We love a game where the genre of background music changes depending on the ethnicity of your enemies.
The Punisher is an honest character. In a world of goody-goody, boy-scout superheroes who seem keen on saving the world through no-kill rules and putting their enemies in jails with revolving doors instead of cells, The Punisher gets shit done. He picks up a gun and goes out in the street and shoots the bad guys to death. It isn’t complicated by anything else. They’ve done bad, he kills them, they can’t do bad anymore. There’s no risk of recidivism, of reoffending, of getting away; they’re dead, and it’s done. He's cleaning out the bowels of New York City, one pull of the trigger at a time.
The Punisher is a dishonest character. He, and his fans, and his writers all hold the belief that treating a symptom is treating a cause. Drug addicts and purse snatchers and rapists and jaywalkers and protesters all meet the same end of the same barrel of the same gun, mowed down for “being criminals” and nothing more. Non-violent offenders, first-timers, gang members fresh out of getting jumped in — every criminal gets shot to death. There are no second chances, no degrees of justice, no punishment too severe. If you’re one of the lucky ones, maybe you won’t get tortured before your head gets blown off as retribution for being addicted to heroin.
The matter to ultimately keep in mind is the fact that The Punisher is a comic book character for children. Teenagers with behavioral problems, at the oldest. These mass-market superhero comics have exceptionally rarely been intended for actual adults; there’s a reason that Frank Castle debuted in a twenty-cent Spider-Man comic, and not in the middle pages of Arcade between shit by Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. Much as the most diehard Punisher fans would like to pretend as though The Punisher has ever been telling a mature story for mature adults, this can only hold true when in direct comparison to other superhero comics from the same parent company. Certainly, The Punisher is as dark as Marvel is willing to get, but what you ought to take away from that sentiment is that these stories are the darkest that Marvel is willing to get. Take The Punisher seriously, and you’ve already lost long before you began.
The 2004 movie tie-in game mostly seems to understand this. Despite coming out shortly after the movie and bringing back Thomas Jane to play Frank, there’s little that the game actually has in common with the film; aside from a set piece or two where The Punisher has to take on a legally-distinct version of Kevin Nash’s character in his apartment, the game is far more faithful to the comics than Jonathan Hensleigh’s version was. Fuck, the movie took place in Tampa instead of New York. There's an unwavering adherence to the comics present here that reveals The Punisher as the absurd little aberration in this world that he is; throughout the runtime of the game, the grizzled angel of death that is Frank Castle has to share screen time with goofy characters like Nick Fury and Iron Man, all kitted out in their magic power armor that they use to fight human waves of color-coded Russians and Italians. The Punisher will grab some Yakuza guy in a bright-pink Steve Harvey suit and shove a gun in his mouth until the Yakuza screams “it’s my birthday!”, giving Frank a burst of health. You then blow his head off, and Frank quips “last one”. The game is well-aware of how stupid this all is, and assumes that you’re as in on the joke as it is. Don’t think too hard about it; everyone knows this is silly.
A core mechanic of the game lets you take human shields, which can absorb an inordinate amount of bullets and then be interrogated to recover any lost health. You can also press the L1 button to throw them about fifteen feet ahead of you, at which point I immediately clocked that this was a Volition game. The Punisher seems like it wants to be Max Payne at first glance, but it’s actually Saint’s Row. The controls are remarkably similar, as is the tone; The Punisher himself is taking all of this very seriously, but it’s all so ridiculous that you as the player clearly aren’t expected to. The gameplay loop is simple to start, but gradually demands more of you; starting enemies will die in a shot or two to the chest, but foes later on will be kitted out in Arsenal Gear Tengu armor that essentially requires you to land perfect headshots if you want to deal any meaningful damage.
This all comes together to create an inverse enjoyment curve. You start the game mowing down whoever crosses your path in a very wish-fulfillment-styled rampage, but spend the latter half slowly walking around the battlefield with a human shield and taking potshots at enemy heads with the most accurate weapon that you have. Shotguns are basically invalidated as a weapon type the second that enemies put on bulletproof vests, and you’re limited from that point on to little more than your choice of the AK-47 or the M16, and whatever handgun you can get ammo for. Regular enemies die to headshots just as easily as the guys who showed up dressed as the Combine, so there’s a massive compression in what you’re able to do as a player the further into the game you get. The optimal strategy is to take a shield and fish for headshots, and that’s about all you’ll be doing for the final three hours of playtime. Two of the bosses can only be damaged with explosives that get dropped by the adds they summon, which is about as fun as it sounds.
