Postal 2 (2003)

STARTED: sometime in the summer of 2022

FINISHED: 4/24/2024

TIME: god knows. ive restarted this game so many times since i first got it

this is the most fun ive ever had playing an fps and im so so serious. the franchise as a whole is so special to me and ive loved it since i was 13, but as of only 2 years ago i got to play postal 2 for the first time and oh my god it lives up to the hype. it is so janky, so clunky, but thats part of the charm - and, dare i say, also part of what makes the game so fun.

it's an open world fps where you are given a list of chores over the course of a week, but you don't have to do them in order, you can just dick around as much as you'd like and then do the chores. the game even rewards you handsomely for exploration - achievements galore, crack pipes, ammo, etc... it has everything. and also, the music thumps around in my head every once in a while. god i fucking love postal. i love it so much.

please please please play postal 2 you wont regret it. playing it for the first time is a once in a lifetime experience.

I will admit the only reason I bought Postal 2 was to spend the remaining dollar in my Steam wallet during the 2019 Steam Winter Sale event. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the contents of the game and must say that it was probably the greatest thing I have bought for 99 cents. That’s saying something considering the fact that I have bought an entire can of Pringles for that same price.

Postal 2 is a game for terrible people, and I mean that in the best possible way. You play as a psychopath who dresses like Neo from the Matrix if he was superstitious of extra-terrestrial lifeforms. The objective of Postal 2 is to complete a list of seemingly simple everyday tasks, but the town you live in is filled with colorful, insane characters who are, for some inexplicable reason, all armed to the brink with weapons. You will come face to face with illiterate arsonists, cannibalistic butchers, religious turf wars between Catholic priests and Muslim terrorists, and of course, child actor Gary Coleman.

One of the key aspects of Postal 2 is that it gives you free reign over how you complete these tasks. For instance, at the beginning of the game, you are given the task of cashing in a paycheck. You could simply wait in line and give the check to the bank employee at the counter, y’know like a normal person, OR you could break into the vault, drop the check, and grab as much money as you can before every police officer within a two mile radius shows up and absolutely obliterates you with a ceaseless barrage of lead. It’s awesome.

Postal 2 is definitely among the most vulgar games I have ever played. So much so, that there is a dedicated button to unzip your pants so you can piss on anything and anyone you desire. Never before have I felt such pity for a non-real character in a video game as when I laid down a sprinkle storm of urine upon on a poor, unsuspecting Postal 2 NPC to the point of which he vomited. I was rewarded for this unholy action with an achievement. That’s the video game equivalent of giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a man who burned down a small village in a third-world nation inhabited by impoverished, starving children.

At the end of the day, this review doesn’t do Postal 2 justice, and it’s just a game you have to experience for yourself. Or y’know, you could just buy a can of Pringles. Your call.

Holy sh... Postal 2 was something. I heard many times of it in the past and how it got banned in many countries, that it does not have any reason to exist and that everything is f*cked up beyond belief. After Steam recommended me to play this game next, I thought I will give it a shot.

Right from the beginning the rumors were true. It is one big mash of weird stuff, adult jokes, references to other games and media and vile crap. I loved it immediately. Running with Scissors said that people must not take this game seriously, and they where right. Everything is one big joke, but a good joke.

The graphics are impressive for the time and the sound is good. I also specifically love the AI. Although it can be tricked easy, on normal occasions, it is very advanced and self-thinking. There is so much going on around you and the people in the game all mind their own business before you pump them full of lead for no apparent reason.

There were some annoyances like the constant crashing of the game on random moments and getting stuck more often than cat barf on a carpet but this I took for granted.

I loved the artwork (especially on the achievement tiles), the jokes, the many references to other games, TV shows and modern-day problems and the constant satire on the world. Many times I asked myself: “How did they come up with this stuff?”

Running with Scissors also tells you the story of how they got problems with their publisher and instead of placing a note on their site or cutting the game short, they hilariously made fun of the “evil” corporation that turns their game and feature games into sh!t. The constant criticism of the coming Postal III in the game is hilarious. They even make you literally piss on it many times. It is something I never saw in a game yet. They were right, Postal III sucks ass what I saw and have read about it.

Just when I thought I saw it all, Postal 2 still surprised me with new and original content and humor until the end of the game.

For me collecting the ridiculous 89 achievements from the main game and Paradise Lost was a real challenge, one I was happy to accept. It took me some time, but I finally did it. Completing the game and DLC on Postal mode was one of the hardest things I personally achieved in gaming so far. But it was possible, so I went for it.

In conclusion, this game is one big mess of all the wrong you would not teach to your kids, but it is an amazing game. The effort from Running with Scissors is great and you can see immediately that they put their heart and soul in this title.

Postal 2 gave me some hard-earned laughter, fun and challenge. I loved every minute of it.

Definitely recommend this game!

In Postal 2 you walk around fairly empty areas filled with people who are just randomly walking around. The areas are tiny and even on a modern PC with a SSD loading takes several seconds. You can find weapons everywhere and shoot the people with it. There is no aiming or reloading. There are basic fetch quests and unskippable cutscenes.

That's it, that's pretty much the entire game. It's basically an asset flip with voice acting and the ability to sometimes pee on people. I didn't expect anything from this and it's even worse than i thought it would be.