365//365: Day 062 – The Punisher (GEN) [Quickie]

Capcom has always been a multi-genre mega-power. Street Fighter owned the fighting genre, Mega Man was a darling in the 2D platformer world, and Final Fight set the standard for the beat em up genre for many years to come. As with Street Fighter 2 and Mega Man, there were many sequels and spin offs, trying to capitalize on the formers success. Although at its core, most of these games in the genre were painfully similar in terms of basics, each game had its own distinct feeling. There were countless titles in this genre, including The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, a six player X-Men machine, Alien vs Predator, The Punisher, and so on. The latter title, The Punisher, was one that flew under the radar of most fans to the genre. While it’s not terrible, its also nothing special from the other thousand games in the genre.

In terms of innovation, Punisher wins no awards. With so many different versions of the same structure, each game had to rely on the subtle tweaks here and there, and the characters you played as. Playing as the Punisher meant you had to be controlling a bad ass character, with a good arsenal and taking out some big named crime figures. When it comes to the arsenal, you have more melee weaponry than ballistic. You have bats, knives, axes and so on, which only last a few hits tops. When you do get a weapon, whether it be an uzi or a machine gun, you’re severely limited ammo wise, not to mention having some pitiful damage overall. Every so often, you come across a section where you can pull your gun out and can shoot your enemies with an unlimited supply of bullets and no reloading. Why does this happen? Why can’t I pull that gun out at any given moment? Also, why does it take 12 bullets to kill random thugs?

Enjoy using your gun freely, as the game dictates when you're allowed to pull out your infinite ammo handgun and unleash hell. What?

Why are there no mentions of any Punisher figures outside Kingpin? As you progress further in, there’ still no other mention of any of the Punisher’s list of enemies. Instead, I get an eight foot tall red robot sent by Kingpin, to destroy me. Now I’ve read a few Punisher comics, watched the movies, and so on. Not once did I see Punisher take on an eight foot red robot with his bare fists.

Graphically, it’s far from arcade perfect, but decent enough. Backgrounds beg for more detail, although each character looks good enough. Everything involving the audio is lacking. The voiced grunts get tiresome quickly, and the music lacks any life to it. You can play with your TV muted and not miss a thing.

If you go into this game with any sort of expectations, you will be disappointed. As with most of the other million titles in this genre, it’s a good way to waste a couple of hours, but nothing you’ll be coming back for. Playing with a friend always adds to the experience with games like these, but even they’ll agree that there are much better games you could be playing.

"Like any Capcom, you are perfect!"

Rating: 6.1