It ends up as little more than a game that’s mostly okay, which used to be something that was celebrated when a licensed title pulled it off — even more so if it was a movie tie-in game. Aside from a few good laughs and some initially interesting gunplay, there’s not much to this. It can’t manage to be more than a version of Blood on the Sand with about the same gameplay quality and a less interesting final product. Even as ridiculous as Frank grumbling “I’m gonna kill every inmate on Riker’s Island” is, he still can’t reach the heights of Fiddy going after his fucking skull. I’d suggest that anyone who’s thinking about this ought to go try Blood on the Sand instead, but the average Punisher fan probably draws the line at being asked to play as a black guy.
I was originally going to format this review as a comic storyboard, but I wrote too many words for that to be viable. For your consideration, here is an album of Punisher doodles that I left on the cutting room floor.
The Punisher is an honest character. In a world of goody-goody, boy-scout superheroes who seem keen on saving the world through no-kill rules and putting their enemies in jails with revolving doors instead of cells, The Punisher gets shit done. He picks up a gun and goes out in the street and shoots the bad guys to death. It isn’t complicated by anything else. They’ve done bad, he kills them, they can’t do bad anymore. There’s no risk of recidivism, of reoffending, of getting away; they’re dead, and it’s done. He's cleaning out the bowels of New York City, one pull of the trigger at a time.
The Punisher is a dishonest character. He, and his fans, and his writers all hold the belief that treating a symptom is treating a cause. Drug addicts and purse snatchers and rapists and jaywalkers and protesters all meet the same end of the same barrel of the same gun, mowed down for “being criminals” and nothing more. Non-violent offenders, first-timers, gang members fresh out of getting jumped in — every criminal gets shot to death. There are no second chances, no degrees of justice, no punishment too severe. If you’re one of the lucky ones, maybe you won’t get tortured before your head gets blown off as retribution for being addicted to heroin.
The matter to ultimately keep in mind is the fact that The Punisher is a comic book character for children. Teenagers with behavioral problems, at the oldest. These mass-market superhero comics have exceptionally rarely been intended for actual adults; there’s a reason that Frank Castle debuted in a twenty-cent Spider-Man comic, and not in the middle pages of Arcade between shit by Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman. Much as the most diehard Punisher fans would like to pretend as though The Punisher has ever been telling a mature story for mature adults, this can only hold true when in direct comparison to other superhero comics from the same parent company. Certainly, The Punisher is as dark as Marvel is willing to get, but what you ought to take away from that sentiment is that these stories are the darkest that Marvel is willing to get. Take The Punisher seriously, and you’ve already lost long before you began.
The 2004 movie tie-in game mostly seems to understand this. Despite coming out shortly after the movie and bringing back Thomas Jane to play Frank, there’s little that the game actually has in common with the film; aside from a set piece or two where The Punisher has to take on a legally-distinct version of Kevin Nash’s character in his apartment, the game is far more faithful to the comics than Jonathan Hensleigh’s version was. Fuck, the movie took place in Tampa instead of New York. There's an unwavering adherence to the comics present here that reveals The Punisher as the absurd little aberration in this world that he is; throughout the runtime of the game, the grizzled angel of death that is Frank Castle has to share screen time with goofy characters like Nick Fury and Iron Man, all kitted out in their magic power armor that they use to fight human waves of color-coded Russians and Italians. The Punisher will grab some Yakuza guy in a bright-pink Steve Harvey suit and shove a gun in his mouth until the Yakuza screams “it’s my birthday!”, giving Frank a burst of health. You then blow his head off, and Frank quips “last one”. The game is well-aware of how stupid this all is, and assumes that you’re as in on the joke as it is. Don’t think too hard about it; everyone knows this is silly.
A core mechanic of the game lets you take human shields, which can absorb an inordinate amount of bullets and then be interrogated to recover any lost health. You can also press the L1 button to throw them about fifteen feet ahead of you, at which point I immediately clocked that this was a Volition game. The Punisher seems like it wants to be Max Payne at first glance, but it’s actually Saint’s Row. The controls are remarkably similar, as is the tone; The Punisher himself is taking all of this very seriously, but it’s all so ridiculous that you as the player clearly aren’t expected to. The gameplay loop is simple to start, but gradually demands more of you; starting enemies will die in a shot or two to the chest, but foes later on will be kitted out in Arsenal Gear Tengu armor that essentially requires you to land perfect headshots if you want to deal any meaningful damage.
