stranglehold.

seeing as how i'm still sore, i took one extra day off from work. i've never really felt a soreness like this before...

so, my day will be spent sitting, legs open, on the couch, playing, "double agent."

i did however, want to comment on a demo i got off xbox live.

john woo's, "stranglehold," starring, in pixel form, chow yun fat.



i had no desire from the time i read about this game in, "game informer," until this morning, to really play this game. it just didn't seem my cup of tea... however, i do enjoy free demos, and decided, why not.

what i got, was unexpected.

the graphics are nothing special considering the console, but the controls and story alone are incredible. the controls more so than the story. and that's an oddity for me to exclaim seeing as how i'm a whore for story, but the barrage of neat things you can do with your character aptly named, "inspector tequila," yes, it's a sequel to woo's '92 film, "hard boiled," is just amazing.

you have a bullet time sort of thing, but you can slide down rail posts and go into your bullet time, and then at the same time, jump and dive while firing round after round into hong kong baddies, and then right as you come to the bottom of the railing, land on a four wheel watermelon cart, and go sliding around on your belly while on the cart, blasting enemies. it's fucking sweet.

you can jump backwards, land on your back, and just stay on the ground rolling around blasting fuckers in the balls or the head.

and my personal favorite, this thing called stand-off, where when you get surrounded by four or more guys, you go into this first person, slow motion perspective, popping off rounds, while matrix like dodging theirs.

you can enter this bomb mode, and signal in on a certain area of their body, i like the headshots, fire a round, and watch it from the bullets perspective as it marks a nice hole where it lands, pouring blood out everywhere.

this is the first demo i ever played all the way through. i seriously couldn't find myself able to put the controller down.

a rare gem thought to be shit, will be owned by me the end of this month. next week i get, "bioshock," and i'm definetly trading in some stuff for, "stranglehold."