Postal 2

Postal²
File:Postal2.jpg
Developer(s)	Running With Scissors
Publisher(s)	Whiptail Interactive , Linux Game Publishing (Linux Version)
Engine	Unreal Engine 2.0
Platform(s)	Linux, Mac OS X, Windows
Release	April 13, 2003
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Postal² is a 2003 American computer game by Running With Scissors (RWS). It is a sequel to the 1997 game Postal. Both are intentionally highly controversial due to high levels of violence and stereotyping. Unlike its predecessor, Postal² is a first-person shooter based on the Unreal Graphics Engine.

Story

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 mining town of Paradise, Arizona.

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, although the game encourages the player to play in any way he wishes, be it as civilly or as chaotically as possible. There are unique consequences to whichever path is chosen.

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 an annoying 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.

Gameplay

Interacting with a resident of Paradise

One of the major concepts of Postal² is that it is meant to be a "living world", a simulation of a tongue-in-cheek off-kilter town. Game characters live out their lives completely separate from the actions of Dude; walking around town, buying and selling merchandise, and even engaging in random shootouts with each other and the police.

Comparison with Grand Theft Auto

Like the Grand Theft Auto series, the game aims to be non-linear by allowing Postal Dude to explore the town of Paradise. At first, the Postal Dude can only enter the neighborhood areas directly adjacent to his own neighborhood, but new areas are unlocked as each day of the week passes. However, the local inhabitants also become progressively more violent and heavily armed as the week goes on, and on the final two days of the week, SWAT teams and National Guard squads patrolling Paradise wear heavy body armor and are well-armed. According to the storyline, they are there for a convention and in response to a request for assistance hunting down a mass murderer. (It is implied that the mass murderer is Postal Dude, regardless of whether or not he has been killing people during the course of the game.)

Unlike Grand Theft Auto, the game world is not one single large continuous map, but rather several different neighborhood maps broken up by loading zones (which are marked by road signs saying 'Load Zone'). One of the main gameplay complaints about the game upon its initial release was that the loading time for each new map was extremely long, seriously interrupting the flow of gameplay and reducing the motivation for exploring new areas. The vendor-released 1337 patch managed to significantly reduce load times.

Missions work differently than in Grand Theft Auto. Instead of choosing a mission and then carrying it out from the beginning to its end, players are given a series of tasks at the start of each day. They can then complete the tasks in any order they like, as they go along without having to specifically select them or initiate any missions.

Gary Coleman cameos

The game also features a cameo by Gary Coleman, acting as himself, who appears early on as the objective of one of the game's tasks (travel to the local shopping mall to get Gary's autograph). The player can choose to fight and kill Coleman as one of the game's two boss characters or simply have the book signed peacefully (after enduring a long line-up). Regardless of the Dude's actions, the police storm the building in an attempt to arrest Gary Coleman and a gunfight ensues which invariably results in Coleman's apparent demise, with or without the player's help. Later on in the game he can also be seen in the Police Station, when the player escapes from his cell he also frees everyone else - including Coleman, who can be seen running alongside Krotchy. Coleman apparently survives as he can be seen in the Apocalypse Weekend expansion, bandaged up in the hospital (various evil Gary Coleman clones also serve as recurring enemies during Postal Dude's constant hallucinations).

Props

The town features many cars but they are all "useless exploding props", according to Dude, and cannot be driven, although they can be blown up and sent flying into the air. In addition to cats and dogs, other animals present are elephants; these animals can be shot or set on fire—or simply annoyed by the player walking into them—causing them to trumpet with rage and attack anyone within stomping distance. A bizarre feature is the ability to pick up cats as an inventory item. When used, the Postal Dude shoves the barrel of the currently equipped firearm into the cat's anus (cats can only be used while equipped with a shotgun or assault rifle) as a 'silencer'. Every time a shot is fired, the cat meows in apparent agony, and the gunshot is muffled. After several shots the cat will be killed and will fly from the end of the weapon. Most dogs have the ability to befriend the Dude if he feeds them a continual supply of dog biscuits or feeds them any other food (pizza, donuts, fast food). Once a canine's loyalty has been earned, the dog will attack anyone who attacks the Dude, or alternatively, anyone whom the Dude attacks. Dogs will also chase and kill cats, and play fetch with the Dude's inventory items and also severed heads. There was also going to be cows included in the game, but were left unprogrammed. They did appear in Apocalypse Weekend.

