Probably the most controversial game ever was Postal. Postal has received much attention from major news publications, Senator Joseph Lieberman, and even from the Postmaster General. The game was banned in several countries, and cut from major retail stores. Now Running With Scissors has done it again and released a follow up, Postal 2. Postal 2 is an unique first person shooter that utilizes Unreal Warfare engine, the technology behind Epic's Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal 2, Splinter Cell, and Devastation for the PC, and Unreal Championship for the XBox.

The game begins with you playing the "Postal Dude" who lives in Paradise, AZ. He has just been hired by Running with Scissors the day before. He has to go see Running with Scissors' Vince Dest, pick up his paycheck, get milk and a signed autograph from Gary Coleman. That's good example of what you will do in the game. You start each day (there is five big levels Monday-Friday) with a list of "errands". Most errands end with an "event", usually a group of people swarming into your location who want to kill you, even if you refuse to fight. How developers say - it's only as violent as you are, but sometime you have no choice :P

With the wide arsenal of weapons ranging from a shovel, deadly throwing scissors, cow head, pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle and machine gun to a can of gas, molotov cocktails, napalm launcher and a rocket launcher, you will start causing some carnage right from the get-go. The gun battles are well done. There are numerous situations you find yourself in where you must blast your way out. You can strike a match and throw it at someone or you can pour gasoline on them first. You have an electric shocker that makes people piss themselves. You have a Cat-Silencer, that you put on the end of your shotgun or machine gun. You can throw a pair of scissors, chop someone's head off with a shovel, or just kick people in the crotch. You can even do things like kick grenades with your foot before they explode. One of the surprises in this game was the urination element. Anytime, anywhere, you can pull down your zipper to urinate on someone. Try peeing on different types of people and they will produce a different response - some people will feel nauseated and vomit ...guess why (cough). You can also try to urinate onto a doughnut, throw it on the ground and wait until some poor, hungry sod comes to devour it :P Bucko perversion, death and destruction! What else could you ask for? :) The biggest problems in the game are frequent load times that break up the rhythm of the killing. You have to wait about 30 seconds or so before when you enter a level section in town, depends how strong is your PC (you'll need a lot of RAM) All in all, the game delivers exactly what it claims. There is no multiplayer in Postal 2, which would have been a great addition. But developers promised to release MP patch soon.

Pros
- Unreal Warfare engine makes gameplay fun and solid
- unique atmosphere, very violent game, lots of gore, blood, guts, vomit ...
- incredibly humorous - dirty jokes, radical patriotism
- huge and highly explorable levels, freedom - you can go anywhere
- cat silencer rocks (cats can be put on top of the Postal Dude's shotgun and used as a silencer)
- you can smoke a "health pipe" that makes you have extra health but also makes you addictive
- physics and lighting effects are well-done (bodies fly around when blown up and crumple to the ground when shot), well modeled dogs and cats
- the way the characters move, talk, and act are so deviant it makes you laugh
- well applied ragdoll physics
- AI is fairly good
- occasionally dancing Al-queda guy rocks
- Krotchy mascot! (see pic #87,#88)
- various difficulty levels available, all the way from "Lieberman" to "Heston"
-upon completing the game, you unlock the "enhanced" mode (this mode adds some interesting differences - more weapons and power-ups laying around + flammable piss)
- Unreal level editor included

Cons
- no multiplayer mode (but Running With Scissors told me that MP patch should be available soon)
- too short (~15-20 hours of gameplay)
- damage modeling is non-existent, character models are somewhat simple
- the interior of the buildings doesn't look too impressive - the insides of buildings feature lots of empty space, most of the houses are the same
- no sexual violence, even flirt
- clipping problems
- some enemies are inhumanly strong (the police officer won't die from a single grenade, etc)
- only a very little interaction with the NPCs (the most responsive NPC is your dog, who will learn to follow you and attack your enemies)
- if the you kick a television, it doesn't break
- the loading time are a pain - on my Athlon XP 2200+, 512MB RAM, GeForce Ti 4600 equipped machine, it takes literally 15-30secs to load. The length of time is acceptable, but the frequency with which the game loads is inexcusable :(
- no vehicles to drive (maybe in Postal 3?)


Postal 2 is not for everyone. Mindless slaughter and great death scenes make this game a must for any hard core gamer or serial killer. With plenty of urine, puke, blood and guts, Postal 2 is definitely pretty sick (and fun) game. But whatever, it's just a game right? I don't take violence in games seriously. I find violence as good entertainment value. However, how Vince Desi says: "It's funny until someone gets hurt... then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical." That's right! Additionally, Postal 2 takes everything that is politically correct in America and throws it out the window, I very like it! Finally some FUN! That's great game to relieve stress.

I can imagine how many people will yell me for this positive review. But I liked that game a lot more than I expected. That is why I'm giving this game an 78 - it would have received even better score if the multiplayer content would have shipped straight out of the box. I would say, If Duke Nukem 3D amused you a couple years ago, Postal 2 will amuse you as well. For more info, you can download and try this playable demo (123MB) and visit Postal 2 homepage.

System Requirements:
Minimum: Pentium 3 or AMD Athlon 733 MHz, 128MB of RAM, 32 MB GeForce 2 or Radeon-class video card, 8X CD-ROM, 3GB HDD space
Recommended: 1.2 GHz Pentium 3 or AMD Athlon processor, 384MB of RAM, 64MB GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500-class video card