397 - The Punisher

The Punisher! Don't forget, while you're out hunting them, they're hunting you! Hey! And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. The Punisher, as a... as an IP or just maybe adjust as a character. A lot going on there, a lot of different movies. But one thing that's consistent...

It's kind of like Spider-Man, right? Like Uncle Ben has to die. He's always becomes the Punisher because his family is killed. And that's kind of like... It's kind of sad, right? Not every superhero has that kind of background that like the Punisher and Spider-Man have in common where, you know, like someone has to die in order for you to become the hero. Superman was Batman too. Yeah, that's true. Actually, Batman's, I guess, like the OG of that.

And Superman wouldn't be Superman unless his entire planet was destroyed. He was like a baby. He didn't decide to become that. Sure, but it's still the consequence. I think it seems to happen a lot with non-powered superheroes or lesser-powered superheroes. If you've got crazy superpowers, you're like, oh yeah, I'll just be a superhero.

But otherwise, something's got to happen to make you a superhero. Right, right. Iron Man was just like, I want to break out of prison. Yeah, true. But the Punisher first appeared with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man number 129. That's frustrating for me because I collect amazing Spider-Man comics and that's like, you know, the 100s are significantly less expensive than the really low numbers.

But this issue is crazy expensive and I'll probably never own it as a result because The Punisher is a pretty big deal in terms of characters that came out during the Bronze Age of comic books.

And, you know, the whole like where he goes from there. There's a lot of like interesting storylines like way after the fact just to show you how weird like the Punisher can get. There's a series called Frankencastle where they turn the Punisher into a stitched together monster a la Frankenstein. And they have to... Yeah, exactly. You get what's going on there. But then also there's another one where the Punisher becomes the cosmic ghost rider who is the Herald of Galactus in the future.

Uh, that's a weird choice too. So they're not afraid to like take Punisher and do really extreme stuff like Punisher in space where it's like a pulp sci-fi mini series where Punisher's. you know still taking care of vigilante crime stuff but you know in the in space in an astronaut suit yeah yeah i'd say punisher was probably the first like marvel

guy that i actually thought was pretty cool uh due in fact entirely to the 2004 tom jane vehicle uh named after him it was uh probably like It was one of the first, like, dark and gritty versions of comic book stuff that I saw. And it was hyper-violent. And I'm a big fan. Big fan of that movie, having not seen it in probably 15, 20 years. It's the best way to remain a fan of something is to stay away from it after the fact. Yeah, true.

That wasn't even the first version of The Punisher on film, actually. There was a 1989 movie with Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher. And afterwards, I feel like no one ever played The Punisher. consecutively until John Bernthal in the Daredevil series and then the Punisher series and now the new Daredevil series that's... Technically part of the old Daredevil series. Who cares about canon? Wait, so is this one you're talking about not the Netflix series? That is the Netflix series.

So I haven't seen any of those, but, uh, honestly, I don't think I was familiar with the Punisher as a character at all until that came out. And now I just know about it through like just hearing about the series. Yeah. The, uh, uh, I, I, I'd say that also.

has colored my impression of just you know people like like tom jane like you know when i first saw him in uh arrested development and just saying like i just want my kids back i'm like that's the punisher saying that that's the punisher that we're laughing at um it's kind of inappropriate considering what he went through and um

you know, Rebecca Romaine Stamos. Like, that's the Punisher. I don't know anything about these comic books you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, though, because... Even Jon Bernthal, when I see him, whenever he appears in The Bear, I'm like, oh, that's just The Punisher. I guess he opened up a restaurant in Chicago, got away from the streets of New York City.

To me, that's just the Punisher, and I guess that happens a lot. Yeah, the comics do get weird, though, because there's plenty of ones where they're serious and he's a vigilante and all that. But then there's also, like, I found this one, Archie meets the Punisher. which is a straight-faced crossover with Archie Comics. I think I did see this comic cover. Yeah, the cover is hysterical because they even drew him like...

Ever so slightly in the Archie style, but still with a five o'clock shadow and he's holding an assault wet rifle. It's pretty funny. And Archie says... Because they're at the Riverdale High sock hop. Archie says on the cover, I knew there'd be a chaperone, but this is ridiculous. But you said this is like played straight, though? Well, I guess in the sense of like, yeah, played straight that he exists.

in this universe. Yeah, of course the Punisher is our school chaperone. He's always been. That's preposterous.

