episode in the Phoenix Wright is just golden, it was never released in Europe and and came out shortly before Apollo Justice so i suspected it had a pretty low print run. Of course, there is always the Japanese import version available but since i owned the US version of both the earlier two episodes i would really like to keep it consistent in completing the trilogy.

3. Stranglehold
I have been following this game all the way from development to release and still haven't played it yet! The collector's edition would be perfect as i don't think i want the regular edition anymore after missing out on getting it for less than USD 20. I always make it a point to only get games that i would play more than once and this one fits the bill perfectly. On top of it, i'm a real big fan of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat.

4. God Hand
A bit of a odd one, i made a pact with Andy to pick this up the last time as it was selling cheap and was on offer if you buy more than one. I don't remember the details but i never got around to buying it then, i still want this one for the sake of completion because i also happened to be a big fan of shinji mikami and despite what the reviews said, i liked this game.

Octopus Garden

Play-asia is having their annual summer sale again with everything in-stock discounted 25% but be sure to catch this octopus quick. Upon learning this last friday evening, i quickly went to work and frantically search through their store for bargains. I found Stranglehold going for less than USD $25 which i was going to order right away but play was facing some technical issues and took their servers off, even until 2am that night.

So i waited till the next day to place my order and to my horrors, the item was already snapped up!

Damn it, looks like i wasn't the only discount scavenger lurking around, over the course of the week among the other items that i was interested in include Tomb Raider Anniversary Wii, Nights Wii and Ghost Squad Wii, all in-stock before being snapped up.
Apart from Stranglehold, i could have placed my order earlier to earn that discount but the truth is i kinda lost interest upon missing out on Stranglehold. Looks like this octopus is going to be harder to catch than it looks, the sale ends this sunday and i might just wait till then to place my order to see if any of the said item might be back in stock before then. If not, i might just order something else though i won't reveal yet what it might be.

Learning from a fellow forumer, you will just have to come back later this week to find out what i will eventually order.