What would you do if you were an ex Vietnam Vet, and your entire family got wiped out in a Mob hit, and the police were unable or unwilling to help you? Would you sit back and allow the criminals to overrun your city, infesting the streets, hurting innocents and mocking you with their brazenness? Or would you put your years of training and fighting to the test, become a vigilante and start taking the law into your own hands?

In THQ and Violition’s The Punisher, you take on the role of Frank Castle, Ex-Marine turned vigilante in order to give pain back to the bad guys. No spandex tights and mask for this mean dude, he wants people to know who he is and know what he’s going to do to you if you get on the wrong side of him. He beefed up, found a really cool looking transfer to iron onto his t-shirts, and became the Punisher.

And there’s a whole lot of pain to be dealt. The Punisher is no ordinary superhero, fighting for justice, or truth, or the American Way. He’s a dark, brooding, gritty, mean and angry man, and wants revenge on the mob gangs who killed his family, and won’t let anyone get in the way of his revenge. This game is very much aimed at the mature gamer, and it shows from the very opening scene, as The Punisher brutally shoots his way out of the Takagi building before surrendering to police. Yes, The Punisher nods it’s head to the storytelling device made infamous by Tarantino, and, like a Tarantino story there is a great deal of violence and bloodshed, but this is backed up by an engaging storyline and strong lead character.

The story, from acclaimed Punisher comic book writers Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti, slowly unwraps itself as you move through the game. A cutscene plays before each level, showing an interrogation situation with two cops drilling The Punisher for information about what he has done – and what you are about to play out. This device works really well, making you want to play through the game to find out exactly what is happening, to find out why has The Punisher allowed himself to be captured, what he has done to be incarcerated, and who he’s going to kill next. But more than being a cheap plot device, the story is actually interesting and engaging as well.

The gameplay itself is really quite simple, but it is also quite a lot of fun. Each of the 16 levels sees the Punisher go from point A to point B shooting everything that moves. The controls are standard Shooter fare – Left Joystick moves, Right looks about, and the Right Trigger fires while the Left Trigger throws grenades. To assist you in this task is over 20 different weapons, although not all of these are available to you at first. There’s your usual fare of pistols and shotguns and automatic rifles, plus a couple of bigger weapons like flame throwers and anti-tank guns. To bring more pain to the bad guys, The Punisher can wield two weapons at once, but only two weapons of the same sort. He can also ‘precision aim’ (or use the sniper scope) by clicking the right joystick for all those important headshots. This is also handy when the bad guys have a human shield of their own, as the only thing you’re not allowed to shoot is an innocent.

To make the game deeper, you are given style points for being creative with your kills and avoiding being shot. To avoid being hit, you can dodge / dive with the B button, and crouch by depressing the left joystick. You can also grab nearby enemies with the A button, and used them as shields and toss them through closed doors. The more bad guys you kill without being hit, the higher your multiplier can go, and the more points you get. These points can be exchanged for better armour, health, scopes, attached grenade launchers, bigger ammo clips and so forth. They also grant you medals that unlock the extra content, which, if you’re a fan of the Punisher comics is a real treat.

But this would all be humdrum if it wasn’t for quick kills and interrogations. Pressing the X button when near or when holding a bad guy will result in a quick kill. For these, Violition pulls out a massive number of animations, from execution style pistol to the head, to knife through the skull, to shoving a grenade in their mouth and watching their heads explode. They’re all violent, and all look very slick and cool, and it is fun to run through a level and see how many you can do. There’s also a “Slaughter” Mode, engaged by the Y button, which is kind of a Max Payne style bullettime where The Punisher pulls out his knife and simply runs amuck. Like Max Payne, this time is limited, and you refill the meter in the same way you get Style points.

At anytime you have hold of an enemy, you can press the A button to interrogate them. There are four different types of interrogation – Choke, Face Smash, Punch and Gun Stress, corresponding to the direction of the joystick, and when you activate this mode a stress meter appears. By moving the joystick up and down, you move the meter into the yellow stress zone, and keeping it in this zone will cause the bad guy to break. The average bad guy will tell you generic things like “Jigsaw will kill you”, or will set of a memory which unlocks a still from the comic books. Then there are those with the White Skull above their heads, who will divulge better information, like how to get out of a room, or where certain things or people are, and so on.

In addition to this, there are also special interrogation areas around the map. These are located with a White Skull, and these areas are where the gruesome interrogations come in. They can only be used once, but they are mighty fun. There are things such as bandsaws, deep fryers, ledges over shark-infested waters, wood chippers, and a whole host of other deadly spots where The Punisher can extract information. Once you’ve extracted the information, you’re meant to let the bad guy go, but it is far more fun to simply let them have it and kill them, and watch their animated death. If you do this, you lose style points, and the screen turns black and white in order to maintain it’s MA15+ rating. Some people see this form of censorship as wrong, but I think it adds to the overall feel of the game. There’s also Special Kill area, marked with a Gold Skull, and these grisly places of death offer no punishment to you for utilising them.

The Punisher looks good too. As mentioned, the mood of the game is dark, and this is reflected in the gritty set design in all the levels. Even the bright neon in some levels have a drabness to them. There are a wide variety in the levels, from the close quarters of a Russian frigate and downtown crackhouse to the openness of an outdoor military compound, allowing a bit of variety and strategy to come into play – do you take your assault rifle or shotgun? There is also a lot of nice set dressing, especially later in the game, and whilst not being fully interactive, there are some props and glass walls that can be shot and blown about the place. The Punisher himself is very well modelled, and looks mean in his leather jacket. The bad guys look a little stiff at times, but when you face the bosses all of them are well conceptualised.

Sound wise the game is good too. The Punisher, voiced by Tom Jane who played the lead role in the 2004 Punisher movie, is deep voiced, reflective and almost philosophical at times. He narrates over the action much in the same way Max Payne did, and there are quite a few amusing lines thrown in here and there. The screams and pleadings of the bad guys can be funny too, especially during interrogations as you get closer to breaking them. The music in the game is suitably comic book action style – it reminds me of the Batman movies and Max Payne games, and suits the action in the game very well, when you notice it over the gunfire of course. The gunfire is perhaps not intense as it should be, considering the amount that happens, and at times it is difficult to know when you are being hit by bullets because there are so many flying about.

Conclusion:
The Punisher is an enjoyable, if somewhat short (about 10 hours), action shoot ’em up. It’s relatively easy too, but incorporates some interesting, if somewhat violent, gameplay ideas that work really well. The violence in The Punisher game is over the top, like the comic it is based on. It never seems overly disturbing like in the game Manhunt, and you never feel that you are playing anything other than a comic based game. The censorship that has come into the game actually adds to the overall feel, but I can see this game grabbing the attention of those who think violent games are a the end of civilisation as we know it, so expect this to go the way of Manhunt in a few months.

Pros:
– Simple yet fun run and gun style gameplay, with an engaging storyline
– The interrogations are and interesting gameplay device, and fun to execute
– The Style Points and Medals offer incentive to play through again
– Lots of unlockables, in-jokes and references to the Marvel Universe for the comic freaks

Cons
– Quite violent, so don’t let the kids play it
– Quite easy to get through on the default setting, and pretty short
– The Boss fights are very easy.

81/100