The Punisher

The Punisher is a brutal third-person action shooter from Volition, built around Marvel's antihero Frank Castle, who methodically wipes out New York's criminal organizations floor by floor, warehouse by warehouse, casino by casino, closely following the comic book source material. The game became known for its interrogation system, where after stunning an opponent the player chooses from a set of drastic ways to extract information from him or finish him off outright, which gave an otherwise classic cover shooter a distinctive and controversial identity that the game retained despite being a fairly straightforward third-person shooter without big ambitions elsewhere. Even the environment of individual levels itself hides its own lethal traps, which can be turned against enemies during combat.

The PC version came out alongside the console releases in 2005 and offered higher resolution and sharper textures than either PS2 or Xbox. The controls were reworked for mouse and keyboard, which made aiming at range more precise, but the cover system, designed primarily for a gamepad, felt somewhat less smooth on keyboard, and transitioning between cover spots required more getting used to than on console. Unlike the European console releases, where some of the most brutal fatal interrogations were toned down due to classification, the PC version retained the uncut content in full brutality even in Europe, similar to the American console versions on both platforms.

Otherwise, in terms of content, it's an identical game with the same missions, weapons and interrogation sequences as on the consoles, without any content added or cut. The main advantage of the computer version thus remains sharper graphics and uncut content even in the European release, not any expansion of the gameplay itself or extra missions compared to the consoles. The choice between cover shooting and a quiet approach using the environment remains just as open on PC as on both consoles.

Why play it: Anyone who appreciates the open choice between cover-based shooting and a stealthy approach will find the same content in the PC version of The Punisher as on the consoles, just with sharper graphics and no cuts.