Whilst most people down the pub will probably know what Superman’s real name is or which city Batman calls home not too many will know who Frank Castle is. Some may remember a movie staring Dolph Lungdren back in 1989 whilst others may have seen last year’s effort featuring Thomas Jane – but even then they probably don’t “KNOW” who Frank Castle is. Well The Punisher from THQ is about to change all that. The Punisher is a proper one man army, where the likes of Batman and Spiderman are content with just bending the line of the law, The Punisher uses a couple of 12 gauges to blow it away. After witnessing his family gunned down in a Mafia hit ex-Vietnam vet Frank Castle becomes the Punisher. He fights crime like Bush fights Iraq. The size of the crime only proportional to the size of the bullet he puts in the perpetrator.
The game replicates this perfectly. It’s a third-person action shooter and probably has a bigger body count than both Halo games combined. The game starts (as seems to be the in thing at the moment) when you are arrested by EVERY single member of the NYPD and the story of how it all came to be is played out as you recount your story to two police officers whilst in prison. The comic book origins are evident from the very beginning and anyone who is a fan of the source material will be pleasantly surprised just how accurate this game is, it even features guest appearances by many of the comic books villains and heroes – some of whom you have to be a real fan to actually spot.
This being The Punisher the game is very violent. VERY, very violent. It’s pretty much non-stop shooting and initially plays very similarly to the Max Payne games – however where Max has the clever bullet time feature to keep him alive Frank has to rely on more day to day measures. Instead of just shooting an opponent you can grab hold of them and use them as a human shield. Shots coming your way will take the energy off this walking body armour and leave you much more protected to frontal assaults. Once you have an enemy captive though, you can also choose to interrogate them. Any enemy can be interrogated and you usually have the choice of one of four options, be it choking them or slamming their head into the floor – this section plays out as a very small skill based mini game, where you have to hold the interrogation meter in a certain zone for 3 seconds. Your rewards are an increase in health and maybe a flashback sequence (small unlockabale piece of comic art). At times the game also offers up opponents who have some “secret” that you have to get out of them – this is usually a location of extra weapons or how to open a hidden door. When you find one of these you can bet that somewhere close by is a “special interrogation” zone. Here you can use a piece of the scenery on the bad guys as an implement of torture, whether it’s by slamming their head with a window or moving their groin closer to a circular saw! Once you have the info you need you can continue the torture and witness the gruesome results…
As well as that you can execute a “quick kill” using a press of the X button when next to an enemy – this results in many a varied kill being performed depending on which weapon you are holding. With a shotgun it’s usually something simple like blowing their head off, but there are many more, from a knife in the forehead to a simple broken neck.
That’s pretty much all there is to the game, but it’s done so well I love it! The more people you kill the more you score, the more you kill without taking a bullet yourself the higher your combat multiplier goes up. This rewards you with “style” points – the more you get the more you are rewarded. These rewards can allow you to buy upgrades so that later levels become a little easier and also open up extra play modes – such as CHALLENGE or PUNISHMENT. Challenge is pretty much what it says – the game gives you certain objectives and a time limit to complete them in whilst Punishment mode just sees you taking on wave after wave of enemies trying to get the highest score possible.
It’s about now that if it’s a quiet news week and you’re the editor of the Daily Mail you have probably got a front page story and if you are Richard Madeley have all you need to call for games to be banned (again) on next Tuesday’s episode. But you see, it’s just a game and it’s a game based on a comic which is equally as violent, and one that has been around since 1974. It’s not trying to be realistic, even at its most violent its still comic book in style and at times very much tongue in cheek – some of the torture sequences have been seen in many a James Bond movie and its down to the player if you actually want to follow them through to the gruesome outcome (and you actually lose points for doing so) – it should also be noted that in the version I played (imported US) the most gruesome scenes are played out in black and white and NEVER show the goriest deaths.
I for one really liked the game – The Punisher is rewarding and if you ever get a little stuck you can easily go back and replay some of the earlier levels trying to increase your score and earn extra rewards. A real value for money title and certainly one any UK gamer should snap up when it reaches the stores here in early March.
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