Recently, thanks to Gamefly, I was able to play The Punisher on my Playstation 2. And, honestly it wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong, the cameos are cool, the plot is amazing, and who wouldn’t love playing as Batman in the Marvel Universe? However, the game didn’t live up to its reputation. I checked Amazon after receiving said game (because that’s how I bought the Kingdom Hearts games) and found that a new copy is worth $100! I couldn’t believe it so I thought “Wow… this must be a great game!” Sadly, I was somewhat of a let down. Here are the pros and cons (in that order):

Okay. So let’s start with the cameos. In the game, The Punisher runs into some famous Marvel icons. First, he teams up with the Black Widow after trying to find a Russian drug ring. She turned out to be working undercover to stop their operations as well. So, for the rest of the mission, you get to fight alongside a Black Widow wielding a shotgun. Later, The Punisher crosses paths with none other than S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (this game was made before 2010 so Nick Fury is Caucasian). He helps you fight off some guys… sort of. For whatever reason, his A.I. was poorly programmed, so he will kill maybe 1 enemy while you’re running around taking out everyone. The final cameo, that lasts for less than a minuet after a few references to him, is Daredevil (in lawyer form). Throughout the game, you’ll hear a few references to Daredevil beating people up or not existing until he finally walks in and attempts to offer his services to The Punisher. Punisher quickly refuses and that’s the last you see of Daredevil. The final cameo is none other than Spider-man villain, The Kingpin. The Punisher traces the drug rings back to Fisk’s hotel and you get to talk with him for a bit. The next great thing about this game is the fact that The Punisher is basically Batman… except with any and all forms of guns. You can run up and stab somebody right off the bat or you can interrogate them THEN use them as a human shield. There’s also special interrogation modes as well as special places to perform special kills like throwing a guy through a 3rd story window. The last cool thing about the game is the interrogation tactics: Choke, punch, face smash, and gun-threat. Choking is just choking that’s simple enough. Punching is the same way you hit em in the gut, then the groin, then the face. Face smash is literally just bashing their face into the floor (always fun). And the gun-threat is holding a pistol to their forehead and pressing it farther in. All tactics are effective as long as you don’t accidentally kill them (you lose points for that :().

Now, since that was really long, let’s talk about what I don’t like (this’ll be shorter I swear). The main problem I have with the game is the lack of replay value. Sure you can go back and play it on a harder setting, but getting your score high enough can prove to be so tiresome it isn’t worth it. Add to it the special “Punishment Mode” or “Challenge Mode” and you have a good reason to replay it.. if it wasn’t hard to do. Some missions are easy like “Take out an enemy using these items” but others are like “Beat this level in -insert time here- on Hard difficulty” and it’s just for one of several comic book covers. For some reason I just got bored of the game after beating it once. I guess it was the fact that the plot was relatively short. Looking back, it’s probably one of those games where you replay it several months or years later.

Overall, love the game and would recommend a play to anybody who can rent it or find a decent $10 used version. Got more movies on the horizon so until I can get myself through the crowded movie theater, keep on gamin’! 😀