There are no two ways of saying this; this game makes Eminem look like the Easter bunny!
The sequel to the uber violent romp, Postal, is set in the small fictional town of Paradise, Arizona which, despite its name, is home to the largest variety of whacked out psychos you will probably ever see.
You take on the role of the infamous Postal Dude who has somehow managed to get himself a job working for none other than the game company Running with Scissors (the people responsible for the game) and he now lives in a delightful...trailer home.
Postal 2 is a First Person Shooter but is unique amongst the genre because you can actually complete the entire game without firing a single shot. But where would be the fun in that, eh? Your objectives for each day sound fairly mundane when you see them i.e. pick up some milk from the local store and deposit your pay check but therein lies the fun. If you don't feel like paying the outrageous price of $0.50 for your carton of milk then you can try your hand at a bit of shop lifting or you can pull out a shot gun and shoot the place up and then stroll out with your milk. There is one tiny problem with this approach: everyone in Paradise is packing heat and sometimes, especially in the case of the grocery store owner, a lot of heat!
The game runs on the Unreal Warfare engine and there is a huge 3D environment to explore. You can enter all the buildings and have a good look around to see what is inside. There are usually wads of cash and guns lying around in most of the buildings so it pays to be nosy. There are also hundreds of unique character models roaming around the streets ranging from leather clad gimps to big boobed school girls.
There is also a special guest star, namely Gary Coleman (Arnold from the 80's TV show 'Different Strokes') who you can plug full of holes if you feel he deserves it.
"Whatchoo doin' wit dat gun, Mr. Willis?"
The characters in the game utilize rag doll physics and this is most apparent when you shoot someone and then kick his corpse around town. It is also possible to chop somebody's head off with a shovel and then use the shovel to bounce the head off walls. Fun for all the family.
The game has been given an 18 certificate for obvious reasons and has provoked an outcry from almost every liberal group in existence. Gay groups are calling it homophobic because you can kill all the people in the local gay bar, others are calling it racist because the owner of the local grocery store is obviously being portrayed as an Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist type etc etc. The game actually takes the piss out of these groups by portraying them in the game as psychotic protestors who picket the head quarters of Running With Scissors. During the game, whilst you are picking up your pay check, the protestors attack the head quarters and it is quite amusing to see the employees of Running With Scissors charging around with M16s shooting up the protestors.
I enjoyed playing this game to begin with but there are some rather annoying aspects which made me quite frustrated with it. The most irritating thing was the load times between each zone. Load times are long with a capital L-O-N-G. This probably wouldn't be so awful if it wasn't for the fact that each of the missions requires you to cross between the zones at least five or six times. Even doing the simplest of things like going to the bank becomes a tedious chore.
Even though the game possesses some unique ideas, such as unzipping your flies and pissing on people (no, you didn't read wrong; you can whip out your little soldier and take a whizz on someone or, if you are on fire, you can aim your winkie upwards and use your own urine to extinguish yourself) or set someone on fire with gasoline and then kick their charred corpse across town, it isn't really enough of a hook to keep playing. After you have urinated on several dozen people it doesn't seem so funny anymore.
Another negative aspect is that there is no multiplayer function included with the final release of the game. It would be great fun to run around the town with your friends in a pack killing bystanders or possibly even playing a good old fashioned game of tennis with some poor bastard's head. This is only a temporary drawback as there is a multiplayer add on in the pipeline and will probably be released as a patch at a later date. The designers felt it was more important to get the single player game out to the loyal fans as soon as possible.
So, what is my final opinion of the game? I think I will have to go 50:50 on this. I enjoyed parts of the game, especially the wicked humour and the 'go anywhere' ability but the load times really pissed me off. Normally I would recommend this type of game as a good stress buster. For example, there is a scene in the game where you go to pick up your pay check from your boss at Running With Scissors but instead he fires you and then laughs in your face. Fortunately you don't have to take that crap and you can knock that smile of his smug face with a shovel or a shotgun.It is the dream of every employee come true. However, the load times involved to actually get to this point might actually make some people so stressed out that they will wind up putting their fist through their monitor.
I was playing this game on a 1.3ghz Athlon with 640mb RAM so my machine is not a pile of crap by any means. The minimum spec required to play this game are listed as PIII 733mhz with 128mb RAM and I would really hate to see the load times involved with that spec. Although the game is intended to be ultra violent you are free to play as you see fit. If you don't want to run amok with your automatic weapon then you don't have to but be warned that the computer controlled characters are just as psychotic as Postal Dude.
James Coghlan
