E3 2005: John Woo unloads both guns at the next-gen

Explosive change of medium looms...

Like two shy teenagers, Hollywood and the games industry have been courting each other for many years now. With only a few furtive fumblings so far, all of the wordy kind, it has taken up until now for a director of the calibre and reputation of John Woo to take the plunge and attach himself to a new game production. Stranglehold is set in both Hong Kong and Chicago and will star Woosfs long-time collaborator Chow-Yun Fat as inspector eTequilaf Yuen. If that name is familiar to you, itfs the role that Fat played in Hard Boiled, the gun-fest that propelled Hong Kong action films into the consciousness of western film fans. Set to appear on enext-genf consoles, Stranglehold sounds like being an explosive action adventure game. Under development at Midwayfs Chicago studio, who last worked on Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, Stranglehold is scheduled for release next year.

Woo is also working on a game with the creeped-out master of British horror Clive Barker. Demonik is coming out for both the Xbox and PC next year and will offer players the chance to fight for the rights of demon kind to forge their own destiny, free from the aspirations of corrupted human beings. Given developers Terminal Realities work on Bloodrayne and Barkerfs leaning towards the less pleasant side of story telling, we can expect a 3rd person action adventure with a plot that is horrific in all the right ways.

As far as I can recall, this transference of directing talent has only gone in the other direction. With Chris Robertfs less than stellar transition in mind, I can only hope that Mr Woo can handle a video game as well as he can handle a movie. His upcoming Spy Hunter treatment should tell us know how well he can turn a game into a movie.

By Sam Gibson