At the risk at being judgmental, I wonder if Gamespot gave Postal 2 a low score to cover their butts and avoid the controversy of plugging such a violent game. The final product is actually amusing, and fun to play. There is no point to the game, but so what? There is no point to “The Sims” either. I would recommend this game to First-person shooter fans looking for something, um, different that is moderately challenging and humorous (in a sick and demented manner). This game makes for a pretty good anti-social behavior simulator, and there's more than just a few sick laughs in the box. In this game, you play the “Postal Dude”, a frustrated white trash guy living in a trailer park in Arizona with his naggy wife, who sends him on various life errands. There is no plot or story to the game. You simply spend a week buying milk, returning a library book, cashing your check, getting your laundry, and even getting Gary Coleman’s autograph. You can do this however you like. You can wait in line at the bank, or you can throw a grenade into the bank to clear everyone else out. Or, you can pour gasoline onto the ground and light the trail. If you do that though, you can expect the cops to start hunting you down. It’s a simple formula, but it works very well. By now, you are probably getting an idea of how offensive the game is. Running With Scissors went out of its way to insert as much un-PC material into the game as possible. The dialog is filled with four-letter words. Muslims and Christians should be equally offended by the blatant stereotypes in the game. Animal rights activists will not appreciate the cruelty to cats and dogs. The game is extremely graphic when it comes to violence. Decapitated bodies spurt blood and dying bodies twitch. The strength of “Postal 2” is that it creates a virtual living, breathing city full of inhabitants about as well as any game I have seen. Every area looks different. There is a grocery store, a bank, an industrial area, a shopping mall. You name it. Lots of pedestrians roam the street having conversations and the streets are lined with ordinary businesses and houses that you can walk into. Houses have inhabitants (who don’t like it when you barge in) and sometimes a guard dog. The attention to detail is excellent. “Grand Theft Auto 3” is the only game I have played which creates a virtual city of this quality. Like GTA3, the game offers you freedom, freedom, and more freedom. Other than occasional scripted shooter levels that you have to fight your way through, you have all sorts of freedom to accomplish tasks when and how you want. The game encourages exploration and you can often find goodies stashed in hidden areas. If you read posters and notices closely, you can find some hilarious stuff. The game also has lots of behaviors to discover. You can experiment with various inventory items and see what happens. You can use doggie biscuits to train an attack dog and you can beat on an ATM with a shovel to get money out. Another major strength of this game is the AI. “Postal 2” also has very good, realistic AI (given the context, of course). Cops and citizens react kinda like you would expect them to when you pull out a shotgun or unzip your pants. The reaction of citizens, cops, and animals to your anti-social behavior is what makes the game so entertaining. It also makes it somewhat challenging in some areas – if you barge into a room full of cops and armed citizens with your shotgun out, you are liable to get shot at. There is actually some challenge involved in going on a rampage in this game. Are there any disappointments? Yes. For starters, the graphics are not as great as they are billed to be. I would rank them as “above average” only. The variety of dialog in the game is sort of low. Every situation has only two or three scripted responses. There simply aren’t enough lines of voice-acted dialog in this game. But worst of all, are the TERRIBLE loading times in this game. This game has horribly slow loading times, and they become very annoying when you are in a tough area and you have to reload your game a bunch of times. The game won’t give you a great deal of playing time -- maybe 20 hours – at least until some mods come out, and the sky’s the limit there. If you can get past the offensiveness of the material and you are looking for an FPS that is different and fun, then I recommend that you pick up “Postal 2”. Just make sure that you heed the “M for Mature” warning, because it REALLY needs it.
Nothing more to say really, if you don't like it, take a look at the release date :) Try to appreciate it for what it is. For people like me who very much enjoy just creating random mayhem, like the people that have spen... Read Full Review
:Good Idea: ·You control how the game plays. You can actually play the game without being a psycho or you can just start out as a lunatic. It's up to you. ·Throwing a hand grenade at Gary Coleman is always good. ·Smok... Read Full Review
