Postal²: Share the Pain

The Good
It’s a standard FPS, with an unusual treatment. You are compelled to fetch normal domestic items for missions. As you go through the week, you accumulate enemies and watch as the town descends in to madness.

I really liked the creative ways you can kill people. Boot in their face, mad cow head, shovel or even scissors. The comical sound effects and one liners are reminiscent of Duke Nukem 3D. Game play is fairly responsive and challenging. You can take out a group of NPCs by using some more unusual weapons in your arsenal.

I got a minor kick out of the funny body captures. You can easily watch a cop or a waitress do this bouncy swagger of a walk. You can even talk to Gary Coleman and then shoot him later. Its certainly out of the blue, but he’s there.

The designers threw in a healthy dose of the movie “Deliverance.” They had you fight for your life in a meat factory whilst making local yokel calls. Not clever, but fun.

The Bad
Ok, Here’s where the real review starts. I’m by no means PC, but this game is going out of its way to be really offensive. That’s fine if it were actually funny or original. Yes, its satire, but its not good satire. Its 5th grade satire. Its one step above poop and fart jokes. Actually, I would’ve found fart jokes more fun than these gags.

Yes, There are a couple one liners I found funny. The rest were repeated way too often.

Graphics were dull and repetitive. The levels were blocky and uninteresting. And the jokes are dated. Chads, Fort Waco, and Lieberman are all mentioned prominently. Also mentioned prominently are fictional advocates of censorship, that act as your nemesis. Its pretty bad when your bad guys are this boring.

Multiplayer works, but is sparsely populated.

The Bottom Line
I bought it for 9.99 from Gog.com. I got my moneys worth and was mildly entertained before it became a grind. If you're looking for good satire in your games, you'd be better off playing any Zork game or anything with Douglas Adams attached.