POSTAL 2

Sure, the game is pretty crappy gameplay-wise. The controls often feel stiff, some of the enemies are bullet sponges with pinpoint accuracy, and the shootouts are poorly designed. But who cares when you can impale a cat on your shotgun and pee on the mutilated bodies of innocent civilians?! Postal 2 may not be the greatest FPS experience out there, but the fact that it is so edgy, stupid and over-the-top definitely makes it enjoyable. Paradise City is densely packed with things to see and places to explore, often involving heavy weaponry and money lying on the floor, annoying people to slaughter and various forms of toilet humor. Meaningless violence and political incorrectness are pretty much the selling points of the game, and, since there is no way you could take its tongue-in-cheek tone seriously, I'm totally okay with that. Shooting your way through entire districts and using a great variety of more-ore-less satisfying weapons (including a shovel, a double-barrelled shotgun, a chainsaw, Molotovs, shears, heat-seeking missiles and anthrax-filled cow heads) to complete silly objectives is great fun. Plus, the game has, dare I say, an interesting sense of satire. It takes shots at various communities, mocks the Church, the American electoral system and generally totally disregards political correctness... But it's mostly in good humor. It also underlines a fundamental principle of video games: sure, you could play it without killing anyone, but since there's weapons everywhere, why would you even bother? I was yet quite disappointed by the Apocalypse Weekend expansion, which consists in a series of missions closer to what you would expect from a classic FPS. But while the half-baked gameplay works well for the sandbox-typed campaign of the first five days, it is definitely not strong enough to sustain a full-fledged regular FPS campaign. I would not recommend this game to solid shooter fans, but if you just want a cathartic FPS, this gets the job done.

What can I say... kill everyone!

I bought this game on a whim. I hadn't even heard about this series, now I'm glad I did. The single-player story is pretty fun, and there are a lot of one-liners and inside jokes laying around. The best parts are those that are outside the main objectives; the secret, hidden underbelly of Paradise. The one thing I like most about this game is that there are essentially no rules. You can choose to complete an objective the obvious way (say, by waiting in line to get Gary Coleman's autograph,) or the fun way (by killing Gary Coleman and taking the autograph.) I like not being penalized for killing the wrong people. I would definitely encourage anyone who buys this game to also download the "Eternal Damnation" mod, which can be had for free at places like Filefront, etc. This mod is in reality a whole new game with new weapons, a new story, a new hero, new voices, and re-purposed locales from the original. And zombies. Lots of zombies.

So underneath all the wackiness this feels like a bad FPS game mostly in the level design department. It doesn't matter if your in the post office, the butcher shop, the fireworks factory, everything hallway after hallway excluding the town which is just a hub between levels. Despite that you get alot of wacky weapons and power-ups (cat nip slows down time, and cats themselves make nifty silencers) and you can do pretty much anything to the town's people (light them on fire, pee on them, i'm sure there's other stuff) You're really limited to those activities. The "story" missions are straight foward either run through the hallway factory which is on fire...oh I mean the library/whatever building or wait in a line for 10 min or kill everyone before you. Thats pretty much the whole game, most of the madness will be spent in between missions in the town as you come up with ways to horrify and upset the town's people and local authorities. But that in itself is fun, I can't think of many games that allow you to do that with the variety of wacky weapons in postal. Oh I guess you get the expansion but it's not all that great. No more free roaming, just mission after mission. (To be fair they cranked up the wackiness with zombies and gary colemen things) through some more hallways. But that wasn't the fun of postal. So it's worth the 10 bucks i guess more like 6 but add 4 to that because GoG made it compatible with everything.

First, what this game isn't. This game is not a great FPS. This game is definitely not for everyone. It's not a technical/graphical marvel. But, what it is is: Good, dirty fun. The game has a feel and dare I say charm all of its own. You'll be completing objectives on a big series of interconnected maps (so on the map with the library, a road leads to the map with the supermarket and so on). You can go along quietly and do all the objects in a nice manner, or you can go absolutely Postal and kill everyone that gets in your way. Behead them, shoot them, hit them, slash them, kick them, set them on fire, pee on them. Going totally insane with all the weapons (that are just lying around, hidden throughout the levels) is what this game is all about and it makes it a delicious game for short burst. The over the top violence makes it a great way to blow off some steam. Who should buy this? People who like a simple shooter with a sense of humor (albeit childish potty humor for the most part). Don't get it if you're looking for your next spectacular heart pounding FPS, do get it if you want to go Postal in a world filled with innocents and not so innocents.