The Punisher is once again another action game created from Marvel's long line of comic books. It should be no surprise that we were a little skeptical about this title after experiencing the train wreck that was Spider-Man 2 in 2004. Fortunately for us, The Punisher is nowhere near that bad. In fact it comes out as a decent action game but not much more. What could have been a great game is plagued with some major flaws that stop it from rising among other great action titles.
You play as Frank Castle, a family man turned vigilante after his family was murdered by the mob. It's now his mission in life to kill all criminals who cross his path, and he does so by any means necessary. We do literally mean by any means necessary. A knife to the head, grenade stuffed in someones mouth, or a neck snapping here or there is nothing to throw Castle from his rampage. In other words, it gets pretty gory, and The Punisher greatly earns its mature rating.
The gore contained within The Punisher is, perhaps, one of the most enjoyable parts about the game. It is actually one of the only things that seems to drive the game further and make you want to keep on going to the end, because the story definitely won't get you hooked. The story seems plain and unoriginal giving you the opportunity to simply go around and kill a whole lot of people while trying to take down a mafia family. The game does see some introductions from other comic book characters. Some of these characters include the Kingpin, Bullseye and Iron Man. All of which don't really bring anymore excitement to the game and feel like they were just thrown in there for good measure.
The story also resembles too much of Max Payne. Sure The Punisher, being a long-running comic book, came out before Max Payne , but as a game in general it strikes too many similarities to our bullet time loving friend. For one thing, sporting a long black trench coat, Frank Castle looks a lot like Max does when he moves around. Heck he even dives in the same fashion. When being fired upon, you can simply dive forward, backward, right, or left while firing which looks much like what you can do in Max Payne. In fact there are so many similarities that you'll probably be asking yourself where the bullet time feature is. Well, it shouldn't be too surprising that Frank is packing some of his own type of bullet time effects.
Obviously, it's not called bullet time, but is instead named slaughter mode. When entering slaughter mode, everything turns a black and white colour and you can move a little faster than your enemies. Oh, and don't forget the fact that you get an unlimited amount of throwing knives when you're in slaughter mode, which are actually the only weapons that you can use when slaughtering your foes in this mode. You can also go up to your enemies and do more savage type of quick kills when using this mode. The meter for slaughter mode appears at the bottom of your screen under the health bar and somewhat resembles the shape of a bullet. And, of course, much to your surprise it refills itself when you kill more people. We haven't seen that before (insert sarcasm here).
Gameplay
With The Punisher's copycat profile aside, let's discuss the thing that makes this game worth playing: the gore. Who knew that there were so many ways to kill a person? Well obviously Frank Castle knows every single way, because you can choose from a wide variety of ways to kill your enemies throughout the game. Sure it all turns into a big gory mess, but it does add a tiny bit of replay value to the game. When being involved in a firefight, you can run up to an enemy and do a number of things: One such thing would be to take the criminal hostage. Once you have your arm around his neck and holding him as a human shield, you can either toss him back at his friends, keep holding onto him while his friends mindlessly shoot at him, shoot him yourself, or push him through a door while his other friends on the other side of the door kill him quickly because they though it was you coming in. It's sometimes fun to think of some creative ways to get rid of your human shields. Most of these ways just include throwing them off of high places such as ledges and out windows.
Another area of expertise that Frank Castle has when fighting enemies is the ability to perform quick kills. Essentially this just means that you run up to an enemy, press the 'quick kill' button, and Frankie boy will perform a random kill move out of many. Depending on what type of weapon you currently have in his hands, or if you don't have any weapons equipped, he will choose to perform different moves. Most of which have him slicing people's throats, stabbing them in the back, shoving grenades in their mouths, snapping their necks, and even throwing his own weapon in the hands of the enemy in an attempt to confuse the enemy while he shoots them in the head with another handgun. There certainly are a wide variety of moves that he can perform, and no doubt you'll be seeing some that you've never seen before when you play the game over again.
Another aspect of being a vigilante includes interrogating people to get some useful information out of them. You can grab and interrogate any person within the game. Doing so creates a meter on the top of the screen which moves about depending on how fast you are moving the mouse. You need to keep the meter in a certain position for about three seconds in order to get the information out of the person.
Just like with the quick kills, there are a variety of ways to interrogate your enemies. Grabbing one in the wide open gives you four different choices of interrogation. You can smash their face against the floor, punch them in the gut, point a gun at their head, or even choke them to death. Scattered throughout some levels are items that can be used for special interrogations. Some of these include sticking a guys head into a fireplace or under a drill, shoving a guy into a furnace and cranking up the heat, or smashing a window on a guy's head. These special interrogation items are somewhat blended into the environment to make it seem more real, and the developers did do a good job with it. An icon appears near each item signifying that it can be used for such an interrogation. Simply put, the action in The Punisher is probably one of the only things that you'll enjoy about the game. It's fast paced and it's always great to watch as the enemies run in fear of you.
