Of all the games I own, this is one of my biggest regrets. I’m not proud that Postal is in my library. Sure, I own games that are, on a technical level, worse. But this game has no purpose except to be offensive and edgy.
The original reason why I bought this game was because I saw Uwe Boll’s film adaption of Postal. And the reason why I saw that film is because I’m a big Dave Foley fan due to his work in Kids in the Hall and News Radio.
The movie was, of course, terrible – so bad it was seared into my brain. I wanted to understand the source material so, of course, I bought Postal and its sequel.
In the game, you play a guy who’s had a mental breakdown and decides to kill everyone in his town. And I mean everyone. He just wants to end everyone’s life. As much as it’s clear that you’re playing a villain, I feel this game glorifies Mass Shootings because, really, the only thing you’re doing here is racking up a body count.
There’s this one part of the game that I feel is particularly awful. That’s when your character walks onto an elementary school playground and tries to kill kids. Now in the game, you can’t kill kids, but the sheer fact that this is even a level genuinely bothers me.
I know the devs regret that level. This is apparent because in Postal Redux, it doesn’t exist. Instead, your character attends his own funeral. Based on interviews I’ve read, it seems as though devs believed shooting up a playground was too absurd to happen, but since it’s occurred again and again over the past 25 years, it’s no longer “too absurd”, is it?
In terms of actually being a shooter, I feel this is subpar at best. The controls aren’t terrible, but they sure get tedious. On a sheer personal level, shooting innocent people gives me no joy. At least in a game like Wolfenstein, you’re killing literal Nazis. What’s the point in racking up a body count just because?
The only good thing I can say about this game is the graphics. It’s got an almost hand-drawn thing going on. They’re not spectacular, but neither are they awful.
The sound, on the other hand… woof! There’s no music. All you got is the sound of guns firing and the same stupid one-liners that are uttered again and again. I had to mute this game.
Most PCs can run this game. You need a 90Mhz single core CPU, 16MB of RAM, and 400 MB of space. Integrated graphics will do fine. This game has native compatibility with Windows, Mac, and Linux. It is playable on Steam Deck.
In addition to PC, Postal has been released for Android. It has not been ported to console platforms.
There’s no microtransactions. However, you can download the soundtrack as DLC for free. This surprises me because I didn’t hear any music.
Running With Scissors made Postal. They pretty much only make Postal games – nothing else.
On Steam, Postal has an 89% positive rating based on 8,060 reviews. I feel like everyone who’s posted a positive review is some sort of edgelord. Actually, even the people who post negative reviews seem to be edgelords since one of them gave it a negative rating because you can’t kill kids.
A part of me didn’t even want to give this game a review. However, this game has a big enough fanbase that it’s hard to ignore Postal. Besides, I really should own up to the fact that, yes, I own it. It lurks in my library like burning fecal matter.
Postal is now free on Steam and GOG.com. I don’t recommend it. In fact, let me put this bluntly: keep Postal away from children. And if you know any young men that seem to be going down the path of inceldom, please steer them away from Postal.
