To Execute, Not to Pardon! Game Review... 0_o
-A hundred fighters attacked this blind man! What was his name again...?
**
Ah, remembered! Daredevil! And everyone ended up in prison or the hospital!
-But behind us is not Daredevil, but The Punisher. We will all die.
**
(Dialogue between two Yakuza just before death)
Frank Castle enters the room, where there are four, although the number of enemies doesn’t really matter to him. He grabs the one closest to him by the collar, wrapping the fragile neck in the steel embrace of his left hand. Frank uses the man, who hasn’t even reacted yet, as a shield. In Castle's right hand... well, let’s say it’s a shotgun. The other poor souls in the room, realizing what’s happening, are already shooting at him. The living shield doesn’t like this, but breaking free from Frank's grip is no easy task, so the scoundrel simply gasps, trying to catch a breath while accepting the bullets meant for The Punisher.
Castle aims at one of the shooters. The steel barrel of the shotgun spits flame and buckshot. The poor guy’s head blows apart, blood splattering in a fountain; the body of the slain drops dramatically. Seeing this, his friend becomes nauseous, and he embarrassingly vomits on the carpet. Oh, and he’s a thug! The guy won’t have time to regain his senses before he meets the same unfortunate fate as his comrade, clutching his belly filled with lead, he collapses dead. So, there was one more somewhere.
Castle finds the last little punk crouched behind a chair, hands raised in a plea for mercy. The living shield, who was left half-dead at the end of the slaughter, is no longer needed. Frank tightens his grip on the guy’s neck, the vertebrae crack, and the kid’s limp body falls at his feet. The executioner slowly approaches the thug, who has surrendered ahead of time. He is tired of killing, now he wants to talk.
The conversation takes place in an intimate setting, one-on-one. Frank pushes his interlocutor’s head deeper into the fireplace, reacting to the brutal treatment, the poor guy jerking around like a louse on a comb. His companion doesn’t resist for long; after a couple of burns, he spills everything like a confession – giving up the boss, friend, mom, dad, and beloved sister. After Frank receives the information, the speaker will no longer be of interest to him, and his body will head for the fireplace instead of dry birch logs.
At this point, the review could end, for all the facets of its unpretentious gameplay, all the mechanics, pros and cons, fit fully into these lines. However, your humble servant, a loquacious one, has gotten to the keyboard and will ramble on about the game long and boringly. Shall we?
Our alter ego, Frank 'The Punisher' Castle, a former special agent, a sort of out-of-control killing machine. If you took the time to read the nonsense at the beginning of the post, then you know that Frank is brutal, admittedly, sometimes excessively brutal, but the drama that befell the guy at the very beginning of the game justifies any (let's repeat for emphasis) ANY of his brutality. What happened to Castle? Come on, guess in three tries, or two. That’s right, well done – Frank’s family was killed by the mafia.
Some might say this kind of plot twist is overused, but in this case, I prefer to call such banality a classic. In relation to this game, I will use that word again and again, because classic shines through in every element. Why? The executioner Frank is not just a year or two old, he was born from the great Marvel in the eighties when such plots were not yet tiresome. Agreed, given this fact, Mr. Punisher is fully justified in his plagiarism case, especially since Mr. Max Payne wasn’t even in the works back then.
I repeat the question! Who crapped in the fireplace?!
However, Payne stood behind Castle since the release of The Punisher. These games are compared in full, from the overall gameplay concept of 'run-and-gun,' to the image of the main character burdened with personal drama and a dark, oppressive atmosphere. And these comparisons were definitely not in favor of The Punisher.
Having lost the only people dear to him, Frank was frustrated, even worse, enraged, and of course, he dealt with his offenders in the most brutal and twisted manner. Frank’s rage prolonged, becoming chronic, and murder became part of Castle's daily routine like brushing teeth or morning exercises. Frank is not Max; he doesn’t torment his restless soul with moral dilemmas and worries. He, making a brutal face, prefers to tear to pieces his accursed enemies, slowly climbing the ranks of the criminal world while leaving behind mountains of corpses. It starts with low-lifes and petty local thugs and ends with respectable thieves in law sitting at the very top. No, naturally, it’s not that banal; the plot has a couple of twists and even the mystery 'Who’s at the very top?'.
