The Punisher is one of the best anti-heroes in comics. At heart, he is a pretty bad individual. He killed a bunch of people in ‘Nam and a lot of them were innocent. Then, his family gets killed. So what does he do? He kills everyone remotely involved. The moral compass on this guy is pointing straight towards nowhere. Although, it makes a great video game character. There has not been a very good Punisher game, in well, ever. Does this PSN exclusive do Frank Castle justice?

The Punisher: No Mercy is a multiplayer game with a single player “campaign” added on. The single player is 4 levels of basically multiplayer with bots. It can be beaten in an under an hour. Trust me. I did it. You get a 2 on 2 deathmatch, a timed killing mode, another deathmatch type with a boss, then 8 waves of bad guys. Not all that fun.

The game has some good ideas. Your weapons get upgraded on the fly based on how many kills you get. Say you have the ARM-15; the weapon is unmodded at first, then you get a scope, then a laser, then a zoomed scope. Plus, the weapons get damage increases as well. You can also equip passive mods like sprinting or better shielding. These are unlocked by playing through the underwhelming single player or as other characters which are just as pedestrian. The online multiplayer feels like a much watered down version of Unreal Tournament with worse graphics, levels, weapons, sound, you get the point.

I had high hopes for this game. The trailers caught my attention and the idea of a PSN exclusive game made me believe that this was going to kick ass. It doesn’t. Only 4 quick and easy levels in single player and a buggy and boring multiplayer does not make me want to play this probably ever again. The on-the-fly weapon mods is an awesome idea and the game does that really well, but that’s about it. Take mercy on yourself and save your dough on this one.