The Punisher (2005)

"Bones, Promises... Both Break."

The Punisher is a name synonymous with brutality and is the peak of vigilantism. Really strange, is that he is a Marvel character, and is a completely seperated from the goody-two-shoes of most other Marvel characters. He is the only Marvel character that will kill anybody on purpose and won't think twice or have any regrets about it in the entire Marvel universe. Definatly the most gritty and extreme, he is also the most human, due to his lack of any type of power except for his extreme knowledge of weaponry and tactics. His gruffy attitude and sarcastic optimism is portrayed brilliantly in the game through surprisingly well spoken dialogue. Nothing really cheesy. Thomas Jane does Franky's voice, and does extremely well at it. Thomas Jane will most likely be remembered as his role in The Punisher (which I loved, by the way). Now that I laid the groundwork and the linking of the movie to the game, It is now officially time to get onto this review. Throughout the review I will be using Frank to describe the Punisher, due to my lazyness.

Gameplay: 8/10

Very good gameplay. Not perfect, due to a small hitch in interrogations, but overall flawless. I am a firm beleiver that any type of shooting game be placed on a PC due to mouse support for easy controls, and this game has awsome controls. The real basis of gameplay comes from 2 things: Shooting and Interrogations. Shooting works, no doubt. Plenty of guns to use, from sniper rifles to flamethrowers, pistols to shotguns, and everything else inbetween. Easy to aim, easy to use, and very easy to kill your prey. In the game, you can also take human shields with a simple press of the E button when close. Frank will automaticly grab someone your close to, and hold him hostage. Even better, is by hitting the Q button, Frank will do a quick kill on the enemy, using a variety of different moves. The most rewarding however, is doing a quick kill in a "special zone" where Frank will use the environment around him to kill his enemies, and every kill is brutal and visually exquisite and creative. Most quick kills look really cool and are well done, except for when initiating a quick kill from holding a thug hostage. Its either 1 of 2 things: Frank will turn them around and shoot them in the head if holding a 2 handed weapon, or simply shoot them in the back of the head when holding a pistol. I could have used more animations, but they suffice. Also, when holding a hostage, Frank can toss them though glass windows, off raised areas, and even into other thugs. This creates extremely exciting and drawing battles. But none of the above is the highlight of the gameplay. The interroagations are.

Interrogations come in 5 different styles. Gun tension, Face bashing, Punching, and Strangling, and special interrogations. My favorite is either Face bashing or Gun tension. I'd think the names pretty much spell out the different ways to torture your victim, but I'll elaborate (even though I'm to lazy to substitute "The Punisher" for "Frank"). Fun-er, I mean Gun- tension is grabbing the enemy, holding a pistol to their head, and slowly squeezing the trigger, causing your victim to break down and spill his guts on the current situation. Face Bashing is throwing your opponent to the ground and repetadly smashing their face against the floor. Punching is grabbing your victim and sencelessly beating them till they crack, and strangling is throttling your victims neck. All work well, can be done on any enemy, and each require analog timing to succesfully break your opponent. The best types though, are the special environmental ones. These include things such as fireplaces, chrome vats, and even sharks to scare your enemy into talking. Although you ahve the chance to kill your enemy this way, you are treated to a cutscene with black and white filtering and for the more gory animations, a closeup of Franks face as he gruesomly dispatches his enemy. These are definatly the most fun to use.

Inbetween missions you can view weapons you've collected (and listen to Thomas Jane's well voiced descriptions of each weapon), newspaper clippings about what you did on your previous missions, and view badguys on your hitlist. This really adds to the depth of the game, and has a very gritty and punisher-esque feel to it.

The one thing I dislike about the gameplay though, is that sometimes the interrogations are a bit touchy. They will occaisonally respond really sluggish at times when you need to get some info out of your hostage, and are other times extremely sensitive. Gun Tension and several special interrogations suffer from this drawback occaisionally. It would be better if such things were used for the mouse wheel or keys on the keyboard, rather then the mouse itself, as it does tend to get clumsy at times.

Included is also ragdoll physics, and are really fun to mess with. Although some badguys land in some odd positions, they work most of the time. Such things are easilly excused.

Graphics: 8/10

The Punisher is a game rich in environments and characters, and the main characters look incredible. But most of the secondary characters and overall thugs look fairly bland. The game looks good, but sometimes textures don't look overly detailed enough. Frank is definatly the best looking character model. Others look incredibly well done, but I'll avoid saying their names due to spoilers.

Weaponry and explosions all look great and are highly detailed, as do the remains of a freshly baked badguy with a flamethrower or a blown to hell thug via grenade. Body parts exploding, fires, gunfire, and the CGI cutscenes are very well rendered. Well done and good-looking. Although most people dislike the now infamous black and white filtering, I think it does have a fairly dramatic flair, and doens't completely block out all the gore. It is too bad that they couldn't remove the effect, but it had to be implementded to keep the game rated M.

Sound: 7/10

This is my biggest gripe about the game. Sometimes, the action and sound arn't synched correctly, and the sound of a car exploding could happen a full second before or after the car explodes. Or when Frank dives off a high area, before he even lands, you hear his "thud" several seconds before making contact with said ground. But these are the only bad parts, but rarely happen.

The voice acting by the games major characters is EXCELLENT. Thomas Jane REALLY knows how to do The Punisher, and he perfectly fits the role. His voice acting as Frank is extrememly well done, and is easily the best sounding character. Others are well done as well, but nowhere near as supreme as Mr. Jane. There are some fairly goofy lines spewed by a rather "large" character, and some bland dialogue amongst other, but its to be expected. Be warned, there are plenty of F-bombs and gratuitis swearing in the game.

Overall, a solid 3rd person shooter with good elements and generally good gameplay, tons of unlockables and filled with upgrades for weapons, It is definatly a fun game and doesn't ever really get old, although at some points gets frustrating. The difficulty at the beginning of the game is excruciatingly easy, to the point where you are coasting through it and are dying for some diffiiculty, but it definatly picks up mid-game and becomes quite a challenge (I played it on medium first, and hard the second. I never touch the easy setting.) If you are confident in your skills, pick hard as the first setting.

Anyway, I say give this game a rent first, then buy it. I pre-ordered, and got my free shirt which I am, pathetically, wearing right now as I type this review. Overall, game deserves 8/10 for fun gameplay and good graphics, but several annoying hitches with sound and controls.

Thus concludes my possibly longest review I have ever written.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/05