Review of Punisher (NES)

The Punisher is a game released on NES (Nintendo) in 1990. It's an interesting game for it's time and although it has many flaws, it's not without it's charm. Punisher fans will most likely enjoy this game. Let's look at the big five categories.

Story : The story fits Punisher well. In the comics, he's a vigilante with an arsenal of weapons who brings street thugs to justice. It's the same here, and it shows it well. Punisher mostly sticks to shooting enemies up in this game, with the occasional fisticuffs.

Graphics : The graphics are simply middle ground for the most part. Not completely horrible but not great either. Punisher looks okay and his a decent amount of animations. The bosses look good and the comic counterparts are all a decent translation to the game. The background is mostly generic and bland. You have to shoot pretty much everything to get the power ups since it's pretty hard to tell which background contains an item and what doesn't.

Sound : The sound effects are timid and leave a lot to be desired. Overall, the game's sound effects don't capture it's brutality which is disappointing. The music is quite horrid, all the songs feature chromatic nonsense that just loops over and over. Mind numbing. Most of the stages themselves don't even have music, which might have been a good thing considering the songs that made the cut.

Game play : The game play is a mixed bag. The screen scrolls very slowly from the left side to the right side. You control your cross hairs with the directional pad. You also control Punisher with the directional pad. So here we come to the game's huge flaw. Dodging while firing your weapon is pretty much impossible and will get you killed. Instead you're forced to pretty much choose one option over the other. Not a very tempting proposition. On the other hand, most every enemy besides the bosses require only one hit to kill. So shooting before you get shot can become a viable option if you get good enough. You can get upgrades for your gun which make it much easier and also grenades and missile launchers.

The game overall is pretty difficult and the bosses themselves are very, very difficult. You will need a good amount of lives to survive these encounters. You basically need to stock up on power ups, grenades, and missiles to even stand a chance in this game.

Re playability : Depends on your mood. The game can be enjoyable but can also be very frustrating. If you learn the game you can survive most encounters with a little bit of difficulty.

Overall: 5/10. A mostly average game on all fronts. Punisher fans will fun with this one.