The Punisher (2005): Volition's Violent Gem
The Punisher was released in 2005, developed by Volition, and published by THQ.
This game is quite literally insane. From one of my favorite developers, The Punisher is literally an emo Johnny Gat simulator.
This post will be more of a discussion rather than a traditional review or summary.
I’ve been on a bit of an Xbox nostalgia kick lately. Playing through original Mass Effect, Halo, and CoD campaigns, I’m truly living the MLG lifestyle, shirtless on my couch, with my unused 7/11 Slurpee coupon. While at work, I felt like playing- I mean, *testing* some original Xbox titles we just got traded in.
I started with Trophy Hunter 2007.
Fuck, this game is boring.
In reality, I’m just a really bad trophy hunter, but I guess I’m not that offended.
Then, I moved on to Counter-Strike, where I played some demolition vs. bots. It was MUCH more difficult than I expected for a game I've had experience with on PC.
But I got bored.
Later in the day I remembered, “Hey, I needed to test this copy of The Punisher”. The disc had some nasty scratches, and I was sure it wouldn’t work. I tried anyway.
The game ended up running flawlessly. I loaded into the first mission via the “war zone”. I now see why this game is like $30 disc only.
The Punisher, the embodiment of Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, stated,
“There’s a crack house in my neighborhood.”
I burst out laughing. I mean, what the f*ck?
We don’t start with, like, a light mugging to show me the game- oh, oh, it does.
THE FIRST THING THE GAME TEACHES YOU IS HOW TO GRAB SOMEONE AND MURDER THEM.
The second is how to crack open their skull, deserted-island style. NFL, move aside. The Punisher will pre-brain-damage any quarterback prospect!
My favorite level so far is the Chop Shop. Being able to sneak up and drop a car on a dude was… something. And the fact that I can Max Payne dodge around was AWESOME.
At first, I was surprised and a little horrified at the amount of violence in the game. But the more I played, the more I thought things like
“Can I throw this guy into a hole?”
“Can I drop this car onto this guy?”
“Can I dual-wield shotguns?” (you can)
And yeah, I’m no stranger to, like, “violent video games.” But at first, this game was definitely a bit much. I absolutely adore the comic font for subtitles, as well as the menus being paper pages. The “war room/war zone” is a bit much, though; like, you’re just shooting regular dudes. Not even this entire criminal empire or anything, just some local dudes doing crime things.
Apparently, this game is completely banned on Twitch since it has the “AO/Adults Only” ESRB rating. This is fair, due to its excessive amount of violence and gore. However, there is a menu option to toggle it off.
To get the game given a “Mature Rating,” the developers rendered the interrogation scenes in black and white to censor any blood/gore, adjusted the camera so that some violence can be heard but not seen, and added a penalty if you needlessly kill victims after they have confessed.
In Britain, The Punisher is one of the only games to require BBFC cuts in order to be rated 18, as they requested more cuts to interrogation scenes. In Australia, they proposed similar cuts in order to release the game there, including completely removing 2 scenes.
Australia and Britain were doing the most over here, with full-on scene cuts, while Germany just put it on the “don’t let kids get any sharp ideas from this game” list.
(Media Harmful to Young Persons List)
Hell, the game was deemed more of a “Torture Simulator” than a game.
This is actually the first case of a Volition game being “banned” or censored. But it wouldn’t be the last.
My favorite example is Saints Row IV, which was briefly banned in Australia, the first time Australia has banned a game under its Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games in 2013. One aspect is the alien anal probe, which I personally used against Santa’s Gingerbread in the Christmas DLC.
IGN posted: “In the Board’s opinion, Saints Row IV includes interactive, visual depictions of implied sexual violence which are not justified by context.”
Which is a huge stride since, for the first Saints Row title, Volition had imposed strict rules on the game, such as “the exclusion of children and the inability to kill the police,” so as not to generate too much controversy. It’s in Saints Row 2 where we get a little wackier, not as wacky as the Third and IV, but Volition definitely had a better sense of humor with this one.
Shortly after these releases, Deep Silver purchased Volition, and they spawned Saints Row IV, Gat Out of Hell, and Agents of Mayhem.
I personally love all these games as the Saints Row franchise is near and dear to my heart. It was a tragedy to hear that after the Saints Row reboot, Volition would close its doors forever after being transferred to Gearbox.
No more unnecessary gore, no more Saints Row, and NO MORE FREESPACE, GODDAMN IT.
In memoriam, Volition’s games will live on in our hearts, titles including:
Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War
FreeSpace 2
Summoner
Summoner 2
Red Faction series
Red Faction
Red Faction II
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Red Faction: Battlegrounds
Red Faction: Armageddon
Saints Row series
Saints Row (2006)
Saints Row 2
Saints Row: The Third
Saints Row IV
Saints Row (2022)
The Punisher
Insane (cancelled)
Agents of Mayhem
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