And you really don't need to know any of this to play the Punisher video game on NES. This is an over-the-shoulder on-rails shooter developed by Beam Software, published by LJN. Now, when you'll be here at LJN... Usually you jump immediately to a conclusion, but I jumped to a quicker conclusion with this game. This, this, I thought like when I first booted up.

I could have sworn I was going to be playing a zapper game, but there's not even zapper support. There's not even like optional zapper support. This is a move the D pad to aim your cursor shooter mashed with some, you know, very, very light.

melee but for the most part it's just shooting in what could have totally been a uh an on rails zapper game a la like you know future time crisis and those style of games yeah i guess you could make that argument um but i think that if you like if you look at what kind of mechanics this game is actually employing and you think about sort of replacing them with the zapper it like moves

It removes any kind of uniqueness to how this game operates because you would just be shooting at the screen and it would be weird if the Punisher was there too and you could accidentally shoot yourself. I mean, not that it would actually, like, respond.

that you shot yourself maybe it should um that i don't know it would just be like the what's the um it would just be like the paintball game yeah it would also take away you know the fact you you are moving the punisher i don't know his name the punisher across the screen uh um like left and right the whole time he's like strafing across the screen and uh

I guess, yeah, that, that is always like this thing that bothers me with Zapper games. Not saying that I, I'm not saying I prefer this over a Zapper game. That's a different conversation, but like one flaw Zapper games have is like. things people will just shoot at you and it's like you can't move you can see people aiming at you you can't like duck or anything because you're you holding a zapper

Whereas this, it's like you can actually move your character out of the way of bullets like real life. Unless you wanted to make it some kind of... weird Frankenstein game where you hold a gun in one hand and a controller in the other. But then still you'd run into that problem where you could see yourself on screen, but you're behind you holding the gun. Yeah, I would hate it. I would very much hate it.

In all things considered, like, because having to move around left and right and also having to move the cursor, by all accounts, should not work as well as it ends up working. Like, yeah, but honestly, by... a few minutes into this i'm like i intuitively know like i i just have a feel for it so it's surprising the way that they accomplish that so i would say that on one hand i agree with you in that like this is when i think about this is like

The only way they could have done it. And I did get it. I did get it. But it does not feel... good in my opinion it just i just grant that this is probably the only way they could have done yeah i mean for i i don't know just what it was about this but like when i first when i first started playing it i was like yeah this doesn't

feel great because just for anyone listening that hasn't played it when you're moving the d-pad left and right without firing you're moving your character back and forth as soon as you start firing you're now Still your character is not moving and the cursor the the crosshair is moving around the screen

I did like, I don't know. I just developed a feel for it immediately. And I kind of forgot that that's what was even happening. It was just kind of natural to me. I do recognize that there is this small issue of like, you have finite ammo.

So if I want to be moving the cursor, I always have to be firing. That's kind of annoying. If I want to be moving the cursor while not moving myself, I have to be firing. Which is definitely something that if there was one more button... on the controller maybe they could have done something else but but yeah i was surprised at how much it didn't bother me after i gave it a few minutes and so as you're firing off at your enemies or strafing away from them the goal is to survive

while this, you know, auto-scrolling is happening, just survive waves and waves of enemies that are armed with all different kinds of weapons. And sometimes they just immediately attack, other times... It takes a, you know, like they're strolling and then they whip out their gun. All that to say like in these levels, like.

At what point did this become the Punisher's responsibility? And when should the government get involved? What is going on in this city? Well, I mean, that's the thing. The Punisher steps in when... the authorities won't. It's the whole vigilante thing. That's his stick. I agree, but his solution, and we can talk about... um him him as a character too being flawed here like his solution is just to fire uh you know with an automatic weapon just like constantly at enemies

all over the place, too, to the point where, maybe carelessly, he even shoots an innocent saxophone player. No, no, no. Yes. No, no, no, no, no. No, if you... You have to be... You have to be some kind of sociopath to shoot the saxophonist. Like, you let him do his thing. I don't know. Here's the thing. A lot of these guys look just like regular guys just walking down the street. He's holding a saxophone. I don't even know.

who the saxophone guy is. I know the innocent guy. I never saw the saxophone. You don't hear the music, though, that comes on when he... The only time there's music in the game. I did hear the music, but I literally did not at any point... connect that he's holding a saxophone it's funny because it as sean mentioned it's the only time in the game that there's music otherwise there's no music in the levels and it was really funny because of course i'm gonna do that i immediately shot him

And the music stops. It's very funny. Sure, but I think that, I don't know, the dulcet tones. He's playing the saxophone in a firefight.

