Postal²

Postal as a series is generally not well looked on, but number 2 remains a classic that in my eyes is representative of what video games could be and how to do offensively dark humor correctly, which from what i've heard about later entries, sadly just doesn't seem to be the motive anymore.

Postal 1 was basically a game from that era of the 90's where stuff was made just to sell off controversy, in that you're just a guy who kills as many people as possible essentially, in Postal2, that is flipped around. As far as i remember. You can play this game as essentially a first-person life simulator, do chores around the town, that kind of stuff, or as most might do in this game, go ballistic on every person or living thing whilst doing chores! It's one of the most original, engaging, easily re-playable and just in general its a great concept for a shooter, one i enjoy a lot.

But back to the statement i made earlier about its dark humor and why it doesn't seem like any games and even future postal projects fail to capture is the way their satirically dark humor is aimed at, in Postal2 it's aimed at every single thing including RWS themselves, it doesn't hold back on anything really, and while some of it hasn't aged well, most of it has and considering it was made in the early-2000's i feel like even when some of it ages badly its not as much as other and even more recent projects, it's offensive to be offensive but not too much to where its just " being offensive to be offensive without any sense of depth or self awareness ". It's still grounded enough to be enjoyable to most mature (and immature) audiences without relying on as many low blows to the point of almost seeming like a self parody, except when its quite the opposite and is meant to be serious, Serious doesn't happen in postal2, even if you try to life sim the entire game, the entire world is a joke at everyones expense, its also a pretty solid game. Open Worlds (especially back then) are pretty hard to craft, so the fact that the game seemed pretty stable to me was always a nice thing.

Sure, there are better open world games that still feature satire like the obvious choices of the GTA games, but Postal2 thrives in not being perfect, hell since its an old game with dated graphics and maybe a handful of dated low blows it's almost aged into a fine wine, a capsule of the early 2000's and PC Gaming and is to me, one of the most important PC FPS titles of the millennium.

which does make the fact that future titles and even some parts of the later Postal2 DLC fall flat on humor and gameplay quality even more underwhelming, the fact that the peak of the series is basically old enough to drink liquor in the state of arizona is a depressingly funny joke, but i prefer the ones in Postal2, And hey! This game is at least still given updates on places like Steam so it's easily accessible! If you're hungry for more stuff like this, sorry to say but as far as i'm aware the closest game i can think of is Cruelty Squad, which is more surrealist and worth checking out if you liked Postal2, and if you haven't tried it yet, Do so, dont expect every joke to age well and you should be in for a fantastic time!

The game really only feels like a big joke but some missions can be pretty fun. All the backtracking missions werent the best and some were a bit hard. The famous sign my petition meme was easily the best mission.

I like the sandbox elements ingame and its fun how you can approach missions differently.

the dude is back, and hes gonna have a SHIT fucking week. go about your daily buisness doing chores for the Dude and all hell breaks loose. this game is an utterly stupid, enjoyable, clusterfuck. the social commentary is actually funny, anti-pc, the gameplay is hilarious and fun and actually can be challenging, shooting mechanics feel like a proper oldschool FPS, the design of the city is not bad and feels freeroam, its fun!

kick someone on the ground, pour gasoline, light match, piss their burnt corpse out. GOTY

7.5/10