POSTAL 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Running With Scissors

Publisher : Whiptail Interactive

Engine : Unreal Engine 2.0

Genre : Modern First-Person Shooter

Release Date : April 14 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The player takes on the role of 'The Postal Dude' (all evidence given in-game indicates that the character's full legal name actually is "The Postal Dude, Jr.": his father's tombstone reads "T. Dude Sr."; characters constantly call him "Mr. The Dude" and a package for him is addressed to "P. Dude"), a tall thin man with a goatee sunglasses, a blue alien t-shirt, and a long black leather coat. The Postal Dude also wears a Happy Smiley pin on his right lapel and a cross pin on his left one. 'The Postal Dude' lives in a trailer park with his nagging wife (only identified in the credits as 'Postal Dude's Bitch') in the town of Paradise , Arizona (there was, in fact, a real-life Arizona mining town called Paradise, which failed in the early 20th century, but there's no indication in the game of any intentional connection). The game levels are split into days of the week starting Monday and finishing Friday. At the beginning of each day, Dude is given several tasks to accomplish, such as 'Get milk', 'Confess sins', and other seemingly mundane tasks. The purpose of the game is to finish all of the tasks throughout the week, and the player can accomplish these tasks in any way he wishes, be it as civilly or as chaotically as possible (it is possible, if occasionally difficult, to complete most tasks without engaging in battle, or, at least, killing other people). The daily tasks can be accomplished in any order, and the game includes one task that is only activated on a certain day if Dude performs a certain action. Dude must put up with being flipped the bird mugged, attacked by protesters, put upon by an obnoxious convenience store owner/terrorist and his patrons who cut before Dude in the "money-line", plus a marching band a murderous toy mascot named Krotchy, the police and SWAT team, the ATF and the National Guard, a religious cult, savage butchers, psycho Taliban terrorists and Gary Coleman among many other things.

Postal 2's gameplay never manages to do any better than the game's clever initial concept, either. Though you can explore the rest of the city between missions, there isn't much reason to do so. The entire single-player game can be finished in about 10 hours. Once you've finished that you'll probably be done with the game. Unlike Grand Theft Auto III, Postal 2 has no cars to drive, though decorative cars are scattered around the city and create fairly large explosions when destroyed, much like the exploding barrels found in other first-person shooters. Postal 2 supports a locational damage system, but it's spotty at best. A bullet to the head rarely appears to do more damage than a shot to the leg. Your computer-controlled enemies don't exhibit much grace under fire--they'll generally shoot at you from a fixed position or run right for you, though they'll occasionally flee in terror. The insides of buildings feature lots of empty space, little decoration, simple geometry, and ugly, repetitive textures. Against the trend set by other recent games, the gore in Postal 2 is surprisingly subdued. You can decapitate people, but, for better or worse, there's nothing that compares to Soldier of Fortune 2's level of graphic gore. Postal 2 strings together a bunch of violent novelties without ever constructing a compelling game for them to support.

GAME REVIEW :-

5/10

Postal 2 Trailer :-