Interactivity is a major buzzword in today's gaming world. Uncountable numbers of games for almost any platform you can think of claim to provide environments that can be shot up, ripped apart, climbed on, molded to the player's liking, and so forth. It's a great idea in theory, but in concept, I haven't played many that have really delivered. Most of this interactivity seems to be accomplished in cleverly scripted events; while I find many such moments enjoyable, I can only shoot so many more glass bottles and pass that off as "interactivity."
Enter Stranglehold, an upcoming action game that boasts the kind of crazy fight scenes you can only see in a John Woo film. How can it do this? Because it more or less is a John Woo film. With the critically acclaimed director's name on the title, Stranglehold aims to provide gamers with the type of fast-paced fight scenes that are normally available only in movies. How? Allegedly, with some of the most interactive environments ever seen in gaming.
So the question asked by gamers to titles such as Red Faction and Black remains: will this game really supply heretofore unparalleled interactivity, or will I yet again be forced to entertain myself by busting caps in innocent glass bottles? Brian Eddy, producer at Midway Games, hopes for the former.
Shack: In the realm of martial arts, a name like John Woo is synonymous with a name in gaming such as Sid Meier. Tell us about how John became interested in the Stranglehold project.
Brian Eddy: John Woo has been amazing to work with! He has contributed a lot of animation and cinema direction, and has been extremely involved in the writing of the story. We are trying to recreate his cinematic vision in the game, so we regularly meet with him to review the latest version of Stranglehold and get his feedback, which is always very insightful.
Even when it comes to areas that he is not very involved in, like game-play design, he still often has a comment that adds to that aspect of the game, like how an animation could be done that would make a special move in the game more dramatic. It's really a pleasure and an honor to work with such an influential action film director.
Shack: Tag-teaming with John Woo will be Chow Yun Fat, reprising his role as Tequila. What was it like working with Chow?
Brian Eddy: Every time that we have worked with Chow Yun Fat he has also been extremely helpful and gracious. Early on he actually agreed to having a crew fly out to Hong Kong where he lives and do a full body 3D scan of him, but while they were there, Chow Yun Fat also allowed us to take a series of impromptu pictures showing off his different kind of facial posses so that when we do the cinematics in the game, not only will we have his voice acting for Tequila, but we will be able to match the character in game exactly to the way Chow Yun Fat's facial expression in real life would be for each emotion.
In terms of other actors that will appear in the game, we are not commenting on that yet....
Shack: What is the back story for Stranglehold?
Brian Eddy: In Stranglehold, Chow Yun Fat reprises his signature role as Tequila, from John Woo's cult classic, Hard Boiled. Tequila, caught in a war brewing between two rival gangs, is a hard boiled cop with a heart of gold who is not afraid to cross the line in order to see that justice is served.
Brian Eddy: Massive D is a feature that describes the fact that almost everything in the world that you can imagine could be broken, destroyed, smashed or blow up actually can be. We use a variety of techniques to achieve level of destruction. In terms of the Havok physics engine, we will be using that extensively in the game, from characters that get blown back into objects so hard they smash everything they hit, to making sure that every piece of debris that is blown in the air by your bullets looks cool, to having the vehicle in the game feel right and be fun to drive.
We used the Havok physics engine on Psi-Ops and received accolades for our implementation then, but we believe that on Stranglehold that we will take it to the next level.
Shack: Given the two big names behind this project, there are high expectations for the game's action sequences to live up to Hard Boiled's insane fights. Will Tequila be a master of his environment in the game, just as he was in the film?
Brian Eddy: Interactions with objects to do cool acrobatic stunts while traversing the environment is one of the core game-play elements of Stranglehold, and we make it clear to the player when they can interact with those objects by subtly highlighting them. If the highlight is on, and you press the interact button an interaction will always happen. If it is not on, no interaction occurs and Tequila will dive instead. It is straight forward and easy to do, but the results look like complex stunts and stunt combos.
In a typical example of game play, Tequila can be running along a second floor railing taking out enemies below when a chandelier comes into view hanging in front of him. It will highlight to show that you can interact with it and then the player just hits the interact button to cause Tequila to jump out, grab on to it and beginning swinging while being able to still aim and fire at enemies below. Then, the player can have Tequila drop to the ground (even on the head of an enemy, taking him out) or have him using the momentum of his swinging to jump to the second floor on the other side of the room.
It may sound a little complex, but it actually feels very intuitive! We want you to concentrate on the smooth flowing gunplay action and not fumbling with controller buttons.
Turn the page to read more about Stranglehold.
_PAGE_BREAK_Shack: What is "Tequila Time Slow Motion?"
Brian Eddy: John Woo used slow motion sequences in his movies to make his action scenes much more dramatic, and this technique has been heavily borrowed by a lot of other movies and games, including Max Payne, which showed that it could be made a very fun part of game play as well. Stranglehold is similar in the sense that they are slow motion sequences, but we've taken that dynamic and further tied it into game-play so that Tequila Time is not just a short term advantage, where the player can aim and fire in real-time while enemies are moving in slow motion, but also a long term advantage, where by doing cool moves and taking out enemies in a cinematic style gives the player style points that can be used to pull off special moves (Tequila Bombs) and ultimately to upgrade Tequila.
Skilled players will learn to use both the short and long terms benefits of using Tequila Time. We've also made it really easy to use for the masses while allowing the hardcore player full control if they want it. Tequila time will automatically come on for the player when they are interacting or diving if they have an enemy targeted. This allows you to concentrate on taking out enemies and automatically creates cool cinematic moments no matter what the skill level of the player. The better you get at the game the more impressive you can make the sequences.
Interaction combined with slow motion are also a lot of fun and make even more memorable experiences. Swinging from a chandelier while going into slow and pegging three enemies across the room really makes you feel powerful. Things like this will make the experience feel much better and different even though both games borrow from John Woo's Slow motion style. We've taken the experience up a few notches!
Shack: What are style points, and how do they affect game play?
Brian Eddy: Stranglehold is designed to be a cinematic experience, where gamers can actually play a John Woo blockbuster film, and are rewarded during game play with "style points" for killing enemies in creative and cinematic ways (shooting enemies while swinging from a chandelier or while diving onto a roll cart). Once they have earned enough style points they can pull off special moves such as the "tequila bomb," which takes out all of the enemies surround you – 360 degrees! There will be other special moves but we aren't ready to reveal them at this time.
Shack: What kind of fighting system(s) does Stranglehold employ? This is supposed to be a virtual Hollywood action movie, of course.
Brian Eddy: John Woo movies are really not about hand to hand combat, so we do not emphasis it much in the game. There is a basic melee system that really comes in handy in those rare cases where Tequila runs out of ammo or you are really close to any enemy, but our main focus is on fast paced cinematic gun play and cool interactions with the environments.
Shack: Can we expect any chase scenes, or other vehicle usage? It seems to be the thing all action games are trying to work in these days.
Brian Eddy: We are focusing on honing the on-foot action and cinematic gunplay that John Woo is known for.
Shack: What can you tell us about multiplayer?
Brian Eddy: We are not releasing details about multiplayer at this time.
Shack: Thanks for your time! Anything else you'd like to tell our readers about Stranglehold?
Brian Eddy: We can't wait for people to get their hands on Stranglehold because we believe that this it is going to set the bar for next-gen action games!
Stranglehold is in development for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, and will be available during Q3 2007.
