Running with Scissors is an independent American Company that simply works with game design just for fun at their own risk, because many American and non American Government Offices just don`t sympathize a lot with them. However, the company made a great game and could insert many “different” ingredients when comes to talk the game Postal II, banish from many countries due to the expressive and endless violence making the game itself one of the 10 most violent games in Brazil being side to side to Duke Nukem and Grand Theft Auto – this last one still on circulation in the country. Unfortunately – or fortunately – this is what makes the game to get so interested: Being Forbidden.
For the ones that seek a first person game with little worries about ammunition and a lot of worries about shooting everything that moves, Postal II becomes a graceful for professionals or just regular game players that merely are looking for a moment of abstraction to explore freely a 3D world. It is seen that it does exist another side of the game. A side of accomplish missions for the players that aim to reach the final of the game faster. And still if we compare POSTAL II to his predecessor, POSTAL I, is clear that you will find a huge evolution on the stage system, graphics, sound, duties, character and all the rest that compose the game itself. In a nut shell, the enterprise Running With Scissors did put together in a single game necessary elements for hours and hours of uninterrupted fun as like mixing themes like religion, politics and even famous actors, on this account, unlike the other games that you have fixed missions and where, in many cases the player is the hero required by the government, secret service or a close religion sect to save the world, in POSTAL II you are merely call by your wife to solve everyday problems that can be done as the simply way ever, like all the other normal people would do, or the other way, a way that all the normal would like to do.
HISTORY
Cry. You are not a super soldier or a cop trying to save the world or even a character with supernatural powers trying to avoid the planet for being pulverized for some dark forces of evil. You are just a game designer that has just moved to a little town downtown USA – Texas called Paradise, because of your game company – who happened to be Running With Scissors in which our “hero” words. Your duties (is even weird to call that duties) are to achieve daily as all the normal married fellow would do, look for milk on the grocers, picking up the pay-check on the firm, go to the bank and so on. The great flaw of the game isn`t the things that you do but HOW you do it. Of course, in this world, nobody like designer and people that work with computer games even more on the RWS and you ended up making a few enemies for that and other things around the city.
CHARACTER
Name: Postal Dude.
This is you and your everyday life, fulfilling missions and tasks on the most normal and abnormal possible ways, with weapons that goes from shovels and teasers to pistols, scythes, machine guns, grenades and other. You even use a fish radar that is really useful to locate people along the map.
POSTAL DUDE is a dude (DUDE!) that just wants to relax and take his bear in peace after a long and hard day of work. Still, it seems that everything in the system is against him, including his wife. With a psycho-nerd clothes, a black overcoat, a infinite space under it and a shirt with an alien head, P.DUDE seems to be all the time snappy and keeps repeatedly letting go some phrases and remarks that would make anyone fells like crap and humiliated, a feature that makes our “hero” more juicy. For this reason, and others, you are almost carried away to believe that you are dealing with an younger version of Duke Nukem in High school, or before he developed his muscles, bad looking and become an alien killer.
GRAPHIC
Comparing to POSTAL I, is valid to highlight the evolution on the game quality. 3D environment acquired a special place on POSTAL II, showing that bigger rooms do make the difference. Even son, we need to review a few points when we talk about that. Great environments with less furniture or anything else that you can interact leads the player to believe that is playing something like Wolfstein 3D or Doom II, but with 3D objects and having access to an open sky areas. For a computer game, the graphics are good of what we were expecting, but it could be better explored like: details of the characters, houses, environments, luminosity, furniture, etc. For fun, it deals encounter this kind of graphic that, with the move along of the game, they just don`t make that difference for whom is worried to shoot everything that moves.
AUDIO
Every audio in any game that I have played so far, embrace the player inside moments of tension, reflection, calm or a start of a trap, which instigates the person behind the character to keep both eyes on what is coming next or released from what has already gone. At the same time, POSTAL II is weak on this item for the reason that, looking for turning the game the most realistic as possible, the most part of it you can only hear your footsteps or, sometimes, people talking when you come along them. The impression of sound distance is also explored in many times in game, but it could be better. In many times is hard to say if a dog, as example, is close or not, because there is no variation of sound in a few moments. In return, the speech of the principal character is right clear, which is good for the player for not lose a moment of the jokes. Still, a simple suggestion would be put the “hero” to have access to a mp3 player where the player could include music inside a game folder, so your character could “listen” to it whenever he wants.
