"Hard Boiled" & "Stranglehold"
By Ujio 3 Comments
So I finally got around to watching this movie after finding the collector's edition for PS3 for only $17.99 this past week. Now I should mention that I did previously rent Stranglehold a long time ago from GameFly. Honestly I wasn't that impressed, and it came off as simply a mediocre run 'n' gun game. Needless to say I got bored rather quickly. But like I said I found the CE for $17.99 and decided to give the game another shot (pun intended haha! I so funy!)
Anyway, I decided to watch the movie before (again) jumping right into the game. I figured "Well maybe after watching the movie and getting familiar with the character I can appreciate the game more." Mmmmeh...after watching the movie I can honestly say that I don't feel any differently than I did before watching. And I really have to contend the "greatest action flick" tag that is associated with this movie as well. Maybe it's because this is 2009 and the movie came out in 1992, but it definitely hasn't aged gracefully. I felt the movie ran a bit too long - like thirty mintues too long. The finale/climax was just prematurely dragged out, and I remember looking at the clock (several times) wondering when it was going to end which is never a good sign. Bear in mind I viewed this movie with an open-mind and willingness to like it, but it's really nothing special. It starts out great and has a decent story, but it really takes too long to wrap everything up and ends up damaging the overall experience. This is especially compounded when you already know what's going to happen concerning the good cop/bad guy scenario.
So since the movie was so long last night I wasn't really up to launching straight into the game afterwards. So that's what I did today and honestly knowing what I do about the movie and backstory the game experience hasn't changed that much either. Granted it's a tad more fun (just a tad) knowing the backstory, but not much. I still feel this is a mindless shooting gallery with a slo-mo game mechanic that hit its popularity back when Max Payne did it way back in 2001.
So those are my thoughts.