Game add-ons

1337 patch

The 1337 patch for Postal² reduced the long level loading times and also added two new levels, the Obligatory Sewer System, and the Tora Bora series of caves, where the Dude came across Osama Bin Laden in his search for the weapon of mass destruction, a missile launcher that fires chemical warheads. The level Tora Bora was inspired by the 2001 Battle of Tora Bora.

Share the Pain

The 1.5 edition of the game, entitled Postal²: Share The Pain extended the game with a multiplayer mode as well as the extra levels and other improvements of the 1337 patch, but it was not an expansion pack and did not require the original Postal² game. The Macintosh version of Postal² shipped only as Postal²: Share The Pain. Share the Pain has since far eclipsed the original production version of Postal² in all markets.

Apocalypse Weekend

Another add-on called Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend (named such because the end of Postal² marks the beginning of the apocalypse in Paradise) was released by Running With Scissors, Inc. on May 12, 2005 for Windows, and September 28, 2005 for the Mac and Linux versions. Apocalypse Weekend expands the reaches of Paradise with new maps and missions, set on Saturday and Sunday, adds new weapons and foes, and raises Postal²'s gore and violence to an even greater level. All normal cats are also replaced with "dervish cats", which spin in a manner similar to that of Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, attacking any nearby character when agitated. Dervish cats can also be collected and, rather than muffling guns, can be thrown at NPCs to attack them. Whilst gameplay is similar to its parent Postal², Apocalypse Weekend is not as open-ended. The gameplay is more linear in design, with the player mostly forced to follow a certain path to complete the game - typical of most First Person shooting games. In addition, the player cannot play as a pacifist and is forced to kill animals and zombies in order to progress in the game. Both Postal²: Share The Pain and Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend were ported to Linux and Macintosh by developer Ryan Gordon.

The add-on begins Saturday morning, with the Dude waking up in the hospital, his head bandaged from a near-fatal gunshot wound (while the Postal 2 ending leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not the Dude shot his wife or if his wife shot him; after he wakes up in the hospital he finds a card from his wife saying that she is leaving him. (It was recently revealed on the official website[1] that the Dude shot himself due to his wife nagging him). The Dude proceeds through several missions including assigmments from his former employers (RWS), encounters with zombies, and encounters with terrorists and the military. Periodically Dude's head wound causes him to enter a nether realm where he is attacked by creatures resembling Gary Coleman. Dude's ultimate goal is to recover his trailer and his dog.

The expansion adds several new weapons, including a machete which can be thrown like a boomerang, serving as both a close- and long-range weapon, as well as sledgehammers and scythes which can also be thrown. Unlike the main game, Apocalypse Weekend also includes several "boss monster" encounters

A bug noted in the version available for Mac and Linux results in the Dude character being headless throughout the game (this is visible during cutscenes and when looking into mirrors).

Fan-made add-ons

A Week in Paradise

A Week in Paradise is a fan-made mod that generally enhances gameplay with numerous extra weapons, a few new inventory items, new NPC character skins as well as two new areas of Paradise – the "crossroads" (a small section of road with a single house and gas station along it, with two blocked off roads out of the city) and the school. Using the modifications of Apocalypse Weekend, all AW weapons may be used on all seven days in addition to allowing limbs to be cut off by the machete and katana. The mod also allows the player to play all seven days consecutively. In addition, certain arcade games are "playable", entering into short mission-based arenas, including a playable Fag Hunter game (see below controversy section).

The mod features numerous new weapons, to the point that the game offers an option to reassign cutting weapons to the 2 key and pistols to the 3 key with shotguns. Notable new weapons are the katana, which swings faster than the machete and can be thrown like a spear; the revolver, which can kill a police officer in one shot but holds limited ammo; the chainsaw, which is an instant one-hit kill but uses gasoline for fuel; and the mini-nuke launcher, which will kill anyone in the blast radius and send their gibs flying in all directions and sends a tall mushroom cloud into the air. Also new is the "Jihad Grenade" which splits into several pieces, a throwable can of toxic waste, shuriken stars, a gun that fires cats, a pitchfork, and a second mini-nuke launcher attached to a sniper rifle.

