The Punisher: Challenge Mode

There is a comic character called The Punisher. He kills criminals. There is a game based on that character. In that game, you kill criminals. It is a very good game, because it is a very violent game, and because it is a well-designed game.

Then there is challenge mode. Challenge mode is, basically, certain sections of each level of the normal game with a twist. Or rather, a challenge.

Some of the challenges are actually just that: chellenging. What's more, they are quite fun; completeing a certain part of a level in a short time limit, killing a load of people in different ways, or getting to the end of a section without reloading. Some of them, however, really don't seem to have had a lot of thought put into them.

The one I just finished, for instance, involves killing every single enemy in a certain part of the level; basically you need to murder about sixty people in five minutes. Not a problem, you'd think. Well, it becomes quite an alarming problem when you realise there is a bug in the game, and in a certain room (where the majority of the enemies appear: a big hall, leading upstairs), if a certain enemy is shot too soon, it means about six or seven guards will never spawn in the level, making the challenge literally impossible until, through complete luck, you eventually figure this out.

Let's just remember that The Punisher is a game where between five and twenty thousand rounds of ammunition are discharged each level, and, during the course of the game, hundreds upon hundreds of men are sent to their deaths, the final body count resting somewhere in four figures. Over the eighteen levels, stealth is perhaps used once in one very small occassion.

With that in mind, let's see what the clever developers have thrown at the player for this next challenge: complete a certain part of a level without the dozen or so guards firing a shot. Now this is all well and good for half of the guards, who can be dispatched with sniper rifles and grenades before they know what's hit them. Even the first batch of reinforcements can, with luck, be killed with a single grenade. However, just how the developers expect the player to kill five guards running around a corner, blinding firing their automatic weapons, before they manage to get a shot off is, frankly, offensive. Worse, the guards aren't actually firing at the player; they heard you kill their friends, and they are shooting at where they think you might be. What this means is that, even though a guard has no idea where the player is, if he decides (and he will decide) to shoot at a rock, it's game over.

And what this means is: game over. Game over. Game over.

Game over.

Who knows, perhaps there is another bug that temporarily makes the small platoon act like normal soldiers in a combat situation, thereby making the challenge achievable.

Maybe...

2/6/06