were downright pitiful.
With that said, Postal 2
is a straight-edged slap in the face. In 1997 the original Postal
was truly the GTA3 of the day. With so many faux paux's, it was
a brilliant tongue-in-cheek ride. Seven years later, most of the
extremity of the original is nothing but casual by today's
standards. So, with Postal 2; I was just
waiting to see what Running With Scissors was going to throw
at us.
With the shady storyline
aside, Postal 2 sports some unique (yet ubiquitous) levels.
Although the differences in scenery is well done, the overall
ambience and design seems out of place and I often felt like I was
on a movie set. The gameplay aspects are tightly nit if you are a
cookie cut FPS player. Customizing your controls are easily done,
and you'll soon be up and running just like any other FPS. To break
the mold of stereo-typical FPS's, the developers threw in some
wacky stuff to color the often grey world of first person shooters.
The coolest novelty that
Postal brings has to be the ultimate finishing move of all time.
Once you beat-down someone you can unzip your fly and pee all over
them. Funny, yes. Aiming your pee-er is done with the mouse, and you
can aim for the pie-hole of the victim; thus inducing a vomiting
nightmare that you haven't seen since your 21st birthday.
This is where the cool
"taboos" end. The rest of the "obscene" simply revolved around foul
language and insane looking whores. It's unfortunate, but the dark
humor that I always appreciate is lost in the midst of "f" this and
"f" you. I would have been more supportive if they would have
patented the famed netjak "double middle finger" technique. Instead,
I felt that the developers were treating me like a 15-yr old nerd (I'm
a 29-yr old nerd now) that giggled when I saw a boobie and when
someone said "f-you autobot".
Once you get past the
shock value (ho-hum) of the game, the overall engine powering
it wasn't too shabby. I didn't research it fully, but I'm sure that
it was based off an Unreal engine. While the engine was tight, it
was far from perfect. Load times were too often and too long, not to
mention a resource hog. Even with a 64-mb video card and 512-mb of
RAM; I had to run the game at the lowest resolution. I initially bumped
up the settings, but the game was definitely unplayable.
Speaking of the whole
loading issues; it was quite entertaining to see the quirky AI in
action. Chasing enemies would "magically" vanish when entering the
"new world". The entire AI schematic was honestly a good try by
Running with Scissors. The playable environment reacted nicely
to the events surrounding you and many things were triggered
dynamically, even if it wasn't you who initiated it. The AI,
however, is more like AR (artificially retarded). Many times
you can shoot a pedestrian and they will fire back at you (or run),
but more often than not they soon "forget" that you put a cap in
their ass. I've gotten into a few fire-fights, and hid for like 20-seconds and walked up to the dude and absolutely nothing would
happen. I wanted to shake him and say "listen you brat, I just
shot you... RUN". And then there are times where Johnny Law will
strike out of you for no reason at all. The balance of the AI was
quite enigmatic the entire time. I felt from the get-go, that I was
playing the role of a "B" movie artisan that didn't know my script.
I hate to keep comparing GTA to Postal 2, but it is obligatory. Much
of the "coolness" that GTA did right, Postal did wrong. This was
fully due to the wackiness of the AI and the NPC's that surround the
game. At first glimpse everything seems a-ok, but after further
discovery it has about as much flavor as a piece of Bazooka Joe
after chewing it for ten minutes.
To put even more salt
into the wound, the firepower available is enigmatic.
For some reason shooting people just isn't as easy as one would
expect. You would assume that three shots to the head would
drop even the toughest of brutes, but often they brush it off like
they were swatting flies. Even with pedestrians, many can take
blows to the face like a champion.
Even though the heart of
the game was solid, everything else seemed like a new coat of
paint on an old car. I didn't expect Postal 2 to be some
ground-breaking FPS that all others would use as a model; but I did
expect a fun filled ride like the first. For the most part I was
satisfied with the tension releasing pleasure, especially the subtle
humor.
For most gamers one of
the most
hated of politicians is Senator Lieberman. The first time I pulled up
the difficulty settings I couldn't help but laugh out loud. The
lowest setting was of course the Senator himself; and the hardest
was none other than NRA masta Charlton Heston. Things like that makes a novelty-based game appreciated.
Breaking the seal
I mentioned earlier about both visual and audio; and both were quite
respectable within the game. Sure it took some muscle to run the
game, but if you had some power I think this baby would shine up
nicely. The environments had a nice contrast, and that impressed me
the most. Color coordination and the textures were darn near
flawless. Character modeling, however, wasn't quite up to par. The
faces were fairly emotionless and zombie-like, not to mention
blurred as all hell. I guess I've just been spoiled lately with
games like Ghost Recon and
Splinter Cell; where facial expressions
dynamically change. I think it was attempted here... but fell short
of the mark.
The audio was...well...
forgettable. The only thing I can remember is the barrage of "f-you"
and puking sounds. Gun fire was done fine, as well as sound effects
within the game. Nothing was outstanding, yet it was obviously not a main focus of the developers.
66 Says:
When it
comes to recommending a game that was based off of a novelty rather
than seriousness; it's a tough call. While I can't see paying 50
bucks for the game, I can see paying $20. Just because the game
scores low in my book, doesn't mean it's a bad game. For the most
part, it's a quick fun romp that is more pleasure than pain. But,
the utter lack of tact make it more of a play on marketing rather
than a quality FPS.
Still, when it comes down
to it, is it worth $30 just to pee on someone? In my opinion: yes.
