The Punisher - AKA Frank Castle - a character who has amused and inspired young minds for decades, has now been brought to the ever-growing world of console gaming.
Unlike other superheroes, The Punisher has no super powers - he is simply a man torn apart by the death of his family and is out to get the evildoers responsible for their murders.
The story line is the same as in the movie and the comic books, the only difference being that you can get to share a little piece of the action by taking on the Punisher persona yourself.
So what makes this game stand out from similar titles? Well, what other third-person shooter have you played where you are presented with 101 different ways to execute an enemy? This has to be some kind of a record.
The controls are not very difficult, especially as you are told what to do during the first level, so by the time you start playing on your own you are already quite familiar with them.
Features like being able to use two guns simultaneously are not new - we`ve seen this in titles like Max Payne - although the number of different weapons presented in The Punisher far exceeds that of your everyday third-person shooter.
Throughout the game you learn new things, like how to dodge bullets and sneak up to the bad guys without them knowing. But the most captivating feature I found was the ability to use the enemy as a human shield, allowing you to attack a number of enemies in one go without getting hit.
Torturing the bad guys
Another nice touch was the torture feature, where you can get information out of the captured enemy by either punching him, banging his head on the ground, strangling him or putting a shotgun in his face - or, if the situation is right, hanging him above a pool of piranhas until the info starts pouring out.
Just like in the above-mentioned Max Payne, a "bullet time" mode is available, although here it is called "slaughter mode". This little feature slows everything down to the point where you can simply walk away from enemy fire and obviously move much faster than the opposition.
Once in "slaughter mode", your character uses knives as weapons, executing everything that moves, while at the same time his energy slowly regenerates - a handy feature when running low on health and the sound of your heart starts beating faster and faster through the speakers.
Between missions you can build up your character`s features, including bullet resistance, increasing the capacity of ammunition your weapon can take and accuracy, to name but a few.
All in all, the game itself is pretty simple and straightforward; kill everyone that has a gun and save the hostages - that`s about it.
If you put your mind to it, you could probably finish the entire game in a day. Looking at it from a critical perspective, it has good graphic features and a great soundtrack. It certainly is an improvement on third-person shooters. The Punisher pushes the "Payne" to the Max.
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