I'm suspicious. Fucking badass. I'm suspicious. And I'm not trying to say anything here, but he kind of looks like them. If you mean... uh walking around with a pulse then i guess you're right yeah he's in the line of fire there's also like there are a lot of guys at the beginning that just like are walking by with their hands in their pocket i'm like oh shit don't shoot them they're innocent people and then they get to the other side of the screen they turn around and shoot

And I'm like, okay, well, are there no innocent people in this game? Oh, there are innocent people. I killed the saxophonist. Just the saxophonist, yeah. If you kill the saxophonist, you lose a substantial portion of your health. You do pay for it.

I'm glad. And there are different guns that you can, you know, you start with the Uzi, but you can collect other guns in the stage. There are grenades and even a rocket launcher that you can pick up. There are health kits along the way. So there's a lot of different variety of the power-ups. The way you find them is fun, too, because it's part of the destructible environment. So you're not rewarded necessarily for taking down the enemies.

you're rewarded for continuing to shoot up the city. So again, what's going on here? I think it's my favorite part of the game, and I think that's probably the favorite part of a...

A lot of people's favorite part of the game is just how reactive, not even just the environment, but also the enemies. It's not like there's some kind of procedural generation of a... of an animation of like whenever you shoot an enemy they died different but like different enemy types die in different ways and it's not like they just sort of flash off the screen if like if it's a guy that's like running across the screen

sort of like strafing at you like he will fall very silly on his head and then and then blink out of existence and just shooting like whether it's windows or like machinery in the back or just garbage bags uh it all has something going on and there's a lot going on at once so it It feels very reactive, which I'm always a big fan of. And speaking of the multiple different ways that animations when these enemies die, the saddest one is the guy laying on his stomach.

Oh yeah. And you just shoot him and it just, his head just pops down. Like it's really, it's like really unassuming. It just head just falls down. Yeah. He's playing like heads up seven up or whatever. Yeah. All right. My time to go back to bed. And so there are grenades as well, or the rocket launcher explosives.

What is your personal rule for when to use a grenade or any kind of explosive in these kinds of games versus just firing? Because I find myself holding these grenades probably a little longer than I should. Well, that's part of it for me is remembering I have the grenades. But then, yeah, whenever there's a bunch of enemies bunched up together, I mean... For me, it's the reminder that I even have the grenades is the boss battle. And then you just sort of...

poop them all out while you're fighting the boss. And that's also, I think it's the most efficient thing to just like just hold down the shoot button and just also tank every shot. uh when you're fighting the boss because you probably accumulated a good amount of lives by now and it's just you know otherwise it's kind of a tedious fight We haven't talked about the bosses yet, but that's when I use all of my, like, upgrades and stuff.

And so naturally, the Punisher would have upgrades like new guns and explosives and bulletproof vests and stuff. But it doesn't really feel like... It doesn't just feel like they could be power-ups in any...

video game where you shoot a gun. And we've seen them. But the one interesting one, I guess, is the Daily Bugle newspaper scroll hints at the bottom that relay information back to the player. Because that has like a... That has... personality to it and also it has lore to it that it's the Daily Bugle giving these hints. I would have liked to have seen maybe more nods like that.

uh because these these enemies are you know just like whatever the the bosses uh obviously like the kingpin huge marvel character like no one's gonna be like oh i can't believe he's at the end of the game like yeah of course you would use him But throughout the game, it does kind of feel like, especially with the Punisher having his back to you, if they didn't have that...

the Punisher with the logo next to it at all times on the UI, you might forget that you're playing a Punisher. Yeah, yeah. I think the identifying, how identifiable... How identifiable the Punisher is is different in the context of, like, you know, the comics or just his, like, just in the culture in general and then in video games. In the comics...

The just the content of the game makes sense to me as to how it's the Punisher like to me I think of hyper violence shooting everything maybe that's not how he acts in in the in the comics but that's how he acts and what i know so that that kind of makes sense to me but we also are playing a video game which all about shooting all the time usually so it does kind of get watered down a bit and you do kind of need the interstitial monologues that he has between levels which I don't even know how

Like, are those, aside from the Kingpin, are these other enemies from the comics? I don't know. Yeah, I believe so. And, Sean, to prove your point about, yeah, sometimes he's just that violent guy. There is a run of comics called The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe, in which he just starts going on. It changes how his...

how his family was killed so that the X-Men are involved and he just proceeds to like, oh, I'll start by killing the X-Men. And then it's like, oh, the Avengers want to get in the way. I'll kill some of them. I'll kill the Hulk. I'll kill Spider-Man. It's like he just goes on a killing spree and.

