POSTAL: Classic and Uncut

Whoever says this game doesn't have a plot hasn't read the manual. The Postal Dude is an average joe whose mental state is deteriorating and believes there is a plague driving people insane, causing him to take up arms in his paranoia. Noisy, dark ambient pieces play during loading screens with some disturbing art accompanied by the Dude's thoughts at the time. Truly chilling stuff.

There's not much here in terms of an actual game, but as a little slice of historical controversial themes of "The Times" I can't really be too mad at it. It really did feel nostalgic to the degree that this would definitely be on one of them 90's quiet kids' desktop... but as a game, it's really not worth the 3 minutes it takes to realize that there's nothing here at all.

Youngins won't be kind to the Postal series -- least of all this first one. It's a basic, isometric/top-down shooter. Your goal? Kill all the police and civilians you can. The story? You're an average guy who has gone postal and is slipping deeper and deeper into your demented fantasy world. Yeah, it sounds bad if you're a 21st century American. But is it any good? Kinda. The controls are totally broken -- the devs even included a guide to "fix" the controls on a file. The game's a little easy too. And short. There's only a dozen lines of dialogue everyone has. The weapons are very standard. If you wanted to silence your M60 with a cat, there's only one game where you can do that. But there is a primal satisfaction you get from lighting a lady on fire and having her run into a cop. It's the GTA effect: it's just fun to pretend to be bad. And you don't get much badder than Postal. If you're interested in the series, give it a try. Otherwise, you can safely pass on this one.

A pretty good shoot 'em up. The main game and extra content can be finished in around 4 hours. Read the manual for a proper introduction to the story. In the actual game, a few lines before each mission won't tell you much. The gameplay never really drastically changes, but is enjoyable. In each mission, you have to kill a certain percentage of hostiles, then when done, press F1 to advance to the next level. Enemies being bullet sponges can make it feel like a drag at times. The game lacks an auto-save, so save at the beginning of each new mission. Graphics are nothing special.

Plenty of fun horde shooters that are a dream to play from retro DooM to modern(ish) Serious Sam. If you want to go Postal for laughs try Postal 2 or GTA and Saints Row games.