Over a decade ago, a man named John Woo made an action
masterpiece of a movie called "Hard Boiled". Recently someone
decided to make a video game sequel to it. I'm not sure how, but the stars
definitely came into alignment somehow. With John Woo's input and Chow
Yun Fat stepping back into the role, the deal was sealed. This game is
for the XBox 360, PS3, and PC. The PS3 version also comes with the movie
the game takes off from.
You ever see a John Woo film? See all that slick movement? You can
do pretty much all that shit here. You can:
Dive while shooting people.
Skim across counters/cars/tables while shooting people.
Ride a cart around while shooting people.
Slide down a banister while shooting people.
Run along railings while shooting people.
Dive prone and log roll around while shooting people.
Kick over a table to use as cover while shooting people.
Grab onto a chandelier and swing while shooting people.
Jumpkick off a wall and then shoot people.
The story is all original, with only 1 reference to the movie that
I've seen; one character is the father of the Johnny Wong, and it isn't
even mentioned in-game. I was kinda disappointed that nothing else from
the movie was mentioned but that's OK. It's not very special, but it
gives Tequila a reason to go rampant. Despite that, it is surprisingly
complex how the criminal elements all tie in. It also doesn't give any
further insight to how our Chinese cop was named after an alcoholic
Mexican beverage (Does he even have a first name?) No Cantonese subtitles
here, the dialog is all English save for generic yelling by mooks during
gameplay. I wish I knew what they were saying though. No swearing either,
which is kinda strange considering the bloodshed.
In short, the goal of the game is to get from point A to point B in
a level. Getting to point B requires killing between one to three hundred
people and occasionally performing another objective. Once at point
B, you'll meet a really tough guy whom you'll also have to kill. In
long, this game is Max Payne on crack. Instead of blasting your way
past scattered thugs, you'll more often then not find yourself going
up against at least 5 guys at a time. You get sealed in wide open areas
full of crap to hide behind and then the thugs just pour in.
You know how games allow you to break certain objects such as the occasional
bottle, window, or car? Well here just about everything can be shot
up and probably will, either by you or the 30 other guys shooting at
you. Crap goes flying off tables, anything made of glass shatters, and
pillars crumble into minimal structure formations, if not nothingness.
One level takes place in a shanty village, and the entire buildings
occasionally blow up. Even better, things explode, come crashing down,
or become swinging guillotines, killing anyone caught in their reach.
However, it is a very simple game. With a couple exceptions, it is
entirely about the killing. There's no sneaking up on unsuspecting thugs;
they know you're out there. There are no locked doors that you must
find the key for; just kill everybody around and one of your enemies
will open the door eventually. Only 1 level has some objectives to complete,
and 1 has you 'protecting' (more like 'avoid shooting') some civilians.
There is also some blasting of your environment to reveal a way through
a level. You don't even have to reload (I can't really complain but
I do sorta miss it.) The only break in the heroic bloodshed is the occasional
Mexican Standoff where you lean side to side to dodge shots while popping
off your own.
Well, maybe there's more. By kicking ass, you earn the ability to kick
it more easily. There are super powers to be had called "Tequila
Bombs" (never had one myself.) One allows you to heal a good chunk
of life. Another slows down time for a well-placed powershot (even magically
turning shotgun pellets into a single bullet) that is followed by bullet-time
and a short cinema of your victim contorting in agony. The next one
give you unlimited ammo and invulnerability. And the grandest bomb of
them all has you spin around firing, killing anybody exposed to your
360 degree vision. Sadly, that's usually only 3 or 4 guys, tops, so
it actually is kinda lame.
This game's biggest draw is the sheer chaos unfolding at any given time.
Dead bodies become instruments of mass destruction, breaking anything
they touch. Blast a guy with a shotgun, and he'll bounce off a pillar,
taking off a chuck. Even barrels explode on touch, resulting in further
mayhem. When you shoot someone, they don't just go "Aaahhh"
and fall down. They drop to their knees, clutch their body parts, and
scream/moan until they finally pass out, which could take upwards of
30 seconds. Even if you miss, your enemies will stop shooting to shield
their faces from flying debris. Even when you simply hide and pick off
the morons as they charge, the slow-mo, destruction, and ragdoll physics
make it fun. I burst out laughing no less than 20 times at all the carnage
I caused on the first level. Wish there was an instant replay.
No complaints on the presentation. The graphics are sweet, which
goes nicely with the explosions and flying bodies. Music is also pretty
good. The sound effects though, are topnotch. Every gunshot, every explosion,
every breaking object, oh hell every sound effect sounds perfect. You'd
swear they really did set up a microphone in the studio and have a shootout.
I almost refrain from putting on any custom soundtrack as it feels like
tampering with perfection.
The difficulty levels are apt. On Casual, the game is a cinch and I
found myself nonchalantly standing in the open taking down the enemy
while 80% of their shots went over my head. On Normal, the game is what
I'd consider 'normal' for difficulty, as in "not putting forth
any real effort will probably result in failure." On Hard, the
difficulty really jumps up and the enemies don't fuck around, and neither
can you. On Hard-Boiled... well, I don't know how difficult hard-boiling
is, but I'm guessing it is really hard. Playing on Hard is actually
pretty fun, although the bosses are a bit ridiculous since they generally
require being shot in the head with an automatic weapon for a full minute
to die, and you die in like 3 seconds. If you do attempt Hard-boiled,
do note that the bosses do not go in order of easiest-to-hardest. The
3rd level boss is probably the hardest in the game. Thankfully the game
is broken into 'chapters', and you only need to complete them all on
a certain setting to clear the game. If HB gets to you, you can scrap
your game and play the levels out of order.
The only real drawback is that some John Woo moves are context sensitive
(not too much a problem since almost everything can be interacted with.)
You gotta wait for the glowing signal to indicate "HEY, JUMP ON
ME!" to do any rail maneuvers or chandelier swings. Plus, Tequila
won't dive unless there's sufficient room. I guess this combats the
realism breaker of just stopping on a wall and finishing the animation,
but this also leads to being shot and frantically screaming "DIVE
MOTHERFUCKER!" Finally, you can hide behind stuff and peek left
and right, but you can't hide behind low objects and fire over the tops
of them. You can only crouch and uncrouch behind them. At least crouching
actually works here unlike Max Payne.
Only other thing is that dying on higher difficulty puts you at a disadvantage.
You lose any Tequila Power you may have collected. Sometimes the game
doesn't even keep your arsenal (although it does 95% of the time.) I
brought dual SMG's and an M16, maxed on ammo, to a boss fight. I died
and respawned with a shotgun. With 5 shells. To give perspective on
how lame this was, the boss in question was Lok on Hard-Boiled. THANKS
A FUCKING LOT GAME.
This game got somewhat lukewarm scores from the 'professional' reviewers.
I understand how the game does sorta deserve only good-but-not-great
score when you take all the bits together, but the game gets an "A"
for being so much goddamn fun. If you enjoyed Max Payne, you will (probably)
fucking LOVE this game. It is a bit short however at only 7 levels,
which can each be beat in less than an hour. I recommend trying it on
Hard to keep from beating it in an afternoon. It took me about a month
to crack Hard-Boiled. But I beat it 3 times and I'm ready for another
go whenever I feel like it. No 2 games are going to be the same. This
could be the start of a beautiful new franchise.
Bottom Line: This game is fucking awesome, with a capital FUCKING. Now
where's the video game sequel to The Killer?