Genre : Action
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Violition
Release Date: January 17, 2005

In my last preview of The Punisher, I spoke of gore. I must now speak of it again. I may actually belabor the point. Playing this game, sober, on my own time at my own speed is an entirely different experience than being shown a representative sample. Forget the comic-book license, forget whatever preconceptions you might have; here is a game that encourages you to seek and find new ways to murder. It's fun, and it's addictive, but it's the kind of fun that makes you wonder about yourself.

The Punisher is, of course, based on Marvel's comic book of the same name. As Frank Castle, a vigilante who's declared a one-man war on crime, you'll be pursuing criminals and supervillains across New York City and beyond.

Garth Ennis wrote the script, and as you might expect, it draws upon Ennis' recent Punisher series under the Marvel Knights imprint. You'll shoot it out with the Gnucci crime family and its insane matriarch, get smacked stupid by the unstoppable soldier known only as the Russian, and pay a visit to the mercenary paradise of Nixon Island. You'll also encounter a who's-who of Marvel heroes and villains, such as the Black Widow, Nick Fury, Matt Murdock, Bushwhacker (I thought everyone had forgotten about him; I wish I had), Bullseye, the Kingpin, and Jigsaw.

This doesn't have much to do with last year's movie, except that Thomas Jane returns to provide Castle's voice. Jane was a little too skinny to really convey the Punisher's air of menace onscreen, but he's got the voice down cold. Combined with the excellent character model, the game's version of the Punisher looks, moves, and sounds exactly like the character Ennis writes: mean, driven, and utterly merciless.

That could also describe the game. The Punisher is one of the goriest third-person shooters I've ever played, and it gets most of that visceral impact -- a phrase I mean literally, by the way; I do not mean an impact that hits you in the gut; I mean guts making an impact upon you -- from what it allows you to do to people.

Obviously, you can shoot them. You're playing as the Punisher, and that's kind of his thing. You can wield a vast variety of firearms, from dual forty-fives to Objective Individual Combat Weapon to an anti-tank rocket. The Punisher can carry up to two pistols, two rifles, and a few grenades, which come in both flash-bang and frag varieties. In defiance of both the laws of physics and common sense, you can also dual-wield large rifles. Opening up on a large cluster of unsuspecting mooks with a pair of autoshotguns is one of the little pleasures in life.

It's worth noting at this point that The Punisher uses the Havok physics engine, so in the middle of a gunfight, furniture tumbles, windows shatter, bullet holes stay in walls, and bodies drop. It's not exactly realistic, but it still allows for an amazing amount of detail onscreen. Each character model also has gore zones, so if someone gets nailed with a shotgun blast to the head, that head is gone.

If you get close to a target, you can hit X for a Quick Kill. These are randomly determined according to your current weapon and what direction the victim's facing, but they're always instantly fatal -- which is useful when enemies start showing up in full riot armor -- and they're usually uncommonly vicious. Sure, Frank might just crack someone with the butt of his gun, but he's more likely to stick his trusty combat knife into a thug's nose, or straight through his skull.

By killing your opponents, you fill up the Punisher's Slaughter Mode meter. When it's full, you can hit Y to enter a killing frenzy, where the Punisher abandons his guns in favor of a pair of knives. In this state, you're crazed on adrenaline and slowly regenerate health. More importantly, if you get anywhere near an opponent, you can dispatch him with two thrown knives or a particularly gruesome Quick Kill.

Instead of a Quick Kill, you can also opt to grab an enemy. This lets you turn him into a human shield, forcing his buddies to shoot through him if they want to get to you (this is a serious ethical decision that most of them make in about half a second flat), but more importantly, it lets you interrogate him.

Interrogations form a surprisingly large part of The Punisher. A successful interrogation is worth serious points and restores some of the Punisher's lost life, but it's also where you find most of the serious bloodshed. In a given area, you'll know who you should try and interrogate by looking for the glowing white skull over someone's head. If you grab and successfully interrogate him, you'll learn a secret about the level you're in, such a hidden door, a weapons cache, or an escape route.

An interrogation is conducted using one of four methods the Punisher can use on the fly, or whatever useful item might be in the area: an open window, a sausage grinder, some live wires, a long drop... you see the theme, I'm sure. It's a sort of minigame, where the goal is to keep a cursor in a certain area for three seconds at a time. You move the cursor by threatening or injuring your victim, and if you're not careful, you'll "accidentally" kill the guy. Oops.

Both Interrogations and Quick Kills can be enhanced by using special areas that can be found in each stage. By using a Special Kill or Interrogation, you'll get more Style Points, which can be cashed in at the Punisher's apartment for bonuses like more body armor or attachments for your weapons. If you can earn enough Style Points on each level, you'll also unlock special challenges and secrets.

One of the more interesting facets of the game is how Style Points are awarded. If you can kill multiple enemies or get certain bonuses, such as saving an innocent bystander, without taking a hit, you'll start to rack up score multipliers. You'll get a decent number of points if you just run through each level killing everyone you see, but for a really high score, you'll have to do so without taking a hit, and preferably exclusively using headshots, Quick Kills, and Special Kills. This is the kind of game that'll drive perfectionists crazy.

The Punisher is, in short, not for children of any age, or the weak-stomached. This is the kind of game that a character like the Punisher demands; it doesn't take itself seriously, but at the same time, it doesn't pull any punches. Fans of the character will be pleased, but more importantly, it's poised to be the first really good shooter of 2005.