Postal 2
Released April 2003
Developer: Running With Scissors
Publisher: Whiptail InteractiveGameplay (continued)Continuing on through the week, you'll run into all sorts of things. The people in the town are just plain whacked. You're on a short leash with them. Dogs hate you. Cats are afraid of you. Nobody's very fond of you; the best you can hope for in this crummy town is a small degree of tolerance. Throughout all that, you have these mind-numbing tasks to complete, and the townspeople are basically in your way. Something's got to give....

Some of the highlights of the week include:

  • Making enemies of about four or five different groups of people, who will attack you on sight after they become angry with you.
  • Elephants
  • A marching band
  • Gary Coleman (no, really, it's him)
  • Terrorists!
  • A religious sect
  • Peeing on your dad's grave!
  • Sado-masochism (not graphic, but really embarassing)

...and much more. Gotta stop here, don't want to give away too much. Basically, your week is filled with excitement, much of which the Postal Dude probably would rather not have to deal with. Once you are finished with every item on every day, you get a special surprise for your trip home on Friday.... Can you say 'end of the world?'

I should mention that most of the 'puzzles' you are presented with during the week are relatively straight forward. I liked this about Postal 2 - there's little worse than a game that boils down to whether or not you can get past one particular puzzle. There's only two in Postal 2 that are kind of tricky, one where you must be thinking very strategically to get through, and one that requires you to realize you can crouch while jumping. No, I'm not going to tell you where.When you've completed the game, you get to play Postal 2 in 'enhanced mode', where several of your weapons are enhanced, while the tasks remain the same. I found the replayability of Postal 2 to be greater than that of Unreal 2: The Awakening, but still not something you're going to go back to day in and day out. The one nice thing is that you can go back just to try strange stuff, and see what happens.RWS has promised an online multiplayer mod for the game, which is most welcome. The weapons alone make an online version of Postal 2 intriguing. I'm interested to see how well this freak-filled world translates to real people online...... no, wait. It's the same thing, isn't it? ;-)