Visually, The Punisher is nothing astounding. The graphics get the job done, but are in no way topnotch. The animations do look very smooth and the character models are somewhat detailed. Frank himself is the most detailed character in the game. Other then that, most of the textures in the game just look plain and uninspired. Although the graphics do depict the gritty urban areas of the town quite well.
The sound effects are a different story, however. The game sounds great with all of the gunshot sounds being blasted all over the place and the cries and yelling coming from your enemies. However, the dialogue can be quite poor at times. Some things that The Punisher says can sometimes sound like it was inspired by a little child. It's at times like these that you just can't wait until he shuts up. What's up with super heroes always talking to themselves after they ingeniously kill someone anyways? The same thing applies to the other characters in the game. There was one point in the game when you're first entering Iron Man's laboratories and your enemies are taking over the building, when you hear two scientists making a reference to Half-Life. Whether or not it was intentional on the developer's part to make a reference to Half-Life is unclear, but it is actually a little obvious. Here's how it went down:
(loud explosion occurs)
Scientist one: What was that Dr. Freeman?
Scientist two: Maybe the quantum physics group finally opened up the extra dimensional portal!
Scientist one: Extra dimensional aliens! I wonder what they look like?
Scientist two: I'm going to go see.
Then two terrorists came in and killed them, but that's not the point. For anyone who has played the Half-Life series, you should be able to see the reference in there made to that game. It's actually quite funny to see when you're playing the game.
Surprisingly, the AI is much more intelligent then we could have expected. Your enemies will effectively make use of cover and they don't always know exactly where you are which gives you the opportunity to sneak up on them. They also will say certain things depending on their situation and what has occurred. However, they do seem a little trigger happy and don't care too much if you're using one of their guys as a human shield.
Conclusion
Overall The Punisher succeeds at just being another decent action game. It falls straight in the line of your typical third-person shooter. Sure, the ability to kill criminals with different methods other then your usual shotguns and machine guns is a great way to spice things up, but it does get a little old quickly. Some replay value has been added by means of interrogation of specific criminals which leads you to secret rooms or slight changes in gun battles, but in the end it just leads you to a giant bloody mess that wasn't anymore satisfying than the last bloody mess.
You play as Frank Castle, a family man turned vigilante after his family was murdered by the mob. It's now his mission in life to kill all criminals who cross his path, and he does so by any means necessary. We do literally mean by any means necessary. A knife to the head, grenade stuffed in someones mouth, or a neck snapping here or there is nothing to throw Castle from his rampage. In other words, it gets pretty gory, and The Punisher greatly earns its mature rating.
The gore contained within The Punisher is, perhaps, one of the most enjoyable parts about the game. It is actually one of the only things that seems to drive the game further and make you want to keep on going to the end, because the story definitely won't get you hooked. The story seems plain and unoriginal giving you the opportunity to simply go around and kill a whole lot of people while trying to take down a mafia family. The game does see some introductions from other comic book characters. Some of these characters include the Kingpin, Bullseye and Iron Man. All of which don't really bring anymore excitement to the game and feel like they were just thrown in there for good measure.
The story also resembles too much of Max Payne. Sure The Punisher, being a long-running comic book, came out before Max Payne , but as a game in general it strikes too many similarities to our bullet time loving friend. For one thing, sporting a long black trench coat, Frank Castle looks a lot like Max does when he moves around. Heck he even dives in the same fashion. When being fired upon, you can simply dive forward, backward, right, or left while firing which looks much like what you can do in Max Payne. In fact there are so many similarities that you'll probably be asking yourself where the bullet time feature is. Well, it shouldn't be too surprising that Frank is packing some of his own type of bullet time effects.
Obviously, it's not called bullet time, but is instead named slaughter mode. When entering slaughter mode, everything turns a black and white colour and you can move a little faster than your enemies. Oh, and don't forget the fact that you get an unlimited amount of throwing knives when you're in slaughter mode, which are actually the only weapons that you can use when slaughtering your foes in this mode. You can also go up to your enemies and do more savage type of quick kills when using this mode. The meter for slaughter mode appears at the bottom of your screen under the health bar and somewhat resembles the shape of a bullet. And, of course, much to your surprise it refills itself when you kill more people. We haven't seen that before (insert sarcasm here).
