The Punisher is an action game for the Playstation 2 developed by THQ.

The Punisher is told via a series of flashbacks as you are interrogated by the police, you learn that your family was killed by thugs controlled by the Kingpin, through the game you guide the Punisher on a quest of revenge and finally try to take down the Kingpin himself. The game features many cameo appearances from other Marvel Superheroes or villains and you even get to face off against a couple of them. The story is a gritty tale of revenge and is pretty enjoyable to play through.

The game is for the most part a third person shooter, you are equipped with a variety of guns from pistols, assault rifles to flamethrowers. The gunplay is handled well and the guns feel powerful especially if you manage to pull off a headshot, the game gets very gory. The game also throws in some brutal quick kill melee moves where you can perform a really brutal execution with the tap of a button you can snap their neck for example.

The game does try to vary things up by offering you the chance to interrogate some of your enemies, for the most part you just get a standard response but at places in the level you can perform some special interrogations like you can dangle an enemy over a boiling vat, smash them repeatedly into the wall, threaten them by holding them over a ledge. It is really gory and satisfying to see these helpless foes struggle but some people may find it to be in poor taste.

The games only problem is there isn't really enough variety in what you do, it's simply shoot people for a bit mix in a few quick kills and end it with an interrogation, repeat for the whole game. The game isn't bad it just doesn't give you enough variety of things to do.

The graphics are fairly good and the visuals are surprisingly detailed for a Playstation 2 game.

The Punisher is a good action game but it could have used some more variety in the gameplay to make it better.