The Punisher

The Good
As comic book characters go, the Punisher is certainly one of the more violently, dark anti-heroes. This NES cartridge was one of his early forays into the gaming world and comic book fans everywhere were eager to control the Marvel Comics character as he set his sights on super villains....at least until we learned that game came from LJN.

The Bad
Back in the day, LJN (owned by Acclaim) had the rights to publish most of the Marvel Comics-based video games for every Nintendo home console systems, and most of them were, at best, substandard cartridges that excelled only at disappointment. The Punisher for the NES offers average graphics, music and sound effects. The first person perspective, rail gun format always had a limited appeal to me and the storyline is almost non-existent. As a final slap on the face, The Punisher is almost impossible to beat unless you own a rapid fire game controller.

The Bottom Line
The Punisher features strictly average graphics, music and sound effects in a first-person perspective, rail gun format that basically requires you to shell out extra money for a rapid fire controller if you want to defeat the Kingpin of Crime. It is not as bad as LJN's, "The Uncanny X-Men" but it it a far cry from the side-scrolling, arcade action, coin-op game featuring The Punisher and Nick Furry.