GAME PLAY
As in every first person shooter game, the facility of adaptation to the controls for this game is quite simple and clear, reminding many games as Counter Strike and Battlefield and many other of a kind. The weapon selection goes on with the scroll of the mouse and the numerical keyboard what just take us to a positive, but also negative point. The game provides a huge quantity of weapons (which is a positive side), but they don`t fit on the numerical keyboard (negative side), in other words, there are a few weapons that can only be access from the mouse scroll. In many moments you try to reach a specific arm for some action and lose a lot of time doing it, until you get used to it. Moving along, if you have no bullets, you simply can`t select that weapon. Another point that we should talk about is the jump, not the button itself, because it`s well located on the spacebar, but the usability of it. Sometimes it is hard to have a notion of what you can really jump or not. You can`t even use of slopes/inclinations to gain speed and altitude. Also the action to squat is almost pointless in game which takes us to question if these two items are there to give mobility to the character or to be used in some part of the whole process. Avoid shoots or anything else that enemies throw against you is quite hard and the NPCs rarely miss a shot when it comes to you to be the target. The inventory of the game also takes a while to get use to it, because you just can`t have a global notion of the next or the previous item to be selected. You have to keep searching for what you are looking for until you find it. In many moments it takes a while to select a donut or food and you can die first before you can select them and heal yourself. A suggestion would be a quick access key for the food or healing objects. Finally, the game is an easy adaptation and moving or our character, shoot, jump and basic moves, but it takes a while to get used to the additional keys like use an item on the inventory and/or open doors. We can also say that, to make up this problem of open doors, you can always use your foot.
ENTERTAINMENT
The fact of having total freedom in a tridimensional world is quite tempting and practically primal ingredient in a game as this FPS. For not having to follow a specifically line of actions to be done and pre-routed, provides the player a different sensation from other games of the same genre. Another interested aspect is the way that you have to perform the missions leaving it to the player to choose for different ways to the same objective. This kind of freedom is what makes the game more attractive to be played continuously. And more, in case that you just don`t want to obey your daily duties, there are always other places to been explored. But in games where the scenario is fair extended, it can become a negative point. The moving from a place to another a lot of times is really tiring and long and, sometimes you spend more time walking then fulfilling the tasks in the same scenario. Start shooting in everything that moves in the game can be really fun for some people, but the NPCs ended up for being more resistant then the expected. Many shoots are necessary on the head of an enemy, for example, where in another games it would be considered HEAD SHOT. The only weapon that is possible to do so is with the Shotgun and you need to be really close to the NPC. And even with that sometimes you have to give two or three HEAD SHOTS to beat the one. Unfortunately over the end, I have to say that the game, besides the missions are characterized by routine tasks of regular people, it could be more extended and better explored by the variety o things that we do every day. The game ends on it most nostalgic point, where the player is used to it, the controllers, characters, enemies, etc. The game also tries to incite the player to continue playing offering new weapons and hew abilities, however there are just a few games that, after beaten once, can hold you for playing two or three more times.
NEWS
The company Running With Scissors doesn`t stop with that – for the happiness of some and unhappiness of other – and is working on the third game of the series. POSTAL III, that was provided to be released on December of 2010, had to be adjourned. Now, in 2011 is possible to have some new hopes for the release of the game. On this new tender, which is counting with new weapons, game play, character better defined (now the game is using the same technology that was used in games like HALF LIFE), better prepared battle system (valuing the function jump and squat and the possibility to hide behind objects and shoot from it, corners and poles) among other things, brings a news vision of the free violence that the game provides. The mission system was kept the same when it comes to talk about the regular facts of regular people. However there are two paths to be taking now: GOOD and BAD. Simply and objective. You can try to talk and after shoot and shoot and after talk. It will really depend on your mood at the moment. The case is: the game is still being what always was, forbidden in many countries, but yet tempting to play continuously been recommended for the ones that enjoy easy violence with a lot of action, blood, women and particular phrases from Postal Dude, but doesn`t want in some moments of the day being strategists, but just shoot and run.
The Playing is just starting... 