Lost Classics: Postal (PC)

In the mid 90s, it became clear that video games weren’t just for kids anymore. If Mortal Kombat and Wolfeinstein 3-D made that statement, then games like Doom and Eternal Champions placed an exclamation point at the end of that statement. Politicians, right-wing talking heads, talk show hosts, and lazy parents soon discovered that (read: scapegoated) video games, along with gangsta rap were the same satanic evils that comic books and rock ‘n’ roll were during the 50s and 60s. To temporarily ward them off if nothing else, a rating system was established. With that in place, developers were given a free pass to test the limits of what’s appropriate for a video game, although it was clear that some lazier developers were simply putting blood and guts into video games for their own sakes. Thus, for every Duke Nukem and Samurai Showdown, we got a dozen more Time Killers. In 1997, one game, more than any other signified the worst fears of every parent/teacher group, congressman, and clergyman: Running With Scissors’ shooting game, Postal. What makes this game even more disturbing is how eerily close it is to certain real-life events that tragically still go on today.

3 sets of adverb-adjective combos can best describe Postal: darkly humorous, delightfully tasteless, and disturbingly addictive. In a scenario that would soon be ripped from today’s headlines, our ‘hero’ (notice that I mentioned this in passing), a guy named Postal Dude (no seriously, that’s the guy’s name apparently) who lives in the ironically named Paradise City, comes home after a hard day’s work to find his house repossessed. He then does what any self-respecting psychopath would do: put on a black trenchcoat, grab a load of weapons (um.. where have I heard this before?), and proceeds to well, go Postal. Yeah, I know the jokes may be a bit on the morbid side, but lets face it, if the guy decided to pay off his mortage and chill, we wouldn’t have much of a game here, now would we? While the between-level quotes and instruction manual hint at something deeper, there isn’t much of a plot to go by. All you need to know is that our hero, if he can still be addressed as such, has some issues, and has evidently decided that the best way to deal with these issues is to grab a gun and blast down every living thing in sight.

The game’s levels requires you to gun down a certain percentage of the hostiles (that would be anyone shooting back at you, the vast majority of which being cops, thereby making this game even more tasteless in the eyes of many people than it was when I began this review) to be able to advance. While killing civilians won’t help you advance, you’re not penalized for it at all. There are items to help you get through each level, as well as a multitude of weapons to use. You can even stand above a wounded, crawling shooting victim and preform a brutal execution. If you get tired of it all, there is even a suicide button! As you can see, this is a wholesome family friendly game!

The characters are made from rendered polygons, but the backdrops are pre-rendered 2D textures. You can easily get lost behind certain objects such as trees, but there is an x-ray view which helps out a little. Beyond that, the many issues I have with this game center around its interface. First of all, the game’s tank controls will take a bit of getting used to. I realize this is 1997, but for crying out loud, why not utilize a point and click interface, or better joystick support? Thankfully you can rearrange the controls as you see fit, but the game won’t save them, so each time you load or begin a new game, you have to re-enter your customized controls. Speaking of saving, when you go to save a game, the windows explorer save menu pops up instead of an in-game GUI for saving, like in %90 of other PC games I played, and this includes everything from the original King’s Quest to Half Life 2. Finally, make sure to read the instruction manual, or otherwise you won’t learn among other things, that the only way to move along to the next level is to press the F1 key after the kill quota is met. Nothing is more frustrating than meeting that final kill, only to be taken out by a stray redneck’s Molotov cocktail. Again, while most of this can be chalked up to the game coming out in 1997, it’s a wonder why Running with Scissors hasn’t released an update patch of sorts.

While the main campaign doesn’t last long, there are a number of challenge modes. Disappointingly, there is no online co-op for the main campaign, and the online modes are a bit limited compared to other games of the day such as Doom and Quake. Thankfully, the game includes a map editor to design your own maps. I can only imagine someone making recreations of more ‘popular’ shooting rampages.

Postal is one of those games which you’ll either like or hate. For those who can stand the violence and are willing to look past the game’s faults, Postal is a pretty addictive and fun game. However, even I managed to find this game a tad extreme, and for crying out loud, I count the Grand Theft Auto series, the original Manhunt, and Silent Hill 2 among may favorite games. Thankfully, it’s not too extreme for me to enjoy what it has to offer. If you want to experience this ‘classic’, you can purchase it for $6 on http://GOG.com, and best of all, it’s DRM-free. A sequel was released a few years later, and I may have a look at that when it’s available on the website. A source-engine powered third game in the series is planned for release on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC later this year.

Oh yeah, director extraordinary Uwe Boll made a movie based on Postal, although the less said about it, the better.