Why Go Postal?

The franchise of deliberately offensive video games made by Running With Scissors is very interesting today for the way it is discussed. Many Postal fans talk nice of the games, mostly Postal 2, just because the pure insanity it exudes is surprisingly entertaining. It’s not nice looking, story-rich, gameplay-intensive by any measure, but it has all of these elements, and their janky quality put together with post-9/11 humor makes Postal 2 the comically crude experience that it is. Now, to skip to Postal 4: No Regerts & Postal: Brain Damaged, I’ve been very fascinated by the quiet yet blatant change in attitude Postal fans have with the titles. Sure, both games get a generally ok reception, but there have been pushbacks against not only the unphasing humor, but the quality of the games. Postal 4 can be a fun experience, but even the devs have stated that it was originally purpoused as a remake of Postal 2, and it shows in many ways. Brain Damaged is also considered a fun arena shooter and a nice change of pace in the series, but its satire of early 2020 memes is criticized the most, after the gameplay itself, which is not revolutionary either. So, then, in an era where the Postal series has stopped to really entertain us and is slowly pushing us back to earlier titles, why Postal? What was the point? <img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:770/0*58gAwNkzT_RUu41Y.jpg" style="height:394px; width:700px" /> The original POSTAL is very different from any of its following titles for the sheer pokerface it wears with the entire cruelty in it. You can shoot civilians, execute the wounded with no inherit benefit, the suicide key is also here, and all of this with the half-weird half-funny voice lines from Rick Hunter. There are some absurd elements in the game, but the majority of it is serious to the point that it’s weird. And we shouldn’t just make fun of it, we shouldn’t only take it ironically, but give some genuine attention to what the game presents. We also can’t make fun of it because, unlike titles from the same era such as GTA and Mortal Kombat, the brutality in POSTAL is not an add-on to the core of the game, but the game itself. POSTAL is about murder, both in an abstract and straight-forward way. <a href="https://medium.com/@majordoubt/why-go-postal-7f939d46b376">Read More</a>