Interactivity is a major buzzword in today's gaming world. Uncountable numbers of games for almost any platform you can think of claim to provide environments that can be shot up, ripped apart, climbed on, molded to the player's liking, and so forth. It's a great idea in theory, but in concept, I haven't played many that have really delivered. Most of this interactivity seems to be accomplished in cleverly scripted events; while I find many such moments enjoyable, I can only shoot so many more glass bottles and pass that off as "interactivity."

Enter Stranglehold, an upcoming action game that boasts the kind of crazy fight scenes you can only see in a John Woo film. How can it do this? Because it more or less is a John Woo film. With the critically acclaimed director's name on the title, Stranglehold aims to provide gamers with the type of fast-paced fight scenes that are normally available only in movies. How? Allegedly, with some of the most interactive environments ever seen in gaming.

So the question asked by gamers to titles such as Red Faction and Black remains: will this game really supply heretofore unparalleled interactivity, or will I yet again be forced to entertain myself by busting caps in innocent glass bottles? Brian Eddy, producer at Midway Games, hopes for the former.