In every respect, Castle is a tank. A huge guy in a black cloak, with a stylish white skull drawn on it. Under the cloak hides a sensitive thin nature and a bulletproof vest, which explains, to some degree, Castle’s impulsiveness and his extraordinary resistance to bullets. Frank always goes straight, not even bothering to climb over a fence – he’d rather create a big bang, making an enormous hole in it. He doesn’t possess acrobatics; the only moves he allows himself are jumping sideways, clumsily falling onto his side, or forward, tumbling, awkwardly flashing the soles of his army boots. By the way, he’s a former Navy SEAL, but he blatantly ignores stealth mode, looking disdainfully at Sam Fisher.
The game features a fairly standard set of levels, unimpressive in terms of decor or architecture, such as a drug den, slaughterhouse, seaport, a Yakuza hideout designed in Japanese style, and so on. But that’s not scary; sometimes you don’t even pay attention to such minor details as the ambiance when you’re fully immersed in the process of exterminating the next dozen enemies. This activity can be quite addictive, largely thanks to one feature designed to diversify and deepen the process of enemy elimination. This feature is the so-called executions, or torture, as you wish, so let’s talk about them in detail.
Who dulled my knives?
How to describe it more vividly? Well, for example, you are a serial killer, thinking of yourself as the hand of the Lord, and decided to bring good and beauty to the world by annihilating all that is evil and disgusting; in short, you are somewhat like Frank Castle. Got it? Great!
So, during the execution of justice you:
a). Would use only standard weaponry to kill enemies, because using items not specifically designed for killing is unprofessional?
b). Would use standard weaponry, and occasionally, with permission from a higher rank, and after two hours of meditation, would use pheromones to attract ant lions?
c). Would happily utilize in your fight against evil, inanimate objects from the surrounding world, as well as all possible flora and fauna?
The correct answer is, mind you, 'C', well, at least for Frank! Because he doesn't hesitate to saw bandits with a circular saw, burn them alive in a crematory oven, or, just think about it, impale a poor soul on a rhinoceros horn! What a creative guy!
Who hasn’t fed my fish in three months?
**Frank Castle's signature pie recipe: - Take one criminal, he shouldn’t be too fat...**
Executions are scattered here and there, a few on each level; it’s clear that the developers tried to make them as varied as possible, but with a relatively large number, this was challenging, because by the end of the game, you might come across some repetitions.
However, some executions are genuinely fun and unique, for instance, shoving a person's head into a bear trap nailed to the wall. You can also torture any thug you don’t like, even in the absence of specially designated spots for this purpose. After all, Frank’s fists and gun are always with him!
Who trampled in the hallway!!!
But don’t think poorly, guys! All these executions were not invented for the stupid satisfaction of the masochistic tastes of silly kids, or not only for that. During tortures, Frank receives very important information from his victims! I would even say vital information. For example, before the electric ray zaps the thug, he will tell Frank that in the next room lies an ambush – three criminals with machine guns! "No way!" you want to cry out at that moment, - “I thought I’d be met by topless girls with flowers!” Throughout the game, the information obtained from the unfortunate fellows comes in handy only once or twice. But without another function of torture, it will be hard to get by, namely, the function that replenishes health. Yes, that’s right; there are no health kits in the game; instead, there are people who can be tortured to recharge you. Also, using a hostage as a living shield is very advantageous; Castle, hiding behind a foreign body, is practically invulnerable.
You haven’t paid for cable for three months!
There’s not much to say about the weapons since the set is classic: pistol-shotgun-automatic-machine gun, oh, and a knife with which Frank skillfully slits throats in quick kill mode. Simply divine. There’s also a flamethrower, and the ones that get set ablaze look silly – they run around waving their hands, screaming and burning. It’s a pity that in real combat, it’s not very effective, practically zero.