It's funny, I don't want to spoil the ending or whatever, but what they think is the big twist at the end or whatever is known to the reader the whole time, so it's really only a twist to Frank. But it's also like...

dude at this point you've killed so many people like this isn't gonna wake you up like he's killed the marvel universe it's like there's no there's no talking to a man who's killed thousands of people but i mean by the end of this game you probably killed about a thousand people oh yeah Yeah, but they all work for the Kingpin. Yeah, they're nameless and faceless people. They're not the Hulk. Right, right. Do you kill Captain America, or does he kill Captain America in that? I'm sure he does.

He's got to kill everybody in the Marvel Universe. You can't call it the Punisher kills the Marvel Universe if he doesn't do that. And I was talking about how many people you kill because at the end of each level, you do get a kill count and then a percentage. of how many people on the level that was. And that does matter because they reward you with some bonuses and stuff based on your score. But a 100% clear of a stage...

is the only way to get the super gun, which is the biggest power up in the game. And the super gun gives it to you for the next level. And it does it does have limited use. You can't just like, OK, I got the super gun on the first level and now I have it. forever but it is kind of a um like the closest this game gets to yeah exactly closest game gets to just saying like okay it doesn't matter anymore like if you have the super gun everything everything's trivial

Yeah, it's kind of like a minigun fire rate, and even those big dudes with the rocket launchers, you usually take quite a bit to take down, and you're going to probably take a rocket launcher hit. They just disappear. Off the screen. But I never got the 100% route. Did you guys ever do that? Once. Kill perfect? Okay.

Did it feel rewarding afterwards then to be like, yeah, you know what? Actually, you do deserve it if you are able to successfully. Well, that's sort of what I meant. Even these more tankier enemies just kind of get deleted by it. So I think it is a just reward for that kind of, you know, if you 100% the level, it makes sense. Can I, I want to revisit the, uh, the newspapers just cause I.

I really appreciated these newspapers, at least in concept. I like the idea that there's a power-up that doesn't actually give your character on screen more power. It gives you information that you may need.

but like isn't necessary the thing is everything that i saw was like a one-time tip of like how to play the game or like things that you should know while playing the game and i really wish that they had like redone that where it'd be like fifth avenue deli has uh an extra grenades or something like that where it's like oh now i gotta keep my eyes out for fifth avenue deli as i'm scrolling across or like things like that where it's like maybe it could even be like

uh randomly generated or something where it's like each each time you play there's like a you know this thing's hidden in a different place so you gotta get the you have to get the newspapers to know where to get these other bonuses things like that i like the idea of it i just think it uh

It was very lackluster in execution. Yeah, you know, when I first came across them, you know, it was in the first level and it did just have basic hints on how to play the game. And I'm like, okay, it's the first level. It's still teaching you how to play. And I figured... later it would start to do kind of what you're alluding to and i it didn't in fact it starts to just say the same stuff all over again so it's a it's a wasted uh mechanic there for me yeah

And the way you enter into any of these levels is there are three wanted posters and you have to choose your target. Did you just pick whoever looked like, yeah, I want to kill that guy? I went from left to right. Okay. I think I put absolutely no thought at all. I just picked one. Yeah, I mean, it's better than just saying start the game and going right to stage one. It's nice to feel like you have some kind of agency.

But for the most part, there's no change. Yeah, it's not like it's Mega Man. There's no rock, paper, scissors. Like, oh, I should... I should kill Krieg first before Ninja because it's, I don't know, you get a different gun. Like they're all, all the levels are kind of the same with different, with different like.

wallpaper, and then a different boss at the end. But you have the same tools for all of them. And speaking of these stages, I mean, they're very long. They're not like, oh, just quickly take out a few enemies and then fight the boss. A lot of these, you'll go to a few different locations. You'll start in the streets, go up to the roof, and then fight a helicopter. Or you'll be at the docks, then a prison yard, and then have a fight inside the prison.

