Inexorable- The Punisher: No Mercy Reviewed

As Bob Dylan most famously sang, “The times they are a-changing.” While the folk singer was certainly not prophesying the pastime of electronic entertainment, his words do accurately describe a contemporary shift in the industry. Where our first-person-shooters were once regulated to the vast resources found in the pits of polycarbonate layers of CDs and DVD’s, now they being directly downloaded onto our consoles. Recent Ubisoft release Cell Factor: Psychokinetic Wars commenced the movement, with The Punisher: No Mercy, continuing the digital download trend.

Both of these FPS’s share a common ancestry in the Unreal Engine, which apparently allows for a physics based shooter in less than a quarter gigabyte footprint. Like Cell Factor, Punisher: No Mercy feels regretfully derivative of Unreal Tournament, which means the game is a modestly enjoyable multiplayer diversion, but fails to deliver any gratification in the single player campaign.

The Punisher’s story mode evokes his moniker in the second mission, where players are required to frag 150 opponents and a boss in less than eight minutes. Although foes are displayed with five different skins, they all behave frustratingly similar- each rushes the player on sight. While 2001’s Serious Sam mined enjoyment from equally brain-dead opponents, its attraction was the huge swarms of enemies that mobbed the player. No Mercy offers no more than three adversaries at a time, which respawn perpetually. Two minutes into this mission monotony set in; completionists may want to persist to unlock the game’s eight character skins and handful of weapons.

With expertise honed from a grueling single player training, it was time to prove my proficiency in the multiplayer arenas. The Punisher supports the obligatory competitive variations from team deathmatch, vigilante, to the more interesting- punish the punisher. This gamplay mode has participants gunning for a rocket launcher-toting player. Anyone skillful enough to slay the empowered character becomes the punisher, until they are shot by others, creating alliances that are quickly broken.

Much like Call of Duty 4, players are rewarded for killing a succession of foes before being eliminated. Various weapon enhancements from larger magazine size, increased accuracy, and augmented head damage grant skillfull players the tools to domination. While much of The Punisher feels unoriginal, the game’s powering-up system is well-engineered and enjoyable. Realistically, players are limited to carrying three weapons at a time- a long range, close range, and special weapon. Every time the player is killed they are conveniently allowed to adjust their armament loadout. Sadly, many of my online matches were met with a sizable amount of lag, creating opponents that were jumping around the screen and making targeting frustratingly inaccurate.
 
While the game’s opening screen, comic-inspired cinematics, and weapons are all first-rate, the rest of the game is a mixed bag. Each of The Punisher’s eight maps are of sufficient size for the game’s eight-player skirmishes, and contain a variety of settings from foundries, warehouses, and harbors. While environments display a minimal level of destructivity, respawning explosive barrels help keep the action lively. Sadly, the game’s framerate continually edges on choppiness, making it overly difficult to spot an obscured foe while the screen is rotating.