This all comes together to create an inverse enjoyment curve. You start the game mowing down whoever crosses your path in a very wish-fulfillment-styled rampage, but spend the latter half slowly walking around the battlefield with a human shield and taking potshots at enemy heads with the most accurate weapon that you have. Shotguns are basically invalidated as a weapon type the second that enemies put on bulletproof vests, and you’re limited from that point on to little more than your choice of the AK-47 or the M16, and whatever handgun you can get ammo for. Regular enemies die to headshots just as easily as the guys who showed up dressed as the Combine, so there’s a massive compression in what you’re able to do as a player the further into the game you get. The optimal strategy is to take a shield and fish for headshots, and that’s about all you’ll be doing for the final three hours of playtime. Two of the bosses can only be damaged with explosives that get dropped by the adds they summon, which is about as fun as it sounds.
It ends up as little more than a game that’s mostly okay, which used to be something that was celebrated when a licensed title pulled it off — even more so if it was a movie tie-in game. Aside from a few good laughs and some initially interesting gunplay, there’s not much to this. It can’t manage to be more than a version of Blood on the Sand with about the same gameplay quality and a less interesting final product. Even as ridiculous as Frank grumbling “I’m gonna kill every inmate on Riker’s Island” is, he still can’t reach the heights of Fiddy going after his fucking skull. I’d suggest that anyone who’s thinking about this ought to go try Blood on the Sand instead, but the average Punisher fan probably draws the line at being asked to play as a black guy.
I was originally going to format this review as a comic storyboard, but I wrote too many words for that to be viable. For your consideration, here is an album of Punisher doodles that I left on the cutting room floor.
Osea loco wtf relajaaa un poco
güzel vahşeti iyi yansıtıyor
Faz falta, nos dias de hoje, a coragem de criar jogos tão audaciosos e criativos como esse "The Punisher" de 2004, que captura a essência de um personagem tão denso, brutal e implacável como o Justiceiro do universo da Marvel. Havendo muitos momentos bem divertidos e viscerais em meio às ações do Frank Castle no jogo, com muitas fases memoráveis e uma progressão bem divertida de se jogar, onde ao contrário das outras mídias (com exceção dos quadrinhos), que por muito tempo suavizavam a brutalidade do personagem, esse daqui não pega leve em nenhum momento nesse aspecto, dando total liberdade ao jogador para utilizar as várias mecânicas centrais de tortura nos criminosos na sua gameplay, oferecendo inúmeras variações para executá-los, seja nos botões mais tradicionais do jogo, até em ocasiões frequentes de interrogatórios especiais ou execuções diretas do Justiceiro usando dos ambientes do mapa em pontos específicos (marcados por uma cor laranja para execução e branco para interrogatório).
O sadismo nesse game é tão grande que mesmo após você conseguir a confissão ou informação de algum criminoso, você pode tranquilamente terminar o serviço com ele da forma que você está ameaçando fazer ou só o deixar viver, sempre dando a escolha final ao jogador, que mesmo que você perca alguns pontos por matá-los após a entrega da informação nos interrogatórios, não são todos os pontos que você perde sempre equilibrando os pontos e novamente não tendo tanta consequência em meio a isso, sendo quase sempre à mostra para o jogador ver as execuções. Falando um pouco desse tal sistema de pontos, seria como se fosse o dinheiro do game, para você utilizá-lo com upgrades para o seu personagem, como alguns desses upgrades que são o clássico de aumentar a vida (que aqui seria o colete) ou o tempo de duração do modo frenesi que é um modo similar ao "Modo Fúria" do "Trevor" no "GTA V", em que o personagem entra em um estado de insanidade onde no caso do Castle, ele não leva dano e pode ir para cima dos inimigos tranquilamente lançando suas facas ou executando da forma convencional com o botão "Q" que pense num modo daora e divertido de usar.
Alguns leves spoilers nessa parte, então para quem for jogá-lo de alguma forma ainda, pule para o próximo parágrafo é que: acredito que uma das fases mais memoráveis desse jogo é a que o Frank Castle entra dentro de um caixão em uma cerimônia que seria para um dos chefes do crime daquele distrito que o mesmo tinha executado, que pense num momento divertido e marcante sair do caixão com tudo atirando nos mafiosos, além de tantos outros momentos como a própria missão final no presídio que faz referência a prisão de Alcatraz, e as várias outras partes em que surgiam os personagens famosos da Marvel nesse game podendo ser apenas uma aparição, ou uma verdadeira companhia para auxiliar na missão, como a Viúva Negra, o Matt Murdock, o Homem de Ferro, entre tantos outros que era sempre legal e era até que corriqueiro isso ocorrer em meio a campanha.
