I could echo the praises everyone else is singing, but I wouldn't contribute anything new. What I do have to say relates to how I read this story. After the first few in-game days (as the story is broken into) I decided to read only one day of story and wait a real-time week before reading another day, like watching a TV show. This got me thinking about episodic games; most of them fail because they try to be a polished, 3D, have significant gameplay, voice acting, etc. Requiring modeling, animation, level design, scripting, voice recording, bug testing, etc., and trying to get this all done in a month or two. I'm not a connoisseur of visual novels, so maybe someone could contradict me here, but why hasn't anyone tried an episodic VN? Va-11 Hall-A for example, while I think it's better to have released as a whole game, could have worked well this way. 2D barely animated sprites (which are beautiful by the way), barely any gameplay, and no voice acting as most VNs have is a much more realistic goal to make every two weeks or a month or so. I think my routine of waiting between breaks in the narrative really enhances the story. It keeps me thinking about the game during the week and excites me to read more. It's more achievable and better compels the reader, so why aren't VN writers employing this tactic?
This game isn't fun, at all. It's funny, albeit with outdated humor such as the part where Postal Guy votes spoofing the Gore/Bush ballots. The gameplay is just incomprehensibly bad. The spread on the guns, all of the guns, is ridiculous. The shotgun has, I think, 4 pellets that will go literally anywhere except the person you're aiming at unless you're so close they cannot physically go anywhere else. Shotguns are a close-quarters weapon, but fuck me, this is makeout-range combat! Assault rifles and submachine guns are often described in games to be spray-and-pray weapons, this is literal in this game. I cannot conceive of how you could use such a weapon strategically or skillfully. Pistols, while not as bad, have much more than the usual video game pistol. In contrast, npcs have pinpoint accuracy. Someone ten buildings away with the same shotgun you use will tear you to shreds in a matter of seconds. It doesn't matter if you're in a small hallway or a wide street. All you can do is hope to take them out before you lose too much health, then another five hostile npcs found line of sight with you. The sheer number of weapons and items is cumbersome. Variety is good, but there's about five distinct weapon types and thirty different weapons. You can't swiftly switch to a specific weapon under pressure. I'd say Half-Life had about as many weapons as you can before it gets inconvenient. Items, too, are just too plentiful. Unlike weapons, most of them are useless in combat. The map, a newspaper, cat food, Gary Coleman autographs, all get in the way of you trying to find the healing items, most of which barely heal you. Even if the combat was passable, it's just tedious and unsatisfactory. Most games' basic actions, usually movement and attacking, are reasonably fun. Shooting aliens in Half-Life is fun, stomping on Goombas is fun, moving Tetriminos in Tetris is fun, shooting people in Postal 2 is just not fun even with the blood, profanity, and dismemberment.
