POSTAL 2 is a first-person shooter about the main character getting fed up with their frustrating and unfulfilling life and eventually “going postal” in his small town. This narrative is accentuated by purposefully tedious game mechanics that the player can only circumvent with extreme violence. On its face, I don’t hate the premise, and I think it has plenty of potential to be a unique experience, but the execution is abysmal.

Presentation

This is an ugly game, even for its time. Most of the world is drab and uninteresting, even the locations that are supposed to stand out. The town of Paradise blurs together into a boring mess of houses and the occasional large building. Strangely enough, it reminded me of the first Pathologic game, but only the negative aspects: bad graphics, boring gameplay, and awful combat.

POSTAL 2 also features awful audio, thanks mainly to some of the worst audio mixing I’ve experienced in a game. I thought it was a bug or a mistake on my end because the dialogue audio is so much quieter than even the faintest sound effects. There’s no audio slider for dialogue to remedy this issue, so I wound up turning on subtitles and maxing out the volume whenever a cutscene started. The voice acting isn’t great, but given the campy nature of the game, it’s tough to tell how intentional that is.

Gameplay

You are given a few tasks each day in POSTAL 2. They are typically fetch-quests that involve either dropping something off or picking something up. The varied locations of these quests drive the story forward. You are supposed to start the game relatively peacefully, then get fed up with your tedious errands and begin murdering people to speed up your task list. It fits the idea of your character going postal, but in terms of enjoyment, it’s mediocre.

Gunplay is straightforward but lacks an impact. Every gun feels like a peashooter, especially later on when you fight stronger enemies. It’s tough to tell whether the weapons are too weak or the enemies are too strong, but either way, the result is slow, boring combat that wastes your time. Interestingly, my favorite weapon by far was the garden shears, which allow you to decapitate almost every enemy in the game with a single attack. Maybe it’s intentional, but it seems strange to have a variety of firearms that all take longer to kill someone than one of the first weapons you come across.

Story and Writing

The first POSTAL game is infamous for its controversial premise, and this one continues the legacy with a new comedic flair. While the first title was solemn and devoid of humor, its sequel maintains a lighter tone. Somewhat strangely, it opts for a purposefully offensive style of comedy that comes off more lame than funny. Most of the jokes feel like you are just supposed to laugh because it’s offensive rather than clever or witty. For example, you encounter terrorists dressed like Osama Bin Laden. It’s clearly played for laughs and not as a serious moment, but what’s the joke? It’s just “haha a stereotype” without anything added on. This same style appears for most people in the game, but the jokes didn’t land for me regardless of who the subject was. A few notable outliers weren’t written as lazily, such as the ATF raid on the Waco compound, but they only stand out because the rest of the game isn’t funny at all.

When it isn’t trying to be offensive, the humor is often childish. You get poop jokes, STD jokes, and excessive swearing; it’s trying to be edgy and outrageous, but it comes off cheap and lazy.

Verdict

After playing the first POSTAL game and hating it, I didn’t expect to love POSTAL 2, but given the overwhelmingly positive reviews, I expected it to be a big step up. The humor didn’t appeal to me, but the most egregious problem was the gameplay and how dull it was.

Ultimately, this isn’t the game for me because of its myriad issues. I’d give it a mild recommendation if you enjoyed the first one, but even that’s pushing it. For the average first-person shooter fan, I don’t see much reason to choose this over the multitude of open-world FPS games, unless you love this type of humor.

2/10

• Running With Scissors
• Steam, GOG, Humble
• $10