Postal 2 ? A Retrospective Review
To start off, if you haven?t heard of Postal, chances are it?s for one of two reasons: 1.) You haven?t been gaming for very long. 2.) You grew up in a wholesome family that detested such games. If it?s the latter, you have my sympathies.
I was being facetious; in all reality Postal 2 is a relatively unheard of shooter (judging by the reactions of friends when I?ve mentioned it), probably due to all of the bad press that it got for the slaughtering of countless innocents in-game. That, and perhaps because its developer (Running With Scissors) has only released two games since their inception in 1993 ? Postal, and its sequel, Postal 2, a full decade later in 2003.
This is yet another game I?m reviewing without much story, but in this case I can?t fault it for much. You?re a guy by the name ?Postal Dude, Jr?, a guy who wears a blue alien t-shirt, a long, black leather coat, and sunglasses, apparently working as a video game developer at the Running With Scissors headquarters, located in the mining town of Paradise, AZ.
The main game (not including the expansion pack Apocalypse Weekend) follows Mr. Dude through his daily life for the time of an in-game workweek, which really totals to however long it takes you to complete the various errands given to you, such as (no joke) ?get some milk.?
To be honest, though, the majority of this game is really just about murder, like any good old fashioned shooter. You run around, blow someone?s head off, decapitate someone with a shovel, piss on their corpse? Okay, perhaps this game is a bit more tasteless than most, but I?d say that?s more due to the incorporation of a storyline that is really just meant to be satirical on the side anyway. If you skipped all the minor cutscenes during missions, you wouldn?t miss much aside from some moderately entertaining dark humor.
Of late, many games have been attempting to sport this new ?choice? system, in which your choices affect you. I have to give credit to Postal 2 for being one of the first games to actually implement this on any level. In-game, you are fully well capable of performing most of your errands (case in point, retrieving the aforementioned milk) without wasting any human beings. However, the NPCs make you want to kill them, which is perhaps why its so damned entertaining to slaughter the five or six people who cut in front of you at the bank as you go to cash your paycheck.
Of course, there can?t be a choice system without consequence for your choices. In the case of the ?cashing the paycheck? mission, it means the difference between A.) Peacefully handing your check to the woman behind the counter and shooting the other customers rather angry looks and B.) Slaughtering them, running from where you were to where the bank vault is, and then grabbing a gigantic sack of cash before making a daring sewer getaway.
In the end, Postal 2 is a fairly decent PC shooter, following the good old fashion route of just having you blow the living hell out of anything that happens across the path of your shotgun. Seeing as how it?s built on the Unreal 2.0 engine, it?s really hard to find a PC that this won?t run on, unless you haven?t purchased a computer (not even built for gaming) in the last ten years. If you?ve been aching for a combination of DOOM and GTA, then Postal 2 is for you.
To start off, if you haven?t heard of Postal, chances are it?s for one of two reasons: 1.) You haven?t been gaming for very long. 2.) You grew up in a wholesome family that detested such games. If it?s the latter, you have my sympathies.
I was being facetious; in all reality Postal 2 is a relatively unheard of shooter (judging by the reactions of friends when I?ve mentioned it), probably due to all of the bad press that it got for the slaughtering of countless innocents in-game. That, and perhaps because its developer (Running With Scissors) has only released two games since their inception in 1993 ? Postal, and its sequel, Postal 2, a full decade later in 2003.
This is yet another game I?m reviewing without much story, but in this case I can?t fault it for much. You?re a guy by the name ?Postal Dude, Jr?, a guy who wears a blue alien t-shirt, a long, black leather coat, and sunglasses, apparently working as a video game developer at the Running With Scissors headquarters, located in the mining town of Paradise, AZ.
The main game (not including the expansion pack Apocalypse Weekend) follows Mr. Dude through his daily life for the time of an in-game workweek, which really totals to however long it takes you to complete the various errands given to you, such as (no joke) ?get some milk.?
To be honest, though, the majority of this game is really just about murder, like any good old fashioned shooter. You run around, blow someone?s head off, decapitate someone with a shovel, piss on their corpse? Okay, perhaps this game is a bit more tasteless than most, but I?d say that?s more due to the incorporation of a storyline that is really just meant to be satirical on the side anyway. If you skipped all the minor cutscenes during missions, you wouldn?t miss much aside from some moderately entertaining dark humor.
Of late, many games have been attempting to sport this new ?choice? system, in which your choices affect you. I have to give credit to Postal 2 for being one of the first games to actually implement this on any level. In-game, you are fully well capable of performing most of your errands (case in point, retrieving the aforementioned milk) without wasting any human beings. However, the NPCs make you want to kill them, which is perhaps why its so damned entertaining to slaughter the five or six people who cut in front of you at the bank as you go to cash your paycheck.
Of course, there can?t be a choice system without consequence for your choices. In the case of the ?cashing the paycheck? mission, it means the difference between A.) Peacefully handing your check to the woman behind the counter and shooting the other customers rather angry looks and B.) Slaughtering them, running from where you were to where the bank vault is, and then grabbing a gigantic sack of cash before making a daring sewer getaway.
In the end, Postal 2 is a fairly decent PC shooter, following the good old fashion route of just having you blow the living hell out of anything that happens across the path of your shotgun. Seeing as how it?s built on the Unreal 2.0 engine, it?s really hard to find a PC that this won?t run on, unless you haven?t purchased a computer (not even built for gaming) in the last ten years. If you?ve been aching for a combination of DOOM and GTA, then Postal 2 is for you.
