I'll mirror a review from my Blog in my Journal.

Review: The Punisher - X-Box.

Alright, if you've been reading the comics for a while, either old run or new run, you will find things to like in this game, in terms of the story. All the things I've hated about the comic's current run are not here, and all the things I've liked are. The Russian (in his talkative, jovial self), Bullseye (albiet in an amalgamation of the comic and movie forms), Kingpin & Jigsaw all make apperances, with you getting to fight all of the above (except Kingpin). You'll even get to blow up Grand Nixon Island (while the way Frank blows it up is almost identical to the form in the comic, Kreibkoff's plan differs from the comic version.

The controls on the X-Box version are much smother than the controls on the PC version (I have played the demo of the PC version). The best example of this is with the interrogation mini-games. Now, in the game, Interrogation is vital, as it allow syou to gain useful information and replentish your health. You do this by threatening, intimdaiting or torturing your prisoner in some way, which varies based on where the the interrogation is. You can always threaten them through putting a gun to their head, choking them, or (in certain situations) slamming their head against the ground. The fun comes in with the special interrogations. There, you can hold their face inches away from the spinning blades of a wood chipper, or shove them in a crmatory oven and turn up the heat. To successfully interrogate your opponent, simply keep your torture meter within a colored section for 3 seconds. Go outside the meter, you start over, max out the meter or wear down your victim's health all the way, and you kill him, costing you style points. This is a piece of cake with the X-Box analog stick, but a royal pain in the brain with the mouse.

Now, I just mentioned those style points. You get those for killing opponents and interrogating opponents. You spend them on special abilities and stat upgrades. However, you can lose those points for killing opponents during interrogation, even if they've already talked. This means that even if Jack T. Goomba has spilled his guts to you, you'll still lose points for feeding him to the shark. But, you once he's talked, you just quick-kill him, you gain style points. A little consistency in this regard would have been nice.

Now, in this game you take damage moderately quickly. What's the best way to protect yourself? Cover. Most areas have plenty of cover for you to use. And, if you can't find a nice car, pillar, or rock to hid behind, you can improvise. How? By grabbing the nearest thug and using him as a human shield. He'll stop the lead, and you waste the thugs. The catch being you move more slowly, and rather then being able to fire two guns or use grenades, you'll only be able to use one hand. You can still flip switches though. And, if your hostages lose too much health, you can just quick-kill him and grab someone else.

What is a quick-kill you ask? Why, I'll tell you. You can run up to an enemy, and, either in grab or just up close, perform a quick kill. The name describes it perfectly. It will kill your victim quickly and most often, gruesomely. The quick-kills are randomly selected and range from just butt-stroking your opponent, slitting his throat, shoving a knife in his face, riggling it around it, shooting him through the head via the chin, or force-feeding him a live grenade. Why use Quick-Kill? Well, because it's cool and it fills up your Slaughter Meter faster. Your Slaughter meter allows you to go into Slaughter Mode. Slaughter Mode makes you faster, allows you to throw an infinate amount of knives, do extremely gruesome quick kills, and have your health recharge slowly.

Now that I've gushed about what I like, now it's time to talk about what I don't. You can't jump in this game. You can dive/shoot-dodge, but you can't jump. Also, it's way to easy to accidentially kill thugs who have really important information (which are marked by a white skull over their heads). There is also the aforementioned beef with special interrogations, and the pacing with the bosses. The most difficult boss in the entire game that I encountered was the fight with The Russian on Grand Nixon Island. Every other single boss in the entire game was extremely easy by comparison.

The game is apparently X-Box Live enabled, though, as I don't have X-Box live, I don't know what features the game has.

I give "The Punisher" for the X-Box, an 8/10

This past week I finally got around to installing some of my old Sierra Online games. And, in so doing, I have found out why so many people don't play their games anymore.

To make a long story short, their installer sucks hardcore.

Most of us are familiar with the standard InstalShield installer, or the DemoShield installer, or any of the like. Sierra used their own installer, which included a tester, to determine if your computer will run their software. The problem is, their software does not detect web browsers past Windows 98 very well at all. If you detect a browser after 98 (2000, Me, or XP), the installer crashes and cannot be run again unless you reboot.

Now, from my experiences, I have learned not to run the detection software, ever, ever, ever, ever. But I had to learn that the hard way. New users, on the other hand, will still have those problems.

So, I am asking you to spread the word to never, under any circumstances, use the detection software on the Sierra Online installer. Thank you.