Punisher War Journal
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Last modified 2012-10-12 22:11:51
NOTE: This review was written for version 1.0 and may be outdated.
Punisher War Journal is probably one of the earliest Megazeux games. It's based on the Punisher franchise, but is crude enough that you wouldn't even be able to tell without the dialogue. It was clearly created in a 1.xx version of Megazeux and is a bit broken because of some changes between versions 1 and 2 of Megazeux... immediately obvious is the repeatedly canceling bullets on the title screen, which makes a noise. This was probably a non-canceling stream of bullets in Megazeux 1.00....
Also, a lot of board transitions are busted. In modern Megazeux, you end up starting on exits and effectively skipping whole rooms. The first board in Punisher 2 is broken in this way...
The first two games are ZZT-style fights against built-in enemy clouds with a bit of skating on ice. The dragon room in the second game is a pain in the ass. It's easy enough to lose all your lives against a few dragons, but this room is PACKED with them. It's beatable if you're patient enough to pick them off row by row...
The third game is a platformer! Pretty cool for Megazeux 1.xx. Too bad most of the game is empty and just involves running through simplistic levels. There's also a neat submarine piloting game, but that's likely where you'll lose most of your lives. Which you'll need for the final battle, which is nearly impossible. Maybe it was more easily beatable in the early version of Megazeux, but I don't know...
No music or sound effects aside from the basic PC speaker sounds...
It's an interesting curiosity but not much else. And it's a bit broken...
Punisher War Journal is probably one of the earliest Megazeux games. It's based on the Punisher franchise, but is crude enough that you wouldn't even be able to tell without the dialogue. It was clearly created in a 1.xx version of Megazeux and is a bit broken because of some changes between versions 1 and 2 of Megazeux... immediately obvious is the repeatedly canceling bullets on the title screen, which makes a noise. This was probably a non-canceling stream of bullets in Megazeux 1.00....
Also, a lot of board transitions are busted. In modern Megazeux, you end up starting on exits and effectively skipping whole rooms. The first board in Punisher 2 is broken in this way...
The first two games are ZZT-style fights against built-in enemy clouds with a bit of skating on ice. The dragon room in the second game is a pain in the ass. It's easy enough to lose all your lives against a few dragons, but this room is PACKED with them. It's beatable if you're patient enough to pick them off row by row...
The third game is a platformer! Pretty cool for Megazeux 1.xx. Too bad most of the game is empty and just involves running through simplistic levels. There's also a neat submarine piloting game, but that's likely where you'll lose most of your lives. Which you'll need for the final battle, which is nearly impossible. Maybe it was more easily beatable in the early version of Megazeux, but I don't know...
No music or sound effects aside from the basic PC speaker sounds...
It's an interesting curiosity but not much else. And it's a bit broken...