 SEGA DRUNK The Super Nintendo got tons of Capcom beat-em-up arcade ports through the early 90s, everything from Final Fight to Knights of the Round to King of Dragons, but there's one that only came out for the Sega Genesis, the Punisher. My only guess as to why this was only ported to the Genesis is probably due to the quote-unquote mature content here, and the Genesis was perceived as being the more adult console, so to speak. After all, they got the blood in Mortal Kombat before the SNES did. But yeah, oddly enough, this wasn't even ported by Capcom, but by Sculptured Software. I had no freaking clue this game even existed, thanks to Anthony from my Patreon page for requesting it. This is a fantastic old-school Capcom style beat-em-up with all the usual bells and whistles, tons of weapons to use, everything from knives to M16s to lead pipes to grenades to a fricking battle axe, and you can actually use them on bosses too, which is nice. Sometimes these games frown on using special weapons on bosses for whatever reason. In addition to that, all the classic beat-em-up maneuvers you're used to, if you've played, you know, practically any 16-bit beat-em-up that's ever existed, they're all here. You can grab these guys and spike them into the ground, do rolling kicks, a leg sweep attack. I mean, not that you'll need to do any of these moves because there's so many weapons in this game, but yeah, despite this being ported by Sculptured Software, this plays exactly like how you'd expect from a Capcom beat-em-up. Of course, if there's any comic book universe that lends itself beautifully to a beat-em-up, it's the Punisher. For example, there's a section in every level where you end up with a pistol out of nowhere for some reason, and you just shoot as much as you can until you run out of ammo. Why? Who cares? It's the Punisher. There's no rhyme or reason to it, but of course he just has weapons materialized from nothing so you can shoot people. But yeah, he's not the only character you can pick from. You can also play as Nick Fury. So yes, this game is 2-player co-op, although if you want to play as Nick Fury in single-player mode, you have to set it up in the options menu, which is weird. Both guys have a wide array of moves and really aren't too different from each other. Same size and range of motion and all that, but I guess it's nice to have the variety for aesthetic reasons if nothing else. One thing I love about playing these old beat-em-ups are these incredibly silly moments that pop up here and there, like here where you're beating the crap out of this guy, but the bus driver here is just completely oblivious. I don't know if he's just really into his job or if he just doesn't care if he's zonked out on opioids or something like that. It's great. I love that guy. So yeah, the Punisher for Sega Genesis certainly isn't anything new or revolutionary and make no mistake, this definitely is not as good as the original arcade version. But it's a perfectly fun multiplayer beat-em-up with a lot of weapons and carnage. Even the sound design here, which can be iffy on some Genesis games, is really well done, especially the gunfire sound. So yeah, if you've grown a little tired of stuff like the Streets of Rage series or if you're just a fan of comic book games or Capcom-style 16-bit beat-em-ups, go check out the Punisher.