Reviewed: February 24, 2005
Reviewed by: Daniel Sayre
Publisher
THQ
Developer
Volition
Released: January 17, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
7
7
8
9
8.3
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Fresh from his success as a major motion picture, The Punisher now walks a path written for him by the incomparable Garth Ennis, straightening out punks of the PC. This is far from Frank’s first game outing, having a respectable three previous games under his heavily armed belt.
This particular incarnation is a third person shooter with a brand new “interrogation” gimmick and generous loads of weaponry, everything from the lowly pistol to dual m60 machine guns.
This game was made for consoles and then ported to the PC. Usually this tells you everything you need to know about the game itself. And, true to form, the game does suffer from many of the standard “port” failings.
The controls are really the biggest problem. On both consoles, interrogations are handled via the analog sticks. Having played both, it works marvelously; on the PC however, the mouse must be pushed forward and back for the interrogations.
Most of the time it works “ok” but in certain instances, with no rhyme or reason, the interrogations either A) do not go far enough or B) immediately kill the person you’re trying to wring information from. Considering you get, and need, health from breaking criminals in interrogation it makes certain parts of the game overly difficult.
The rest of the controls are great. You have a quick-kill button as well as a grab. Both of these are great additions to the game. The quick-kill allows you to simply walk up to someone and dispatch them in plenty of violent ways. The grab is used to interrogate and provide a bullet shield, one that actually works!
Aiming is another area with a less then perfect translation. The game contains a “fine aiming” option in all incarnations. This was done, presumably, to offset the less precise analog aiming on consoles. It also concentrates fire from the less accurate weapons.
The unwieldy aiming is kept on the PC and the mouse isn’t as accurate as it should be. The fine aiming helps, but it’s often tiring to spend most of the game in “fine aim” mode just to get mouse-like targeting in the first place.
Now the aiming isn’t really that big of a problem, you almost always hit what you’re shooting at. The interrogations are a bigger problem, but still not enough to offset the rest of the game which is, in my opinion, the best comic/game I’ve ever played.
The real standout is the story. It’s a melding of Ennis’ work on the Punisher before the current MAX series and some new parts with cameos a plenty. The dialogue is all sharp and very good, keeping to both the character and the story. References to past comics and whatnot are sprinkled throughout.
The game is a decent length, probably around a couple days if you play sparingly. You can select missions and choose a weapon load out before each (only of weapons you’ve unlocked though.)
The character models, while in no danger of showing up Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, are very well modeled and almost perfectly capture the look of the comic character. The Punisher is more of an iconic version; not exactly matching any specific comic version, but you immediately know it’s the Punisher.
The stages themselves are pretty varied. From a Chinese dance club, to the New York docks, to the inside of Stark industries, each is wildly different from the ones before it you hardly ever have déjà vu going through the stages.
The enemies all have Havok physics so you don’t have to watch the same canned death animations each time you kill shoot someone. Bullets leave visible damage on the corpses and bodies stay on the ground for a reasonable length of time before disappearing.
In order to fit under the M-rating label, interrogations (what many would call a main draw of the game) needed to be heavily censored. A lot of the more gruesome ones have a distortion filter applied and will also zoom out so you can only see the Punisher’s face when you kill the person you’re interrogating. Further cuts were made, removing blood from faces for certain interrogations and making limb removal very infrequent.
The voice work in the game is good. Some voices don’t fit the character exactly, but the majority sound perfect. The mafia underlings sound like stereotypical mafia underlings. You can hang back and eavesdrop on conversations which sound like what you would expect criminals would talk about. The shocked (and often expletive-laden) outbursts when you kick down the door on a group of scum are also quite nice.
Thomas Jane reprises his role as the Punisher for the game. He fits well and his lines reflect both the character and his voice. The weapons sounds are a little on the soft side but each sounds different and gun battles sound very good. Screams and begging are also wonderful. The quip the Punisher does after executing is perfect for the character and are “good” in the cheesy action movie kind of way.
The PC gets a nice little price cut of $10 right off the bat from its console cousins, making it $40. As far as the game goes, there are numerous unlockables. Taking a page from Golden Eye, when certain conditions are met, a cheat will be unlocked. These cheats range from god mode to infinite ammo and there are eight in all.
Other things that can be unlocked are different era Punisher costumes (though they don’t work in all stages) comic covers, flashbacks, etc. The stages remain the same, only the difficulty changes but different weapon load-outs can make for slightly different play through if you need to change your tactics.
I really enjoyed the game, it’s now holds rank as my favorite from the comic genre. Unfortunately, while the game was awesome, the PC port was less then stellar. The censorship is another area while I was less then pleased. In most circumstances, it would be less of a beef but this is the Punisher we’re talking about; It’s in his character to be sadistic and losing that via zoomed out and filtered interrogations does cause the game to lose some esteem in my view.
Even taking that into account, it’s still close and a real blast to play. It’ll run well on most PC’s, even those getting by in their years and the story is almost worth the $40 purchase itself. If you want the best version though, I’d be awfully tempted to suggest one of the console versions for the better controls. Interrogations are a big part, and draw, of the game and the analog sticks allow you to experience them much better then the mouse does.