Gameplay
With The Punisher's copycat profile aside, let's discuss the thing that makes this game worth playing: the gore. Who knew that there were so many ways to kill a person? Well obviously Frank Castle knows every single way, because you can choose from a wide variety of ways to kill your enemies throughout the game. Sure it all turns into a big gory mess, but it does add a tiny bit of replay value to the game. When being involved in a firefight, you can run up to an enemy and do a number of things: One such thing would be to take the criminal hostage. Once you have your arm around his neck and holding him as a human shield, you can either toss him back at his friends, keep holding onto him while his friends mindlessly shoot at him, shoot him yourself, or push him through a door while his other friends on the other side of the door kill him quickly because they though it was you coming in. It's sometimes fun to think of some creative ways to get rid of your human shields. Most of these ways just include throwing them off of high places such as ledges and out windows.
Another area of expertise that Frank Castle has when fighting enemies is the ability to perform quick kills. Essentially this just means that you run up to an enemy, press the 'quick kill' button, and Frankie boy will perform a random kill move out of many. Depending on what type of weapon you currently have in his hands, or if you don't have any weapons equipped, he will choose to perform different moves. Most of which have him slicing people's throats, stabbing them in the back, shoving grenades in their mouths, snapping their necks, and even throwing his own weapon in the hands of the enemy in an attempt to confuse the enemy while he shoots them in the head with another handgun. There certainly are a wide variety of moves that he can perform, and no doubt you'll be seeing some that you've never seen before when you play the game over again.
Another aspect of being a vigilante includes interrogating people to get some useful information out of them. You can grab and interrogate any person within the game. Doing so creates a meter on the top of the screen which moves about depending on how fast you are moving the mouse. You need to keep the meter in a certain position for about three seconds in order to get the information out of the person.
Just like with the quick kills, there are a variety of ways to interrogate your enemies. Grabbing one in the wide open gives you four different choices of interrogation. You can smash their face against the floor, punch them in the gut, point a gun at their head, or even choke them to death. Scattered throughout some levels are items that can be used for special interrogations. Some of these include sticking a guys head into a fireplace or under a drill, shoving a guy into a furnace and cranking up the heat, or smashing a window on a guy's head. These special interrogation items are somewhat blended into the environment to make it seem more real, and the developers did do a good job with it. An icon appears near each item signifying that it can be used for such an interrogation. Simply put, the action in The Punisher is probably one of the only things that you'll enjoy about the game. It's fast paced and it's always great to watch as the enemies run in fear of you.
Visually, The Punisher is nothing astounding. The graphics get the job done, but are in no way topnotch. The animations do look very smooth and the character models are somewhat detailed. Frank himself is the most detailed character in the game. Other then that, most of the textures in the game just look plain and uninspired. Although the graphics do depict the gritty urban areas of the town quite well.
The sound effects are a different story, however. The game sounds great with all of the gunshot sounds being blasted all over the place and the cries and yelling coming from your enemies. However, the dialogue can be quite poor at times. Some things that The Punisher says can sometimes sound like it was inspired by a little child. It's at times like these that you just can't wait until he shuts up. What's up with super heroes always talking to themselves after they ingeniously kill someone anyways? The same thing applies to the other characters in the game. There was one point in the game when you're first entering Iron Man's laboratories and your enemies are taking over the building, when you hear two scientists making a reference to Half-Life. Whether or not it was intentional on the developer's part to make a reference to Half-Life is unclear, but it is actually a little obvious. Here's how it went down:
(loud explosion occurs)
Scientist one: What was that Dr. Freeman?
Scientist two: Maybe the quantum physics group finally opened up the extra dimensional portal!
Scientist one: Extra dimensional aliens! I wonder what they look like?
Scientist two: I'm going to go see.
Then two terrorists came in and killed them, but that's not the point. For anyone who has played the Half-Life series, you should be able to see the reference in there made to that game. It's actually quite funny to see when you're playing the game.
Surprisingly, the AI is much more intelligent then we could have expected. Your enemies will effectively make use of cover and they don't always know exactly where you are which gives you the opportunity to sneak up on them. They also will say certain things depending on their situation and what has occurred. However, they do seem a little trigger happy and don't care too much if you're using one of their guys as a human shield.
Conclusion
Overall The Punisher succeeds at just being another decent action game. It falls straight in the line of your typical third-person shooter. Sure, the ability to kill criminals with different methods other then your usual shotguns and machine guns is a great way to spice things up, but it does get a little old quickly. Some replay value has been added by means of interrogation of specific criminals which leads you to secret rooms or slight changes in gun battles, but in the end it just leads you to a giant bloody mess that wasn't anymore satisfying than the last bloody mess.
