Bioshock, now infamous amongst gamers of all seasoning, shook the industry by proving singleplayer gaming was NOT dead. It proved Co-op was not necessary to be interesting, that multiplayer modes were not mandatory in an FPS, and that stupid plot lines and outrageous characters would not feel out of place in a serious tone. For lots of reasons, Bioshock was a great game, but for one, it killed the experience for me. Right now, I’m going to warn you, if you have not played the game, I cannot assure you I won’t spoil it. I’m going to talk as if you have finished it, so spoilers potentially start HERE.====================== (continue reading…)

No, that’s not Generic FPS #3219413980473, that’s Frank in The Punisher: No Mercy killing someone. Generically.

There is little one can do to screw up the making of a game about Marvel’s The Punisher: you give Frank Castle a huge assortment of guns and things to kill people with, you give him a LOT of people to use aforementioned weapons on, and give it lots of over-the-top, unrelenting violence that the Punisher comic series has been known for. Volition Inc, the people who made The Punisher for the PlayStation 2 back in 2005 did this perfectly – with Frank not only being able to shoot up the bad guys as much as he likes, but also deal with them in creative ways, one of which involves shoving someone, feet-first, into a woodchipper. Sure they obscured these torture/interrogation sequences with black-and-white film grain effects, but it didn’t change the fact that it was DAMN AWESOME.

And now we see where Frank is headed in this side of the seventh gaming generation. Produced by Zen Studios, the guys behind hardcore classics such as Pinball FX for the Xbox 360, Flipper Critters for the Nintendo DS and Rocky and Bullwinkle for the Xbox 360, The Punisher: No Mercy is a no-frills first person shooter with the titular character doing what he does best: shoot bad guys to death.

As you can see from the video, the first-person shooter gameplay does look solid. Zen Studios seem to have a good handle on what constitutes an okay FPS – serviceable guns and effects, varied environments, visible damage and death animations for those who you use the weapons with, etc. Although, for the record, the violence does look a bit half-hearted, and the weapons themselves doesn’t seem to be packing as much punch as we’d like.

But the main problem here is that – well, consider this the opinion of yours truly – the first-person perspective gets rid of the fact that you’re the Punisher, and instead relegates the brooding hardass into someone you’d only be seeing in cutscenes. Mind, I’m all for immersion, making you feel like you’re the character you’re playing as and all, but I’m sure people would want to see the Punisher doing stuff that no other superhero would even DARE to do, rather than just re-play the same SHOOTAN GAEM scenario they could get from other games. It’s the Punisher’s main draw – he’s an entity of his own, uncompromising and hard-set on his path to revenge – and we WANT to see him fuck someone’s shit up. We don’t want him relegated to a gun and a pair of hands floating in our TV screens. We don’t need to imagine or be fooled that we’re the Punisher, because he’s just that hardcore. Zen Studios, please please PLEASE take a page out of the book that Volition wrote. You’re making a Punisher game, not a generic FPS game. We want the sharks, the woodchippers, the curb-stomps. We want Frank. The game being a PlayStation Network downloadable is no excuse.

You can view the trailer here.