There are two ways to play this game. You can play it properly and advance through the game, battling enemy nations as you go, in your ongoing conquest to... well, I dunno, I never got that far. Because I played it the other way: I just built stuff and watched the Settlers mill about for the first few stages. It's like a precursor to The Sims, except if you actually progress, there's battles and sieges instead of tickle fights. This game is considered by far and wide to be the definitive entry in the franchise. There was even a 10th Anniversary remake made not altogether long ago, which sadly saw a very limited release. (It's pretty awesome too.) Having tried the others briefly, this is the one I keep coming back to -- despite my insistence on doing nothing but building. For speed demon strategy gamers this game may be a bit disconcerting; no matter how well you know the terrain and how quickly you're able to dispatch orders, your Settlers can only do their tasks so fast. They have a very casual attitude towards everything. But if you enjoy watching little sprites run around -- in a beautifully animated little world -- cutting trees and prospecting for gold as you lay out your plans for conquest, you'll find yourself right at home.
Postal 2 is not an exceptionally polished game. It is not a tactful game (not that one expects it to be). It is not a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination. Yet despite all this it manages to be fun. It's chock-full of the best one-liners since Duke Nukem, and you can set people on fire then piss them out... assuming that's your idea of fun. P. Dude's week starts off pretty normally, going to pick up some milk at the market and the like. By the end of the working week you'll have had a shoot-out with Gary Coleman, been abducted by hillbillies, survived a suicide bombing or three, escaped a burning library, and plenty more wacky hijinks I daren't spoil. Along the way you have a fair deal of freedom -- you can dick around with the cops and citizens, get arrested and break out, explore hidden areas and meet (and kill) dozens if not hundreds more people! Who would ever have expected to find a tunnel to a certain Iraqi terrorist's hideout in their own backyard? Over the Apocalypse Weekend you'll suffer violent hallucinatory episodes, steal a military nuclear warhead, dismember countless living creatures with a BOOMERANG SCYTHE, and do battle with a... unique Satanic figure with Tourette's Syndrome. This expansion is a standalone followup (meaning no boomerang scythe for you back on Monday, sorry), and strictly on-rails, which can be a good or a bad thing. It's completely balls-out insane and sick in every way the base game somehow managed not to be. It's also even buggier, and I encountered a few game-breaking bugs on my first playthrough that mandated loading an earlier save. Postal 2 was created somewhat so you can dig around for secrets and do the missions -- but really, it's all about WRECKING SHIT UP, missions or no. It's kind of buggy, kind of ugly, incredibly offensive through and through, the mechanics are awkward and unrefined... and I like it. Go try the demo first. If you approve, there's a hell of a lot more content just $10 away.
