Midway announced today that the sequel to John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Tequila Time infused Stranglehold has gone gold and will be shipping to stores for a September 5th release on the Xbox 360. A PC version will follow on September 18th, and September 25th will see the PS3 release. The game has been picked by a few as the sleeper hit of the fall, and we’re just a few days away from all the watermelon smashing and sign crashing mayhem gamers could ever hope to experience.

Stranglehold puts players in the role of Inspector Tequila, played in both Hard Boiled and Stranglehold by Hong Kong action star Chow Yun-Fat. Featuring intense gun battles that take the Max Payne time slowing mechanic to a ridiculously high dove flying level, Stranglehold promises to be as entertaining as the best of John Woo’s films. If you’ve played the demo on Xbox Live then you know essentially what the game is all about. You get a gun, bad guys show up, and you shoot the hell out of them and everything around you. In the end, you stand victorious until the next group of thugs makes the mistake of challenging Tequila. Then you unleash the doves and ironically pump 38 rounds of lead into each one.

Don’t forget PS3 owners, there is a limited edition version with the entire Hard Boiled film included on the Blu-ray disc. Rumors indicate this will be a true limited edition run, so this might be the rare case of a pre-order being needed if you’re interested in Stranglehold..