Did you feel like maybe they were too long for like what the game was asking you to do? Or were you supposed to kind of like. Was this the equivalent of what a quarter eater could have been in the arcade where you're supposed to lose some lives and work your way back through it? Maybe. I found the whole... This whole genre of... like rail shooter is very funny um in 2d i think because what i kept thinking as i was playing just with like the speed of at which you're moving and

It's just like you're on a parade float, and you decide that you're just going to kill everybody on the side. It's a very funny feeling. that he's just sort of like scrolling his way across here so i do agree that it's they are very long and it feels kind of like a drag but at least you can you can come up with little head cannons like the

The Punisher is actually just a parade float. And I think it's that Doc's Prison one where you fight the boss, Jigsaw. who introduces like melee combat uh to the game it gets close up in your face and finally it's like yeah somebody thought to like actually approach you rather than be on the opposite side of the street while you fire off your weapons like crazy uh

Did you love or hate these sudden melee interludes? I thought that it was, you know, at least there's some kind of change because otherwise every level kind of feels the same. And you don't really get any kind of, you don't get any kind of unique moments until the bosses and... among the bosses at least it changes it up a bit more so i i wasn't in love with them but it was it was fine yeah i'm never like crazy about changing like changing up

the whole gameplay style for like one short thing uh so i don't know it wasn't my favorite like i think i prefer the like the bosses that you're shooting at because it feels like what i was doing i like when games do that if they do it like more

in a more rounded way where it's not just like oh this one random time you're doing something completely different right I guess it does make sense that like the helicopter the tank like those things feel like yeah you've been firing at things the whole time like you should

You should have a big, meaty boss that's like, yeah, how the hell is Frank going to take the... I shouldn't call him by his first name. How the hell is the Punisher going to take down... Mr. Castle. How the heck is he going to take down a helicopter, right? How is he going to take down a tank? And like, I don't know if...

If those necessarily feel any bigger, like obviously they're different because it's one screen and now you have to dodge a crazy barrage of bullets. But otherwise, it's just another enemy, right? Like the tank thing doesn't... come up with this like crazy new boss mechanic where it's like yeah of course you can't just fire at a tank until it blows up no you actually can in this game yeah you can just throw a bunch of grenades and then fire up in fact a lot of these bosses

have a weird thing where like as long as you have a a really good i guess the assault rifle uh if you you can just start firing them before they ever really even like take a shot at you and you can chip away like almost half their health before they start participating in the battle I just thought like, oh, you know, it makes sense that like when you actually get to the.

the face-to-face battles they're like yeah they wouldn't be stupid and just like you're the most dangerous man with a gun they shouldn't just be shooting over on the other side get up in your face throw a couple punches in fact where's your gun yeah right Hit them with your gun, right? Maybe they should change, like, you know, even go further than what Joe doesn't want and make it like a bumper cars game or, like, you know, completely different.

genre shift and now you have to walk through a 3d maze which is all of our favorite mini game in an adventure nes game uh like you know just go straight goonies 2 with it Or just have it be like a puzzle thing, too, where this isn't a puzzle, but like very straightforward. Just shoot the shoot the.

the propeller of the helicopter so that it crashes right it's like you can't you clearly couldn't take on a helicopter but make that like hard to hit and it's very precise you know like you have to hit right on the axle I don't know like that seems more interesting to me than fire a hundred rounds at a helicopter while you're dodging its shots yeah yeah i think it to me it comes down to like

as long as the game taught me that this is part of the game before i get to the like boss battle that's like three quarters of the way through the game uh then i'm like it's less it's less abrasive but it's just like oh we're changing it now and there was no It just doesn't feel like I'm playing the same game anymore. I think we're being a little too hard on our boy Frankie right now. I would agree that the boss fights just, to me, the levels are so long.

And then the boss fight comes and it is an opportunity to change up the gameplay a little bit, but it doesn't feel different. One thing that also doesn't feel different is when you're going through the stages and you enter these bonus rooms by like. you know, finding an alley or going down the subway station, the location changes. And that's that's nice. Right. You go down the subway stairs and now you're in your your.

waiting because you're not you don't get on the train so like on the platform no you slowly walk down the platform Right. And everybody's there waiting for you. So they also took over the subway. So again, another reason for the government to intervene. But the bonus room, it also doesn't change anything. The bonus room sounds like, when I hear bonus rooms, it sounds like a fun minigame time.

But this is just more of the level, but it doesn't really matter if you die this time around. It's just for points. At least it does have that different background, though. I mean, otherwise it would just... I guess there is still some value to me in, in the bonuses because he was otherwise would not go to the subway and, and yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I do think that it, it, I wish there was a little.

bonus-y, like, oh, this feels like a different type of level. But I did also find value of, like, yeah, you can find more power-ups down. It is just, like, extra space to find ammo power-ups and things like that. It's like, I get that as well. But, but yeah, it was...