So, from room to room, from corridor to patio, from there to the yard, from the yard to the casino, and from there to the museum, Frank Castle marches, leaving only corpses and remains behind. Initially, the bodies belong to Italians, you know, Italians in hats and coats, with a characteristic accent; they’re the classic 'Macaroni-spaghetti-mafioso'.
Then, Frank reduces the population of our Slavic brethren, also classically so. The Russians here are a military battalion, who knows how they managed to sneak into the very heart of the USA and settle on one of the small islands next to the glorious city of New York. And I don’t know what the hell duty the American special services were performing back then, but the Russians even brought a nuclear warhead to the island. It’s worth noting the main villains among the Slavs, as they’re just as classic as their younger brothers. The first guy is a two-and-a-half-meter muscle man with an original itch in the groin, named 'The Russian'.
I know you ate from my fridge!
I know you watched my TV without asking!
You can start describing him with his characteristic tightly fitted cranberry shirt that clings to his mighty torso and finish off with the fact that bullets don’t affect him at all. The second Russian scoundrel is called 'The General', he is small and fat, and most importantly, he hates America with all his heart!
Later, Castle switches to the Japanese, classic in the most disgusting sense of the word. Wearing brightly colored clothes, screaming something in their gibberish, they perish by the hundreds just like their predecessors, only with one difference, against the background of an Asian atmosphere.
In fact, it must be said that the game features a plethora of colorful characters, personally adding a few extra points to it. On Castle’s path, he will meet numerous fascinating personalities, starting with astonishingly characterful mafia bosses expecting him at the end of each level, and ending with a multitude of cross-character personalities from other comic universes like Iron Man, currently adored by every other teen, and the less-known but equally interesting spy Nick Fury. Among the miscreants Frank sends to their ancestors, besides the aforementioned Russians, we also have the entire Italian mafia family, the Nucchis, each member of which, including the Italian mob mother, The Punisher executes with special cruelty.
Playing The Punisher is easy; sometimes it’s even too easy, so I’d suggest not hesitating to put the game on the highest difficulty level, just to experience the sheer idiocy of those damn checkpoints and curse their creator in ten generations.
Who throws butts on the staircase?!
What else is there? “A few words about the graphics” – the gallery prompts. Fine, I’ll talk about the graphics – it's terrible. And it’s not even that the game is morally outdated; alas, no. The graphics were terrible and hurt the eyes even at the time of the game’s release, back in two thousand five. Now, in two thousand ten, while playing The Punisher, none of this matters anymore; we still play even though the graphics are frankly awful, revisiting older games, nostalgically drooling over a dusty keyboard.
To sum up my incoherent babble, I want to say that all this cranberry-strawberry-raspberry bursting out of the monitor is not by the whim of the developers; they merely adhered to the well-built universe long created and polished, where everything is on the edge of a foul, everything is deliberately exaggerated, yet somehow looks organic and fitting. With the right attitude and a healthy dose of irony and self-irony, all this madness brings immense pleasure!
Who hasn’t hit the gym in three months?
"Where is the plot? Where is the drama? Where’s the slow-mo?" - the Max fans incessantly shout, splattering Frank with their complaints, and Castle has no decent answer to these attacks; he silently shows his detractors the middle finger, proudly. He does not hoard, leaving all these joys to Maxim Bolkin, who suffers through them with aplomb. Frank Castle, however, will take on the different prerogative – with equally displeased looks, he breaks bones and slits the throats of criminal elements, regardless of the indignation of law enforcement and human rights organizations.
So what do we have left in the absence of such vital components like a coherent storyline and stunning graphics? We have juicy, monotonously brutal, and meaty gameplay! But even this monster, after all its amputations and resections, satisfies me just a bit more than completely.
At the end of the review, as wise people say, it’s customary to give the game a rating. After prolonged algebraic calculations, I arrived at seventeen points out of a possible twenty-six.
That’s all, what are you sitting here, reading all this nonsense? Put on a coat, draw a skull, and rush outside; there, in the darkness of the alleys, Evil is lurking!
Exstas was twiddling his thumbs, especially for you! Thank you!