Enfim, mesmo com problemas relacionados ao sistema de mira que realmente não é perfeito, onde ao se usar a mira precisa em vez da mira livre, a retícula mexia em conjunto, sendo bem questionável para acertar o tiro desse jeito, entre outros, o jogo ainda diverte bastante, tendo dezesseis missões ao todo, em que todas elas são bem divertidas e prendem bem o jogador, onde todo o jogo tem um certo charme por trazer um estilo de quadrinhos mais pela forma de apresentar suas legendas, em que me entristece não ter como adquiri-lo hoje em dia, só havendo como jogá-lo por sites que disponibilizam esses tais "jogos abandonware" (abandonados pela empresa) pela Internet, mas não resta esperança para que um dia quem sabe venha de novo as lojas digitais para comprá-lo, ou que tenha um atual jogo do Justiceiro que beba das mecânicas trazidas nesse aqui, com tantas abordagens similares para apresentar a faceta real e sombria desse personagem tão interessante da Marvel.
O sadismo nesse game é tão grande que mesmo após você conseguir a confissão ou informação de algum criminoso, você pode tranquilamente terminar o serviço com ele da forma que você está ameaçando fazer ou só o deixar viver, sempre dando a escolha final ao jogador, que mesmo que você perca alguns pontos por matá-los após a entrega da informação nos interrogatórios, não são todos os pontos que você perde sempre equilibrando os pontos e novamente não tendo tanta consequência em meio a isso, sendo quase sempre à mostra para o jogador ver as execuções. Falando um pouco desse tal sistema de pontos, seria como se fosse o dinheiro do game, para você utilizá-lo com upgrades para o seu personagem, como alguns desses upgrades que são o clássico de aumentar a vida (que aqui seria o colete) ou o tempo de duração do modo frenesi que é um modo similar ao "Modo Fúria" do "Trevor" no "GTA V", em que o personagem entra em um estado de insanidade onde no caso do Castle, ele não leva dano e pode ir para cima dos inimigos tranquilamente lançando suas facas ou executando da forma convencional com o botão "Q" que pense num modo daora e divertido de usar.
Alguns leves spoilers nessa parte, então para quem for jogá-lo de alguma forma ainda, pule para o próximo parágrafo é que: acredito que uma das fases mais memoráveis desse jogo é a que o Frank Castle entra dentro de um caixão em uma cerimônia que seria para um dos chefes do crime daquele distrito que o mesmo tinha executado, que pense num momento divertido e marcante sair do caixão com tudo atirando nos mafiosos, além de tantos outros momentos como a própria missão final no presídio que faz referência a prisão de Alcatraz, e as várias outras partes em que surgiam os personagens famosos da Marvel nesse game podendo ser apenas uma aparição, ou uma verdadeira companhia para auxiliar na missão, como a Viúva Negra, o Matt Murdock, o Homem de Ferro, entre tantos outros que era sempre legal e era até que corriqueiro isso ocorrer em meio a campanha.
Enfim, mesmo com problemas relacionados ao sistema de mira que realmente não é perfeito, onde ao se usar a mira precisa em vez da mira livre, a retícula mexia em conjunto, sendo bem questionável para acertar o tiro desse jeito, entre outros, o jogo ainda diverte bastante, tendo dezesseis missões ao todo, em que todas elas são bem divertidas e prendem bem o jogador, onde todo o jogo tem um certo charme por trazer um estilo de quadrinhos mais pela forma de apresentar suas legendas, em que me entristece não ter como adquiri-lo hoje em dia, só havendo como jogá-lo por sites que disponibilizam esses tais "jogos abandonware" (abandonados pela empresa) pela Internet, mas não resta esperança para que um dia quem sabe venha de novo as lojas digitais para comprá-lo, ou que tenha um atual jogo do Justiceiro que beba das mecânicas trazidas nesse aqui, com tantas abordagens similares para apresentar a faceta real e sombria desse personagem tão interessante da Marvel.
Badass third person shooter and feels just like it came out of a Garth Ennis comic book (he is involved with the game after all). Nice selection of guns and several ways to interrogate or execute enemies. Action gets more crazy as the game progresses. The only flaw of this game besides some minor glitches is that the boss fights could be better.