Postal

i wish this game had a better story, if it had better story elements it could be a very sick game but sadly the ending is like the only bit of story in this game.

Its a pretty average game that just reminds me of like a flash game. Not that special unfortunately

*Original campaign
im not even sure if its fair to review this as i beat the original 17 level campaign in about 45 minutes. so , it's just 17 levels where you walk around killing everything on screen from a top down perspective. you are required to kill 90% of hostiles on all 17 levels. so you mostly just exploit the AI with weird angles, and use the sawn off shotgun to kill most things 1-2 shots. i only died maybe twice, and the bulk of the damage is almost always just something exploding in your face and you being stuck in a being on fire loop until you die or get pelted with bullets.

the original campaign had the last level be an elementary school and shooting it up to have a mental breakdown and get put away.. in the remake you just walk past a church and see your grave and have the breakdown, i don't know, atleast the game is really dark and anti-social feeling ?
i'll probably return for the 6 level expansion pack soon

5/10

Postal is a game that only made a spash due to its huge amount of violence on civilians when it was released in 2017. It catalysed debates against videogames violence at the time, but playing it now it feels extremely tame. Obviously comparing in to grand theft auto or manhunt would be unjust. But even comparing to stuff like Fallout and Quake, the game feels to surprise me when it comes to its violence. Sure you can shoot pedestrians amongst enemy soldiers, but the gore is kept to a minimum, and there is a lot of humour in the voice acting and colourful visuals that highly diminuish the impact of your actions. Putting it this way, its a game thats hard to take serious, and i dont think that was its intention at all.

The gameplay is very repetitive. You enter an area and you must kill 90% of the hostile population in order to move to the next. It plays in a top down perspective, and each map is significantly different from the last, but the tactics you employ to get across are the same. Because of the camera angle, its hard to know when you are shooting a wall or a person, and there is a lack of hit feedback that makes the shooting unsatisfying. There is a cool arsenal of weapons, but i found explosives to be too risky for yourself to use. Enemies are dumb but have accurate aim, but i never found them too troubling because of the big amount of health packs spread throughout the level.

Postal is not a good game, its moderatly enjoyable for the 2 hours it takes to beat. Its biggest value still lies in its historical importance, that seems to diminuish day by day. If you are looking for blood and gore, there is much much better stuff out there.