Saying Postal 2 is a good game is like saying a tumor inducing euphoria is a blessing from god. It's like saying a deadly disease that causes wracking pain throughout your entire body while simultaneously producing orgasms is heavenly. Once you realize that none of those things are any good, you should come to the realization that the bad ALWAYS outweighs the good. Of course, coming to this deeply philosophical understand of how exactly quality is produced will take very little time in comparison to the centuries you'll be agonizing through as you wait for Postal 2's loadscreens to finally end, just so you can experience the next heaping of piss poor humor (quite literally) and absolutely atrocious FPS gameplay. It's extremely difficult to express in words simply how terrible the mechanics in Postal 2 are. From the horribly clunky weaponry, to the extremely buggy physics, graphics, and anything else imaginable, to the shit poor hit detection, and practically anything else I can think of. Computer Gaming World gave this game the dubious honor of 0 stars, and I truly wish GOG had given me the power to grant such a scathing score, because if there was ever a game that deserved it, it is Postal 2. If there is a God, he would have struck down this game with his divine fist, barely managing to raise it as the pure heinous aura of vile stupidity raises forth from the corpse of this putrescent game. Indeed, there is cause for atheists to rejoice at the mere existence of Postal 2, as it proves that there is no divine entity willing to save us from this terrible abomination. Although perhaps it could be argued that Postal 2 is simply so horrible that no omnipotent all powerful force could even compete with its pure evil, this disgusting excrement. Traveling through sub par levels, with absolutely moronic level design, hideous low resolution textures, blocky ugly character models, despicably unfunny character voices and quips, stupid childish humor that couldn't make Terrence and Philip produce a single chuckle. Traveling through hell itself, I lay my bloodied hands upon my eyes and tore them out with ferocious fervor, attempting to stop the flow of utter agony. I used to kid myself that few games could get worse than Descent to Undermountain, few games could defeat the purely evil shittiness of Shaq Fu, but I was wrong. There is little worse than the world of Postal 2, and as I wander about the empty neighborhood, with a new tedious idiotic task on my list to fulfill, I wonder how anyone could kid themselves that this game could even be considered parody, could even be considered satire, could even be considered on par with the quality of Carlos Mencia, could even produce a crime less evil that the brainwashing murder schemes of Charles Mansion. Truly, as I lope about asking people to sign a petition, as I piss in their faces when they refuse, as I shoot them in the head as they run away in terror, as I become disillusioned and curl into a pathetic ball, I realize that nothing in this horrible banshee's wail is decent, there is nothing sacred within this freak of nature. This game produces less laughs than the most eye-rolling of Rockstar Games' humor. The jokes are always stale, shooting the same enemy ten times in the head with your pea-shooter shotgun is always repetitive, and it is always horrible. So horrible. As I lay dying, I hope only you read this last testament, for there is little that can prepare you for the atrocities of Postal 2, there is little to prepare you for Infernus, for the layers of a hellish blackened onion with the stench of evil incarnate, there is nothing that can prepare you for the pure shit this game produces. So while you wait for the game to finish loading the first level, as you sit there for that first 30 minutes pondering whether or not the wait is worth it, please reconsider. Please save yourself.
If you have any experience whatsoever with games such as Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, or the Warlords series (the original games, not the Battlecry spin-offs) then Disciples 2 will seem quite familiar. However, it has quite a few things going for it that not only produces an easier to learn experience, but provides a breadth of options despite its seemingly simplistic systems. Like any other game of the sort, Disciples 2 provides you with a capital city, a hero (which you can export to carry across scenarios as he improves) and allows you to explore a map filled with monsters, treasures, and land to be conquered. What makes these maps unique however, is the incredible atmosphere that exudes from every single pixel within Disciples 2's majestic world. The music is at times haunting, at times beautiful, and typically always carries a low, somewhat soothing (and at times, eerie) tone throughout gameplay. This means Disciples 2 carries none of the crass and obnoxious bass heavy orchestral soundtracks that Fantasy games seem to like so much (I'm looking at you TES, tone it down). Equally beautiful is the terrain and units, Disciples 2 maintains a very dark stylized look, every unit and hero has its own unique personality, and the artwork provided for each unit is very high quality. Backing up this gorgeous display of aesthetic is an equally impressive combat system, unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, combat in Disciples 2 is carried out by individual units rather than representation by number of mass armies, units will always do a similar amount of damage no matter their health. However, this provides an extra layer of strategy as you cannot simply amass hordes of pathetic units and whittle down your enemy, victory is obtained through careful training and combat of your units. Your soldiers regularly upgrade into stronger variants as they gain experience, what they upgrade into depends on the structures built at your Capital, an Empire (one of the four races present, an additional race is also available in Rise of the Elves) Squire for example, will upgrade into a Knight if the player built a Stable. There are separate trees of construction available, so picking one upgrade path over another will cut off the other, forcing you to pick and choose strategically based on which you believe will serve you best. Gameplay is tight and there are very few bugs present, I could only count a few, such as one annoying bug that appeared when playing windowed where a turn would not cease loading until you click on another window and return to the Disciples 2 process, which causes windowed play to be more of a chore than it should be. Disciples 2 does possess a few problems that prevent it from achieving a 5 star rating in this critique, first off, the AI on any difficult below Hard is incredibly imbecilic, often sending decently leveled heroes with upgraded units straight into powerful Neutral units that tear them up. This wouldn't be a problem if the AI resorted to such stupid tactics rarely, but the AI seems quite inclined to perform such actions repeatedly in a single game, eventually providing little challenge to the player. This would most likely have lowered the score even more if it weren't for the fact that the AI on the harder difficulties is quite intelligent without cheating. Another apparent problem in Disciples 2 is that there's a small amount of scenarios. While all four races carry length campaigns (labeled "Sagas"), it's disappointing to see only a dozen scenario maps. These problems don't drag down the whole of Disciples 2 however, and the systems within the game are so well sculpted and polished that the scenarios you do play will be incredibly entertaining. Worth playing for fans of HoMM, Warlords and MoM, and even for TBS players who would like to enjoy a little fantasy kick.
