20 Comic Book Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

4. The Punisher

Time to mourn the loss of THQ again, as no sooner had they given Volition the funds necessary to create hands-down the perfect Punisher game, that everything suddenly went belly-up and we couldn't get even the barest whiff of a sequel. This original 2005 affair though? Woah, baby, where to begin? First you had Thomas Jane reprising his role as the titular character from the fairly underrated 2004 flick (his grisly delivery still being spot-on), and then you had a character model that before Arkham Asylum's Batman came along, was the poster-boy for instant intimidation. Chuck in solid third-person Max Payne-style shooting mechanics and limb-severing gunplay, and the resulting option to torture/interrogate any perp you came across for information was just blood-red icing on the cake. Everything from throwing their eyeballs under a drill to stotting their head of a toilet seat was available, and considering Punny himself is essentially the physical manifestation of justice and retribution delivered in the harshest way possible, you were free to butcher, stab and gun your way through hours upon hours of goons screaming for their life. It was bliss.