There’s something to be said about video game storytelling. Not to jump on the games = art bandwagon (by the way, fuck you Roger Ebert), but an exceptional game can whisk you away and provoke just as much emotion from someone as much as any movie or any book.
Also, higher chances of cleavage of epic proportions
On the other end of the spectrum, you have your mindless shooting games where your main goal is to turn anything not nailed down to a squishy, bullet-absorbing pulp. While fun in their own right, can you honestly consider Macho Dudes With Guns III: Requesting Backup something that would engage you emotionally? No? Okay, what if you were Chow Yun-fat?
Stranglehold is considered the spiritual sequel to the John Woo movie Hard Boiled; A Hong-Kong cop action flick. In Stranglehold, Chow Yun-Fat returns as Detective Tequila for a hard-hitting seven hours of shooting people in the face.
I learned a lot from this game, more than what they taught me at school. So I thought I’d share with you all my experiences:
1) Everything even remotely horizontal has oil all over it
As I ran through the Hong Kong markets; Checking out what’s on sale, trying the local food and shooting people in the face. I noticed that a lot of the benches were rather slick. So much so, that I could slide across one of the stalls with pretty much no effort required.
This wasn’t just for benches, either. It’s like part of the opening ceremonies in these places seem to be “cover fucking everything in KY Jelly”. Even the peaceful joy of sitting at a fountain and taking in the atmosphere was hampered by all the sliding around I had to do. While I didn’t get a chance to sit down and relax, it provided me with a rather decent tactic when it came to shooting people in the face.
2) During a standoff, everyone takes turns (except for you)
So I encountered a few angry locals. It probably didn’t help that I kept shooting them in the face. Occasionally, you will be surrounded by a heap of these guys. But fear not! They’re all very polite and take turns shooting you in the face while you can shoot them in the face to your heart’s content. Just be careful of bullets flying your way! Remember your upper-body Yoga training when you inexplicably lean in ways that would make any normal person break their spine.
3) Everyone is an enemy (who wants to shoot you in the face)
No, seriously. I asked this one guy where the bathroom was and the pulled a gun on me. So far, no sign of the “old granny with a shotgun” comic relief, but give it time, I’m sure.
4) Your thighs are powerful instruments of death
When I was still a nearly-jobless slacker trying to make you laugh about how small my dick was, any time I accidentally smacked my leg into a table I screamed bloody murder. When I was Chow Yun-fat and shooting people in the face, they may as well be made of Balsa-wood. The more sturdy they looked, the easier they broke. It’s as if my thighs were circular saws or something.
5) Explosions solve everything
Michael Bay haters take note! The guy might be onto something here. This one time I was reading a book, right? and these guys were shooting me in the face. So I took aim and shot a barrel nearby which someone conveniently placed there. I never got through so many pages of “American Gods” in a long time.
6) Drug dens are numerous and easy to find
Much like one could easily find their way around by taking note of all the McDonald’s stores in an area, you can easily spot a drug lab by the plumes of black smoke being pumped out from all the drug equipment. Given that apparently raiding a drug lab back home was a big deal, maybe they should have Chow Yun-fat go around and randomly shoot people in the face
7) Rockets emit blue smoke
So this one time I was up in a helicopter shooting people in the face and on the odd occasion, there was this guy with a rocket launcher. Thankfully, disarming him (and the rocket) was easy to find thanks to all the neon blue smoke it was pumping out. It was kinda like “whack a mole”, but instead of a hammer, I had bullets. Lots of bullets.
) from “Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder”