The Punisher

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on March 10, 2005

Review: For Punisher fans only.

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If there was ever a comic book that was destined to be a video game, The Punisher is it. The dark Marvel comic series follows the angry and tortured life of former Marine and FBI agent Frank Castle, who is haunted by the memory of watching his wife and children murdered in a mob hit meant for him. Suffering from survivor's guilt and the anguish of losing his family, Frank becomes the Punisher, a coldly efficient vigilante crime fighter who acts as judge, jury and executioner Ц with heavy emphasis on the latter. The Punisher quickly earns a fearsome reputation for the brutal and creative forms of punishment he hands down to mobsters, drug dealers and anyone else foolish enough to be on the wrong side of the law.

Gunning down criminals in unique and ultra-violent ways is always a good video game formula. Mix in a bad-ass hero with modern gaming technology and a dash of the always cool Marvel style, and you've got a recipe for a smash hit, right?

Well, almost.

The Punisher is a game that delivers exactly what you expect, but not much else (in fact, in one area in particular, it delivers a lot less than expected; more on this later). Developer Volition worked hard to cater to the comic book's fans, as evidenced by the hiring of Punisher writers Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti to pen the story. The game is filled with cameos from throughout the Marvel universe, including appearances by Black Widow and Nick Fury Ц both of whom will lend a helping hand and fight by your side Ц and bad guys like Bullseye and Kingpin, along with many other pleasant surprises. However, if you're not a Marvel fan, the surprises, references and inside jokes will go over your head Ц and when stripped of its УMarvel-nessФ, The Punisher doesn't offer much beyond the average action shooter.

Even the graphics are average; it looks nice enough, but won't blow your socks off. The same goes for the generic-sounding gunshot and explosion sound effects. A strange bug that causes the sound level to drop to a near whisper during cutscenes doesn't help matters much either.

ФEvery muzzle flash means one less scumbagФ

The story starts off with Frank busting a crack house and taking down your average, everyday sleazeballs, but he soon gets involved with the New York mob, the Russian mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, and other increasingly evil nasties. The story takes some fun twists along the way and is a little predictable and hokey, but in conjunction with the excellent voice acting Ц led by Thomas Jane, star of The Punisher movie, who does a better job as Frank here than he did on the big screen Ц it creates a cool atmosphere that makes you feel as if you're really in a Marvel comic book world.

Played in the third-person view, your goal is simple: kill bad guys. The developers have generously given you a wide array of means to help you achieve this end; in fact, they boast that there are over 100 different ways to kill people. The maps are littered with objects for you to pick up, and if you can pick it up, you can kill with it. From beer bottles to pipes and baseball bats, to knives and cleavers, to pistols, SMG's, shotguns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and the always enjoyable flame thrower, you'll never find yourself lacking an instrument of death in your hands. Best of all, you can dual-wield almost any weapon, including shotguns, assault rifles and even 100-round belt-fed light machineguns. Nice! The only restriction is that you are limited to carrying a maximum of two pistols and one main weapon in your inventory, but since you can pick up and use your victims' weapons, this restriction is essentially irrelevant. You can also exchange weapons with allies who will occasionally show up to help you.

Since guns can get boring after a while, you can also perform a Quick Kill. Get close enough to an enemy and you can kill him instantly with a press of a button, with each Quick Kill differing depending on what weapon you're using at the time. The only downside is the kill is not that УquickФ. When you hit the button, you enter into a brief pre-rendered kill animation but in the meantime, everyone else can still shoot you, so the Quick Kill should only be used when there is no one else within firing range.

You can also perform Special Quick Kills by grabbing an enemy and dragging them to special zones marked by a floating yellow skull. These are exclusive to the environment and can range from something as simple as throwing someone out an upper storey window to feeding an enemy to a hungry python.

Slaughter Mode is yet another method of kicking bad guy butt. It is similar to bullet-time in that enemies slow down and you speed up for a limited time, but you cannot use your guns. Instead, you whip out your knives and can zip around chucking knives or performing Quick Kills; you also take less damage and your health bar will slowly regenerate. When your Slaughter Mode meter runs empty, you revert back to normal. To refill the meter, just keep filling enemies with lead.

But wait, that's not all! By grabbing an enemy, you can also use them as human shields (a very good strategy when you are overwhelmed by bad guys) and toss them through doors, but the main purpose of grabbing people is to interrogate them. You can interrogate anyone, although enemies with a white skull over their head have important information for you, so you don't want to kill them before engaging in a nice pleasant chat first. When you enter into interrogation mode, you can choose from four standard (and self-explanatory) methods to make your victim talk: choke, punch, face smash and gun tension (shoving a gun in his face). Interrogation involves playing a mini-game where you use the thumbsticks to adjust the tension of your punishment, as displayed via a pressure meter. Keep the pressure within a narrow sweet spot for three seconds and you successfully break your opponent, who will then spill the beans for you; however, if you get overzealous, you'll kill him. You also gain health with each successful interrogation; in fact, it is the only way for you to gain health. Occasionally, when you break a victim you can sometimes trigger a flashback Ц which is actually a frame from the comic books Ц that gives you a glimpse into Frank's dark psyche. The interrogation mini-game requires steady thumbs but works well. The downside is enemies can still shoot you while you're busy interrogating someone, and the victims often repeat the same information after you break them.

If you drag someone over to a zone marked with a floating white skull, you can perform a Special Interrogation which, like the Quick Kill, is exclusive to the environment. These include the use of power tools like drills and nail guns, industrial lasers, a cremation oven, and the ever popular wood chipper. The process of breaking a victim works the same way as the standard interrogation techniques, but if you decide to kill him afterwards, his demise is as delightfully nasty as you can imagine. That is, it would be if it wasn't censored.

The Punisher is a violent game. Blood splatters whenever you shoot someone, you can see teeth fly when you smash a victim's head on the ground, enemies die in painful contortions thanks to the Havok ragdoll physics, and you can even blow heads off in a red foamy spray. Yet for some bizarre irrational reason, the Special Interrogation kills are emasculated by a blurry black and white filter effect to censor the cutscene. Granted, the Special Interrogation kills are the most violent and graphic feature of the entire game, but they are nothing we haven't already seen in Mortal Kombat, Manhunt, or any number of violent games already on the market. In fact, it is arguable that the average Mortal Kombat game is more violent and graphic than The Punisher. This lame attempt to cut down on the violence and appease political groups is, quite frankly, insulting to the intelligence of adult gamers. The game is already rated Mature, so what's the purpose of adding the filter? It makes no sense and is very disappointing, kind of like watching a movie only to have the curtains close and the lights go up right at the climactic ending.