A little surprising to me that it was just, like, more of the same level. And I get about the scenery changes being nice and everything, because I do think, in general, like, the sprite work here is pretty good. Like, that's unmistakably the Punisher. The enemies, even though they're the same, like there's not, you know, the Green Beret guys are the Green Beret guys. The ninjas are the ninjas. Like they don't, they're not individual enemies. The world itself is.

Pretty cool. It almost feels like a world in which the Ninja Turtles could be hanging out in, too. And I think they actually technically do, because... The Punisher, who frequently interacts with Daredevil, that's how the Turtles came to be. It's the same ooze that got on... Daredevil's eyes that turned him blind that also spilled into the sewers. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, that's not Marvel sanctioned. Oh, I figured you were making that up. But have there been crossovers?

between like daredevil and the turtles there must have been that's a good question because like tmnt teams up with like batman you know and wwe like why would i mean even a cereal box oh wait no never mind uh it does look like they've teamed up That's the first thing I have. It's canon. But to be honest, I can't tell if this is fan art. I just need to say that right now. That's the world we live in now. This looks pretty good. Could be fan art, could be in a comic.

One thing about the game that I found confusing was just your own hitbox. Because just to go back to the basic premise of the mechanics for a second.

where you kind of have to move your body and also move your crosshair, you move very slowly. And especially later in the game, when you're running into... characters with automatic or enemies with automatic weapons it's really hard to dodge shots and I don't know if you're supposed to be able to dodge most of them and i think in a lot of situations you can't even like set your shot without getting hit by like again like a an rpg which takes away like 80 of your health most of the time

Uh, so what did you guys feel about like hit detection? I don't know if I, I don't know if I had much of a, like, I don't, I don't think I noticed too much about it. So I guess that's a good thing. Where I didn't feel miffed too much by it or anything like that. I wouldn't say I noticed it because you do get... a forgiving amount of hits too like you're allowed to take a more than one bullet before you die and such but i agree that it is kind of like this

rectangle around you and not necessarily like oh those it would be cool to have near misses while strafing they're like oh it just went you know in that gap between my shoulder and my head turning like that's not gonna happen it's just gonna count as a hit And so that's a little disappointing. I will grant to that. Like you do get a lot of health too, but it's just in those very specific circumstances where like this enemy is just meant to melt you. And.

But the rest of them, they're just going to do little slivers of damage anyway. Yeah, and I'll admit that I'm generally seeing myself get hit in my peripheral vision. because i'm looking i like i'm like i'm like mostly aware of where these bullets are and i'm like i think i'm mostly dodging these but i think that extra health cushion that makes it easier for me to focus more on the crosshair and be like, yeah, I pretty much dodged all that and maybe one hit me. I'm not sure.

It's worth mentioning that that was fan art and that Daredevil and TMNT have never teamed up, but TMNT has teamed up with Batman, Street Fighter, Power Rangers, Ghostbusters, Stranger Things. He-Man and the X-Men. Now have any of them ever teamed up with... Oh, and Mortal Kombat, right?

Right, how many degrees of separation? Yes, they did team up with Mortal Kombat. The X-Men live in the same world as the Punisher, right? So there we go. Well, I want to know why. Yeah, but they didn't cross over specifically. No, but we were looking at that to see if the same New York City, right? Oh, right, right, right. I mean, it's got to be. It's Earth 595.

Yeah, everyone knows this. You can't just say that because someone's going to know what Earth 595 is. I can say whatever the hell I want, Mike.

So the big boss at the end of the game is the Kingpin. And, you know, it's another one of those. He's pretty much just like Jigsaw, except for he's huge. He's a pretty big sprite in this game. Not as big as he was in... Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. He's really freaking huge in that movie. Known New York Mets fan, Kingpin.

But, you know, I don't know. As a final boss thing, again, it's just like, okay, yeah, he's just got a lot more health. Okay. Yeah. What did you want out of it? No, I just feel like the kingpin is the kind of... villain in the universe where like very rarely does he have to actually do the fighting right he's behind the fights I feel like the finale against him it should have just been like

and you put a bullet in his head, and he's dead. It's like, seriously, just go there, right? What's the canon explanation for the kingpin tanking 100 bullets? I mean, I feel like I've seen... And maybe it was just in Enter the Spider-Verse, but isn't he also a capable fighter? Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. He is good with his fists and stuff, which makes sense that he would do the melee combat against you, but...

I just don't think like a face off between them should have been like that kind of direct confrontation. The Kingpin should have had. Uh, you know, some, some cool arsenal thing that, uh, you know, like, and this is why this is, we're all behind this anyway. It's like, I'm developing this thing that kills everyone's families.

