The Punisher (2005)

"The Punishment Begins!"

The Punishment has begun, and fortunately enough, players will not be punished by a bad game. When I first heard about this new Punisher at E3 04, I was very skeptical. A lot of comic book to video game adaptations have been very bad. I saw videos of The Punisher getting info out of his victims very violently, although it looked sweet, I was still very skeptical. Well I have played the game, and it ROCKS! You will play obviously as the Punisher, a vigilante hell bent on punishing any drug dealers, weapon dealers, killers, rapists ect, ect. If you don't know the story, His family was killed buy the mob, and so was he in a sense. The mob thought they killed him, but he survived, just a little angry. To put it simply, you have no remorse... so you are in for a very violent ride.

The game starts out with the Punisher being caught by the police just fresh from his recent hit. As the detectives question him, he will tell his story. The story is what you will be playing. So when they ask him about the Crack house he raided, you will then play the crack house. The game plays a lot like Max Payne did, the only real difference is there is no bullet time. But where there is loss, there is gain. You will have "quick kills" where Punisher will do a few different violent deathblows, like stabbing an enemy in the gut, then stabbing him in the back with another knife. There is also interrogation. This is the fun part of Punisher, and really sets it from other games. You can run up to any enemy and grab him and do a special interrogation, such as gun tension, choke, slam their face into the ground, or beat them senseless. Those you can do anytime, but throughout the level you will see white skulls, those are the "special interrogations." The levels are riddled with these. Like for instance in one level you can take a poor victim to a wood chipper, and grind him up, afterwards you get a comical little line from the Punisher "He makes great mulch!" This is another great little thing in the game that makes it fun and gives life to the Punisher, any time he talks to an enemy or you get done with an interrogation, he will give some great one liners. Surprisingly enough, they are not way too cheesy or take a note from Duke Nukem.

The graphics are very well done. The models looks very well done, and are not way too cookie cutter. You will find yourself up against a lot of different faces. It may not be as diverse as Chronicles of Riddick, but it works. The Punisher himself is very polished and does look like he came from the comic book. When you are in a gun fight you see bullet holes in you enemies as they happen, and sometimes lose a limb when using weapons like the had cannon. When you finally get the flame thrower, you will get to burn your enemies. When you do that, you actually see your enemies start to "char" as they burn. Definitely something you don't see too often in games yet. The only real problem with the graphics are when you do a very violent interrogation. As soon as it happens, the screen turns black and white, and very blurry. But that is the only thing the game seems to suffer from.

The sound is just as good as the graphics are. All of the weapons you come across sound great, and explosions will rattle you. One thing that was great was the Punisher was voiced by Thomas Jane, the very same guy that played the Punisher last year. And he does a great job. The enemies will randomly spout out lines, and about 10% contain no swearing! The victims are not happy with the Punisher, and will mouth off about it, but even though it's riddled with language, it still sets the atmosphere and mood.

The last thing that seems to be lacking in this game is the AI. When you are fighting your run of the mill grunts, there is no problem. They will rush you, hide, grab a weapon and so on. But where the AI has a problem is with the game's bosses. On the first 3 or 4 bosses, they would run around for a minute, lose sight of me and stand still... long enough for me to turn them into swiss cheese and finish them. It's just a little annoying when a boss that can only take head shots stands still... kinda takes the fun out of things.

The bottom line... This is a must play for any die hard action fan! The Punisher does resemble Max Payne quite a bit, so if you liked Max Payne, this is up your alley. Of course, if you are skeptical, go and rent the game. But if you are a fan of the Punisher, go and play this NOW!

The Good: Interrogating enemies, voiced by Thomas Jane, great action

The Bad: Blurry black and white censor scenes.

The Ugly: When you take a meat cleaver to an unsuspecting victims face.

Final Score: 8.8

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