The Kingpin and his thugs are making trouble in the city. Time for Frank Castle and Nick Fury to take the law into their own hands and punish the guilty.
Overview
Select from The Punisher or Nick Fury and get ready to dispose of some criminals. Even better add a second player and double the punishment in this one-two player, comic themed side scroller.
Graphics 9/10
Is this a Cps2 game? Well from the looks of it, one might say that. This game is absolutely gorgeous. Capcom certainly pushed the Cps1 board to it's limits. The characters are fluidily animated and well detailed, one good example is Nick Fury's smoke from his cigar. No two frame animation here. Backgrounds are also up to par here, especially the scene shown when exiting the train. Props to capcom for the various interactive parts of the environment through out the game. Storyboards between stages also help set the comic themed mood.
Gameplay/Controls 10/10
The Punisher is one of those games that a person can just jump right into and go stright to the action. Capcom standard side scrolling fighting game controls. 8-way directional joystick, and two buttons for attack and jump. The great feature here are several special moves that are easy to pull off. Double tapping foward and pressing attack will result in a roll side-kick. Or pressing both buttons at the same time will execute a special attack or throw (when gripping someone). Another good feature are the vast assortment of weapons to lay the smack down with. Unlike other games where you break a box to get a weapon....this game even lets you use the box as one. Basically anything thats not nailed down is open game. So don't worry if you wasted your last bullet destroying that android, use his leg as a club!
Sound/Music 7/10
Altough not spectacular, the background music is enough to get you through the game. It just seems that Capcom could have done much better. However this is overlooked with by the sound effects. When your blowing things up and setting someone on fire, music is not that important. Basically there is enough shooting, punching, breaking, stabbing etc. that you'll probably won't even notice the somewhat average background music.
Replay Value 7/10
Even though I consider this to be the best side scroller on the cps1 system...Its still a side scroller. Not much to go back and do once you ended the Kingpin's evil empire. However it is entertaining to play every now and then to release some stress..
Overall 9/10
Bascially one helluva side scrolling fighting game!. Despite being often overshadowed by Final Fight or Knights of the Round, this game is probably the best of its genre on the cps1 system. Luckally for those of you who havn't played it, or for those of you who want to give it spin and don't have access to an arcade machine, you can know that The Punisher was faithfully ported to the Sega Genesis game system.
- By Enternal