Yeah. And he's like, I've got to stop people's families dying. It doesn't kill everyone. It just kills everyone's families. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a family killer. Or maybe that's just the Vince D'Onofrio version. Yeah, Kingpin's job actually is just to give everybody who has jobs, he wants to create like a six-day work week so that they spend less time with their families so that they lead to broken homes.

Yeah, more homework during the school year, too. That should have been the final boss. You have to stop that. You have to work six days now.

This is not the only Punisher video game. There were Punisher video games before this, too, apparently, but they all happen in the same year, so I can't say for certain that... that they came out first or whatever but i guess they were all coming out because of that dolf lundgren movie so it was like oh we gotta make a big deal about this everybody start making punisher video games but why everybody make so many different punisher video games there's

There's the DOS Punisher game, which is like a hybrid vigilante. I don't want to say simulator, but like there's three modes here where you like. There's driving stuff, there's on-foot street raid stuff, and then there's scuba missions. Scuba missions in New York City? What's he, scuba diving through the Hudson River? Yeah, the sewers.

Yeah, oh, the sewers probably makes more sense than scuba diving around the Hudson, but maybe he'd run into the Ninja Turtles there. Yeah, that makes sense. You really want that crossover. It would be a great crossover. The Punisher on the Amiga and the Atari ST, those different than the DOS games. This one is a single screen first person crosshair shooter where you, you know, other than like being on rails, you kind of like sweep through the rooms.

hit all the enemies, avoid all the civilians, and then move clear, you know, that clears and then you move to the next room. So similar enough to this game, but instead of it being automatic, it's kind of like, you know. uh rapid levels of okay clear out this room clear out that room clear that room stage clear like warrior wear but for the punisher exactly clear this room in five seconds uh press the a button as fast as you can uh

Then there was a Game Boy game, also the same year as The Punisher on NES. And it's basically like a portable version of this game, if you can believe it. But it adds Spider-Man cameos. uh throughout the game and it's kind of weird that like spider-man would be advocating for like but like yeah can you go yeah can you go down here and shoot up a bunch of people like he just knows his limitations

I guess that's true. Yeah, Spider-Man doesn't kill people, but he can find a loophole. Yeah, I wonder how Superman feels about other people killing people. Is he okay with that? He's fine with it. Or should he stop people? I think that just proves that Superman is just vain and, you know. He just doesn't want to get his hands dirty. The most noticeable, noticeable, most notable Punisher video game is probably the Punisher 1993 Capcom beat-em-up, which apparently, like...

It never really came outside of the arcades, so that was the only way to play it until finally it showed up at a port of one of those Marvel vs. Capcom fighting collections. It's not a fighting game, but...

Because it was a Marvel and Capcom collaboration, I guess it got included. So that's kind of neat. And it's nice to be able to visit a game that otherwise you could only play on arcades. Because, you know, some of these arcade machines now are very hard to find. You can always, if you go to an arcade...

There will always be a Space Invaders. There will always be a Pac-Man. There's no guarantee you're going to see a Punisher arcade cabinet. No, no. But in terms of... I always thought that the more modern PS2 era... punisher games were like more popular oh yeah those the the third person shooter ones uh you know i looked at those because i never played it neither have i there's the one in 2005 for playstation 2 and then there actually is a playstation 3

punisher game uh if you can believe it but it's weird it's called the punisher no mercy it's an arena multiplayer game a first person shooter from zen studios built on the unreal engine 3 but like

How does it work? Like, is everybody the Punisher? Is everybody a vigilante? It's an arena shooter with, like, frags and stuff? Well, see, now that's confusing because it says it's an arena first-person shooter, but I don't know, like... probably right why wouldn't they see the way the way i think they should make this work is that everybody is the punisher on their own screen

I am my own Punisher. You see yourself as the Punisher, but then everyone else you see as just random other people, but they see themselves as the Punisher. So everyone's got their own headcanon of what's going on here. Whoa.

there's a whole plot thing that's three paragraphs long so clearly like there's also a story here and it's not just some but it is just like a multiplayer game right like this what else could these i guess like there's probably some single-player thing where you just play against computers but it just feels weird though like yeah the punisher is ripe for this kind of uh

I don't think so. I agree with you, Sean. The third-person shooter thing, I'm surprised we didn't get more of those. Yeah, especially when you think about like... I remember I almost bought the game because it had a pretty... Whenever I was paying attention to video game media, that promo campaign was pretty out there.

and there was like cool ways to kill people and like uh you know like execution animations and i was like oh this is right up my alley and i never played it but i don't know i guess that was in the era of third person Execution stuff. Max Payne was already out.

