The Punisher (2005) - A PS2 Classic!

By Sam Coles: 

The Punisher is one of Marvel’s most ionic yet controversial characters, mostly due to the violent content it is associated with its source material. People who write it off as mindless violence really don’t understand the character, but I can understand why some maybe turned off by the violent content. The character’s popularity was through the roof in the early to late 2000’s, mostly due to Garth Ennis’ work on the character through the Marvel Knights and MAX line of comics. However, not only that we got two film adaptations, first one starring Thomas Jane in 2004 and the another with Ray Steveson in 2008. So, putting two and two together you would think there would be a game adaptation, and you would be right and we got 2005’s The Punisher.  

Developed by Volition, this game was met with a lot of upheaval with its production as it was refused classification twice by the BBFC and was given the dreaded Adults Only rating from the ESRB. This was due to the extreme violence of the game, mostly because of the interrogation sections where the executions were considered too much at time, which is rather quint by today’s standards. The BBFC refused to release the game in the UK unless they slapped a headache inducing filter on top of it, and the ESRB wanted the same, but also wanted the camera to pan away from the gruesome demise of the unfortunate criminal. Despite the censoring of said parts of the game, what we got is great, so let’s get into it.  

The plot of this game, loosely follows the Welcome Back Frank saga that was published in the year 2000, although there is a distinct lack of Frank punching a polar bear. Anyway, Frank who is once again played by Thomas Jane with the writing chops of Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti is hunting down the Gnucci mob family among others. The story is told through flash backs, as Frank has been arrested (for his own intentions), and is telling the events that led him to his imprisonment. It is a really good story; it helps that Thomas Jane does a good performance as Frank with his dry wit and cynical nature are ripped straight from the comic book panels.   

Gameplay is rather straight forward; it is a third person shooter that is heavy inspired by Max Payne which includes trench coat physics because of course. Anyway, you shoot criminal goons with a variety of weapons, which most can be duel wielded, yes you can even round around with two assault rifles gunning down goons, which I did so with a gleeful grin. You can take human shields in this game, and this mechanic becomes mandatory in the later missions as the enemies are decked out in Kevlar armour and use high caliber weapons. The shooting feels great, every gun packs a punch even the pistols, the sound design is crunchy and thunderous especially the shotguns.  

Now we get to the aspect of the game that got the game banned/refused classification originally, the interrogations. What these parts entail, is that you must get information out of criminal, this can range from them giving you a code for a door of a hint about a boss etc. However, this is also how you regain health in this game, and it can get awkward in the middle of gunfight when you are shaking a criminal down for info as you tank bullets for the sake of health. If you push them too far, they will meet a grizzle death, from deep frying someone’s head, feeding them to a shark or putting them through a wood chipper feet first. Despite the censoring with this version, the sound design and voice work leave it to your imagination and makes it worse somehow.  

Visually the game looks pretty good for a PlayStation 2 game, bear in mind that this was a late life cycle game and it push the console to its limits. The character models look really good for the time, especially The Punisher’s character model, as he looks to be a mix of Steve Dillion’s drawings of the character mixed with the mountain of meat that he is portrayed as in the MAX comics. Blood and gore effects are great, you really feel every bullet tear through enemies in this game, which is great for a shooter let alone a game based on The Punisher. The only real issue I had with this game was the performance, the framerate was stable for the most part but there was one segment where it was really low and was quite hard to play. I think this is only an issue with the PS2 version, whereas on the original Xbox it runs much better and can be played on the 360 via backwards compatibility.  

The Punisher game from 2005 is an excellent game and understands the character of Frank Castle, it is an explosive shooter that shows the developers absolutely love the source material. It is a crying shame that we never got their open world sequel they were working on, or any good Punisher game since. I feel the industry is in a more mature place now, and I think a story driven third person shooter based on The Punisher would work in today’s gaming environment, but one can only wish.  

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