I've been a fan of video games since the first day my dad bought that wonderful centerpiece known as the Playstation into the household when I was at the mere age of five. All the entertainment I could ever need was contained within that chunky dull-grey plastic brick of a games console. Thankfully, eleven years later, I'm still loving them as much as I had the first time I saw the Sony logo glow on the TV screen. Of course, my taste for video games has changed quite noticably since those days before exams, stress and seemlingly endless streams of gossip. The first game I had ever played was the Playstation release of 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' - which, I must say, for a five year old I got the hang of shooting the giant lizards quite naturally. From there it escalated, from the rose-tinted memories of Spiderman, Rayman and Spyro to the intense, mind-melting gameplay of Deus Ex, Fallout 3 and so on. I've had a very clear path of progression over the years in terms of video games; having all but left the bubblegum-platformers behind in return for the ultra-violent, intellect-challenging wave of modern-day shooters and action rpg's.
However, in all the need for a gaming experience more nourishing than jumping my way through floating clumps of land in search of gems and crystallised dragons, nothing just quite hits the spot as much as an all-out splatterfest. It's quite simple really - like food. You walk into a resteraunt feeling quite hungry, and you've got the choice: some fancy chinese-cuban fusion dish that comes out of the kitchin the size of a tennis ball or a bloody great steak that looks like the cow had owed some very bad people alot of money.
And that's what the latest game I've been hooked to - Postal 2: Share The Pain - is: it's a massive steak. Simple, yet satisfying...and drenched in blood. Naturally.
Postal 2 is made by a small video game developing company called Running With Scissors, Inc., a company that since the release of 1997's 'Postal' has been underfire by the media and governments of the world for being one of the most outrageous game developer's of all time - alongside the likes of Rockstar (famed for the Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt games). Althougth Running With Scissors hasn't always been a posterboy for controversy, as it formerly used to develop candy-coated children's video games, their Postal series (with a third Postal game currently in the pipeline) is one of the most downright disgraceful yet deviously hilareous video games I have ever played.
You play a man only credited as The Postal Dude - a trailerpark resident clad in a leather jacket, Luciferic goatee and with a head filled with dispicable deeds in a world thats just as psychotic. During the course of the game, you have to work your way through a seemlingly ordinary week filled with menial mid-life-crisis-inducing chores that nobody other than yourself seems to be able to carry out. The Postal Dude should be an ordinary guy just trying to about his day-to-day business (and indeed, if that's the way you want to go about it, you can) yet that's just simply not a good enough basis for an enteraining video game who's predecessor lives up to the word 'incorrect'.
I've only been playing this game for two days at this point (I'm currently on the second level, aptly entitled 'Tuesday') and already the gameplay has totally drawn me in. As I've stated before, this game isn't a fancy platter of exotic cuisine - its a slab of meat with a side-order of a Stella or two. Or ten. With the way this game plays, it certainly seems as if somebody was psudo-paraletic when they thought of all the crazy aspects to dump within the game's setting: an rural American town ironically called 'Paradise'.
Paradise is quite a large place when you take a gander at the map, with quite a few interesting locations to check out; from the local supermarket to the almost-out-of-sight Asylum and even a thoughtfully placed Running With Scissors building. For a 2003 computer game I would say Paradise is moderately sized - it's not as big as some maps that other games of the time took pride in, yet it's not so small that you'd discover all there is to find within an hour of booting up. There's enough locations to keep you interested, yet its not so big that you'd have to spend seemling endless periods of time running from place to place at a speed that Mr. Blobby could seem to beat. However, due to Running With Scissor's quite small-scale facilities the use of numerous 'loading points' has been called upon in order for the player to travel from one section of Paradise to another - a setback that the likes of Deus Ex had more than overcome at around the same time.
As for the style of gameplay, I would say that Postal 2 is a sandbox shooter - however, that totally depends on the way you play the game and complete each chore on The Postal Dude's list. For instance, within the first five seconds of playing the game I ran into a man and, to my derranged delight, discovered that you can unzip your flies and urinate wherever you want; kind of like a non-lethal weapon. Well, I'm proud to say that I took Postal up on that opportunity and let the green rivers flow all up this innocent bystandard's back. Needless to say, the man yelled and ran - quite convincingly - in horror and disgust. The man continued to run and holler into the middle of a street where a nearby mugging (yes, the A.I. were given the ability to hold other character's at gunpoint for cash) was taking place. The mugger became alarmed at the screaming man charging towards him, he opened fired and what ensued was utter chaos. Countless bystardard's burst out of their homes wielding any weapons they could find - some with shotguns, others with mere shovels - and took up trying to kill the man who had bought disruption to Paradise as well as anyone else that had accidentally hit a fellow civilian. There was blood spraying everywhere; limbs being blown away and chunks of skull of flesh kartwheeling across the pavement. Within seconds the police force arrived with an emphesis on 'force'. By the end of the first minute of me playing Postal, I had racked up 20 (indirect) kills all because I chose to relieve myself on some poor man's back.
He needn't worry about washing the smell out - he was one of my 20 kills.
And that's what I love about this game so much - it's utterly dispicable. You could choose to play it nice and just live life in an ordinary-as-possible way, yet you don't. You don't know why, but you just don't, even if you try really hard you always discover something you could do and you give it a go. Just a little try, just to see whether you actually can - what harm could it do? And within seconds, you could either get away with it in total discression or start a mass slaughter totally by accident...or not, depending on what you're plans were. From bloodthirsty protestors, manic police officers and ever the Jihad, Postal has a perfect palette of controversial enemies to pit yourself against. There're even cats, if you have a disliking to feline kind.
One of the best feature's I like about this game is the police force. There aren't many other violent shooter games out there that allows the police to actually arrest you peacefully - such as in Grand Theft Auto. You're low on health and you just want to give yourself in for whatever reason, but thats not how it works for the police forces of Liberty City. Or Vice City. Or in any other GTA game for that matter - not unless you get in a car and park yourself next to an officer. They'll just keep plugging you full of lead until you're down on the ground and not their problem anymore.
Postal takes a different approach, letting you choose whether you actually want to give yourself up or not. The police will yell at you to drop your weapons and stand still, or they will open fire. If you so much as take a step away, draw a gun or take more than a couple of seconds to drop your weapon they do just that - quite accurate of the American police, in my opinion.
If you drop your weapon and stand right where you are, you get approached by an officer, handcuffed and hauled into the Paradise police station.
In conclusion, I find that Postal 2 is a game that is a must-play for fans of violent video games such as GTA with a sick sense of humor, psychopathic tendancies and/or an atrraction to controversy. This game has it all: attacks against U.S. Senators, a heavy use of sterotyping, the inclusion of numerous references to better-left-unsaid real-world events and the ability to indulge it's players in practically whatever sick way of completing tasks they can think of. Yet you're getting more than that; you're also getting a backwards town to roam around in, countless moments of hilarity and gameplay that will quench a thirst for blood.
4 / 5
\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/
Pros:
- with the right sense of humor, this game is utterly hilareous
- intense shootouts with realistic reactions (and body language) from NPCs
- the ability to choose: chaotic bloodbath or mundane run-of-the-mill chores.
- good graphics, considering its from a 2003 Unreal Engine
Cons:
- some, if not most, people may find this game offensive in some way
- many, many loading points disrupts the flow of the game
- can't interact with any objects - and there are not vehicels, either
- no tale to tell
Remember that this review is totally from my perspective and written to the best of my ability to dissect and comment on the craft of the product in question and place any biases I may have aside.
I also do not personally own any of the images used in this article.
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