Two interesting things about that. I agree with you that I saw a lot of advertising about this game. And I always thought that this iteration of the Punisher looked a lot like the wrestler Scott Hall, Razor Ramon for the older people. But that's just like something. for me what's more interesting is that there is like there's like a weird thing about this game where it was yeah the game originally was like way more graphic apparently and it was going to get an AO rating but

they censored a bunch of stuff to finally get it to mature. I haven't played a game like this, but when I think of the Punisher, Punisher is just like a violent version of Hitman, right? So like in Hitman, it's all about making stealth kills. It would have been cool to have like...

a hitman style game but you just play as the punisher and the idea is just to like cause as much damage as possible maybe that's just mercenaries but uh you know like like there's there's got to be a spot for the punisher in that in that lineup i agree

And there's always a spot for the Essential Games list. Felt like we were getting a little off topic there. So bringing it back in, reminding us that we are talking about the NES game. As far as NES video games go, this is fine. This works. It's kind of, you know, I know LJN gets a bad rap or whatever. It's a fine game. I can't say I enjoyed it. I think like...

In terms of who I would recommend this to, it's like Punisher fans. I don't know. Would it have been better as a Zapper game, I feel like, is the big what if. And I think we kind of said no. I agree.

that uh losing the strafing to have a zapper component would just make this kind of be like another like oh you only remember this because it uses that the zapper like all the other zapper games that we remember specifically because we have to change our controller i think this is a this is a fine nes shooter uh but in terms of like yeah

what gets a game on the essential games list i don't think there's a lot here i could just rattle off there's there's it's just repetitive enemies it's very long stages the boss fights aren't particularly inspired and uh any kind of like lore dump of the Punisher happens just kind of like inconsequentially to the gameplay like otherwise you're just like firing a gun and it's kind of weird that like we never see

the punisher's like awesome skull logo on his chest like because he's always from the back like you can even kind of see when he when he bends out when you're when you're like moving him you could see that like they maybe even animated it like it'd be funny if it was um

What are those boundary break videos for 3D games? Let's do that. Let's boundary break the NES sprite and see what it looks like. Because I feel like... that's what i wanted to see more of and there's really not a lot here so i don't even know if i would recommend it to punisher fans so it's a no for me but what about you joe i think this is fine is like the perfect way to sum this up like i i didn't

Yeah, I didn't think it was a bad game, but... And I think what, like, makes it... What gives it anything, really, for me, is how unique it is with this, like, strafing slash controlling the crosshair thing. So, like, that made it... Kind of fun for a little bit for me. But yeah, as you can tell by the way I'm saying this, I'm not going to vote an essential. But I do want to say that what I really want out of this game is I want to pull the camera back a little bit so we can see his feet.

Because he's just gliding across the screen back and forth the whole time. And I just want to see that. It's a parade float. He must have incredible footwork. Like I'm imagining his feet just like. you know, crossing over each other, going back and forth, like some sort of like football training drill the whole time. So I do want to see what's going on in the way he's walking back and forth so smoothly. Sean. We all know why you want to see his feet, Joe.

Yeah, well, you know, I got to add to my collection. I want to go back to what Mike said. And I just I thought you were going to say when you were like, I'm surprised we don't we don't see his logo. I'm surprised we don't. get to see his family die i thought that's what you were going to say in terms of like lore dumps which i thought was going to be really funny but you didn't say that so i'm saying it now um yeah i think this is a very technically impressive game like again

I'm all about, you know, environmental destruction. It's why I like Rampage. It's why I still think about Red Faction every once in like five or six years. So. There's just something very viscerally satisfying about that, but that alone doesn't get you on the essential games list. I have more thoughts about... tom jane than i do ljn so uh that will remain so yeah not essential in batman arkham city

As Batman, you can find where your parents were killed and mourn them. There's like a mourn button. Press F to mourn. Yeah, basically. And it plays some music and whatever. And I would have appreciated if one of the bonus rooms in this game was just the cemetery to go visit your wife and kid. Now, is there a dedicated mourn button on the controller? Like, X is always to mourn? No, I only played Arkham City on the Xbox 360. And I did everything you can do in that game. Because...

That was to me, that was like the coolest thing ever. We finally got it. You know, like we finally got like a whole fleshed out Batman world game. And then they just never figured out how to top it from there. Punisher. There's still room for that. There's still room for a fully fleshed out New York City where the Punisher can find the place where his wife and kid were shot. . . . . . Bye.