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The Punisher Review for PlayStation 2 (PS2)
Posted on Friday, June 24, 2005 @ 11:54:18 pm E.S.TWith the success of the film adaptations of various comic strips in Hollywood, the games industry has naturally followed suit. Enter ‘The Punisher’, a vigilante New Yorker, out to punish anyone who (from his point of view) has committed a crime. This is of course the perfect vehicle for a shooter from the third-person perspective. The genre does have the reputation for being substandard, the latest Judge Dredd Game for example, but to my surprise The Punisher is well above average.
The Punisher is incredibly fun to play — in the sadistic sense. There’s no attempt at subtlety, you pick up your shotgun (the default weapon in the game) and let all hell loose. What’s more you can dual-wield everything, from M60s to Grenade Launchers. This makes combat not only incredibly violent, but allows you to tackle a level in a variety of ways. For example, you can blast everything within a 2 meter radius with dual shotguns, or take relaxed long-range option with 2 assault rifles. But the most interesting, and probably the goriest part of the game has got to be the special events.
There are two types of special event, Interrogation and Kill. Special Kills are illuminated with an orange splash around the killzone, you can then take a enemy that you have taken for a human shield and press the designated button. You then are rewarded with a flamboyant kill using various elements of the environment, this may include throwing the soon-to-be corpse into a coffin; along with a grenade, or throwing and impaling the foe onto a giant elephant’s tusk. The Special Interrogation feature however is far more interesting. The areas where they can be activated are shown by a white splash, which is then initiated in the same way as a Special Kill. This time however you must scare/hurt the opponent enough into telling you some vital information which will aid your efforts in the level. For example you have a hostage inside a cremation furnace, you can then turn up the heat using your left thumbstick, until he talks. If you’re a little too enthusiastic however, he’ll be roasted alive and you’ll lose both the information and some Style Points.
You may think that killing the various special interrogatees in the rather brutal and inventive ways is worth losing some style points. But these actually become very important later in the game. This is mainly because the Style Points are the currency for buying upgrades, such as better body armor, larger ammo clips and a longer slaughter mode. They also unlock extra modes for levels, such as a Challenge Mode. This attempts to give the game some more depth, which does work quite well, but after a while they build up so much that how you play the level loses any real importance. There is also another facet of the gameplay that I forgot to mention, which is The Punisher’s Slaughter Mode.
Slaughter Mode can best be described as a `Super’ or `Berserker’ mode. At a simple press of a button, The Punisher lets loose a cry and the screen transcends into to a blurry, monochrome nightmare world. Withdrawing two huge knives, you are then given poetic license to go and dispense of as many foes as you can while the mode lasts. You’re pretty much invincible in Slaughter Mode, and you recover your health too. The duration of the mode is dictated by a small bar in the bottom left of the screen, as you make kills and interrogations it increases its magnitude — whereas it decreases in size should you take damage. To be quite honest I found Slaughter Mode rather superficial, and more often than not I used it as a health item rather than an aid during combat.
I’ve never been a huge comic book fan, let alone a Punisher fan, so I can’t really comment on how the plot represents the actual books themselves. What I can speculate upon however, is how well the storyline works with the game. I actually like the way that the developers have dealt with the plot in The Punisher, it’s not the most original; but it is effective. The story basically centres around The Punisher, after he’s been picked up the the cops and his recollections during an interrogation (ironic, eh?) by two detectives. The male detective is meant to be the `dumb’ cop, who’s only real failing is that his grasp of grammar isn’t perfect. The other female detective, true to politically correct form, is of course highly-intelligent and I think has a slight attraction to The Punisher — although it’s never developed upon.
Although it’s gameplay that makes a game great, good graphics are important too and The Punisher is unfortunately rather average in that area. It’s not that the visuals are really that bad, but I would expect much better this far into the Third Generation. There’s passable model detail, but the textures are all rather grim and dull, and although I understand this is meant to be the tone of the game, it isn’t pulled off with any flair. Dynamics are also of an average quality, I’d like to see more sophisticated lighting effects to give that gloomy, sullen atmosphere and particle effects always improve an experience in a shooter. If you’re somebody that judges a game by its render, The Punisher won’t impress you.
Soundwise, the game delivers pretty well. The music, although not a patch on the sweeping scores of FF or Halo, is well implemented and sets off the theme of the game nicely. All of the sound effects are excellent too, especially some of the heavier, automatic rifles; which often sound rather generic in some games. The voice acting does let it down, it just feels strained to me, especially whoever voiced The Punisher himself. Overall the sound’s good, but it could definitely be improved.
Longevity is always an important aspect of a game’s worth and the developers of The Punisher have definitely taken this into account. The game, takes about 15-20 hours to complete on normal difficulty. There are also extra modes and a medal system to keep your interest, with gold medals only being available on hard.
Overall, The Punisher is a really good game, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it but then there isn’t anything special either. Apart from Spiderman 2 (which technically is from the movie) this is the best comic to game conversion that I’ve seen for a while, definitely worth a purchase for the fans. Review By: Ali Owen - 251 Reads
The Punisher Review Scores for PS2 :
| Gameplay |
| 8.5 |
| Graphics |
| 7.0 |
| Sound |
| 7.5 |
| Replay |
| 7.5 |
| Overall |
| 7.8 |
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