The Punisher is known for one thing, punishing things….Yeah, that was bad…anyways, most people have heard of The Punisher by this time so I won’t go into the back story of the character.
Now, No Mercy puts you in the shoes of Frank Castle as he kills waves and waves and waves of really stupid bad guys. I say this because the game plays like an arena based, Unreal Tournament-style first person shooter. Not to say that’s a bad thing, I love UT, but UT does this better.
There is a story mode which plays out like a multiplayer game with bots. Not just any ordinary bots, but the most stupid, nonsensical AI cannon fodder you will ever find in a game. No lie, I shot 100 enemies in the exact same area for 8 minutes, and they still ran to the exact same spot. You’d think they’d maybe, I don’t know, go around me?
The story is told through comic book style cut scenes where the story is convoluted and incomprehensible to the non-Punisher savvy player.
There is an online co-op for the story mode, but nothing changes, kill all these dudes before time runs out or survive X amount of waves.
One interesting thing that is applied to the game play is the upgrading of your weapons. For a set number of kills, your weapon will upgrade into a more accurate gun, maybe add a silencer, or even a scope. When you die, you go back to standard old default and work you way back up again. This is actually quite nice. There are also “perks” you can unlock that will either give you permanent upgrades such as extra damage or body armor, or active upgrades that you can activate in game like speed boosts and automatic weapon upgrade.
The multiplayer is where the game kinda redeems itself. There is standard deathmatch and team based matches where you may actually get an opponent that will put up a fight. The only problem I can find with the multiplayer is the fact that matches are all ranked so they are random of who you play, but if you want to play with your friends, you have to create a private match where the only people you can play with are people that you invite individually. That is a problem when it’s only you and two other guys that want to play together and you can only play against invited people.
Honestly, all in all The Punisher: No Mercy is not a bad game. It’s just not a good game either. It’s slap dab in the middle as far as arena shooters go. It’s fun for a couple of hours with the co-op and multiplayer, but honestly, this title will be forgotten fast.
The Good: Good game play, nice upgrade and perk system, co-op works well
The Bad: Very bad texture pop in, Short story mode(1 hour. I’m not kidding.) Voice acting is weak, If you want to play with your friends, that’s all you’ll be playing with, The story is confusing at times, The bot AI is possibly the dumbest I have ever seen.
Bottom Line: The multiplayer is ok. Nothing to write home about. I do have to mention the co-op which usually always helps out a game. If you’re dying to play an arena shooter…this will suffice, but to be honest, you can find Unreal Tournament 3 which has 15x more stuff and options for about $10 more than No Mercy. I’d go with that.
Final Grade: 5.5
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