The Punisher: The Arcade Game - Playthrough (1/4)

The Punisher (c) 1993 Capcom.

Play as either the Punisher or Nick Fury, together or solo- and fight your way through many dangerous locales filled with criminals. Lots of devastating weapons and moves to unleash on your opponents. Find and defeat the Kingpin in this side-scrolling beat'em up. Very similar to the game "Final Fight", also by Capcom.

TECHNICAL -

Capcom Play System hardware (CPS)

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 12 Mhz), Z80 (@ 8 Mhz)
Sound Chips : Q-Sound (@ 4 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 384 x 224 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 4096

Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 2 (ATTACK, JUMP)

TRIVIA -

Released in April 1993.

This game features the main characters from the comic books respectively titled 'The Punisher' (First appearance : Amazing Spider-Man 129, 1973) and 'Nick Fury' (First appearance : Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos 1, 1963), Agent of SHIELD, both published by Marvel Comics. The acronym SHIELD stands for 'Surpreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division'.

Scully, the first of the boss villains here, is loosely based on a villain named Chester Scully who appeared in issues 22-23 (August and September, 1989) of the Punisher's first ongoing series, which ran from 1987 to 1995. The leaping kicks he uses in the game are an homage to the cover of the 23rd issue where his comic book counterpart is shown attacking the Punisher by kicking at him while jumping.

Bushwacker, the 4th stage boss, is based on the omonimous Marvel's super villain (enemy of Daredevil, The Punisher and Wolverine). Although, there are some aesthetic differences from his appearence in the game and in the original comic: half of his face is horribly scared in the comic, while in the game his face seems in good conditions. Also, his special right arm, altered bionically to function as a gun, is still revealed on his real form on the comic, while in the game he can turn his arms from normal form to guns form, like a type of mutant morph (and this should sound incongruous, because he's a mutant's hunter on the Marvel's comics). He appear on the Capcom's game before he was hired by Kingpin for kill Punisher in the original Punisher comic series, so his presence fit perfectly in the game's plot.

Jigsaw, the non-boss enemy appearing in the 2nd area of the final stage (elevator's top) is one of the most dangerous enemies of Punisher in the original comic series. Although, is showed different in the game - in the game he appears like a commando-mercenary, while in the comic he was a former killer of a notorious mobster family of New York. - By the way, his scared face (caused by the same Punisher on the comics) is identical on his original appearence on the comics.

Bruno Costa, the bald gangster with sunglasses appearing in the scenes of attract mode and during the first stages of the game, is also showed in the comic, and he's the responsable of the massacre of the Frank's Castle family, like the game says. However, Punisher killed him in the comic's series, while in the game he's killed by Guardroid (the 2nd stage boss).