A previous version known as AW7 also exists. It is missing certain weapons and features, as well as certain differences in names—to distribute the mod in the Fudge Pack, RWS had to change certain things due to copyright concerns—the Mortal Kombat arcade machine becomes Immoral Kombat, and the "Holy Hand Grenade" weapon becomes "Jihad Grenade", for example. The Crossroads and School areas are included. Both versions of the mod can be downloaded online.

A current update patch for AWP has been released, which adds the school section to the game's map, reads certain things cut from the AWP retail release, and adds 2 new harder difficulty levels. This patch removes multiplayer, however.

Eternal Damnation

Eternal Damnation, produced by Resurrection Studios, is an entirely new story that relies on being installed over Postal 2 to function. The only references to Postal 2 present are occasional advertisements and billboards featuring Postal Dude and Gary Coleman. In this story, a man recently sent to a mental asylum for beating his girlfriend's former boyfriend to death escapes as a psycho is set loose in the asylum killing everyone. On his way to his girlfriend's apartment, gangs begin rushing the streets. In addition, mysterious individuals bomb his girlfriend's apartment. Later meeting with a priest he once knew, he learns that the zombies may very well be a sign of the Apocalypse, and may have something to do with the city museum hosting an exhibit of water that was once used by Jesus to resurrect Lazarus. It is included in the Fudge Pack as well, though reportedly some editions of the set omit this add-on.

Postal Fudge Pack

On November 13 2006, RWS Released a compilation of Postal - Classic and Uncut, Postal²: Share The Pain, Apocalypse Weekend, A Week in Paradise, and Eternal Damnation, along with extra content (Postal Babes and video clips from "their cutting room floor") as the Postal Fudge Pack on a 3-way hybrid DVD for Windows, Linux, and the Mac. The Mac version of the games are universal binary, which makes them compatible with Intel Core Duo-based Macs, making this one of the few major Windows/Mac hybrids that will work on Intel Macs.

Controversy

Urinating on dismembered bodies in a terrorist training camp

The developers of the game counteracted criticism of the violence by claiming that the amount of violence is up to the players—they may go about their tasks without causing trouble, or they can create mayhem. Critics state that the game clearly urges people playing the game to indulge in homicidal behaviour, given that Dude is often attacked by ludicrous hate groups who despise everything from books to video games. Additionally, there are long queues when Dude visits the bank, the library, Church, and elsewhere. The people of Paradise are exceptionally rude and spit insults at Dude if he bumps into them, and furthermore weapons ranging from machine guns to rocket launchers are left lying around for him to collect.

Going on the rampage (or going postal, the phrase which the game is named after) is clearly encouraged, but never necessary. While difficult, it is possible for the player to complete the game without resorting to violence or having to kill anyone; although in this case, the player will have to resort to using cunning tactics to survive—including a greater temptation to steal and take drugs. Some missions put Dude into extremely hostile environments where he will be tempted to kill the people attacking him in order to survive, and at these moments the player will have to make a moral choice whether to fight or to flee. The attackers include book protesters who set the local library on fire and then attempt to murder everyone trapped inside (including Postal Dude, of course), a band of armed robbers, and violent video game protesters who ironically begin brandishing weapons and opening fire on the Dude and the Running With Scissors (the company which makes the Postal series) staff without provocation.

In many of the scenarios presented, however, experienced players can make use of the game's version of monster infighting to actually cause police or other non-player characters to attack individuals who may be attacking the player, and thus escape from harm without inflicting any. Unlike other games that utilize the "monster infighting" feature (such as Doom), non-player characters do not have to be in the enemy's line-of-fire to enter "infighting" mode; some NPCs (particularly law enforcement and military characters) are programmed to attack anyone brandishing a weapon or firing same (an NPC fleeing in panic can also trigger an attack). In most (but not all) cases, once an enemy NPC is engaged by another NPC, he/she temporarily forgets about attacking the Postal Dude.

Several ambient features like advertisement signs, shop names, and interiors are loaded with some dark humor, thus exposing the decadent nature of Paradise. The game also involves some obvious inside jokes. Dude actually works for Running With Scissors, the game's developers, with its offices being the scene of a protest by a group opposed to violent computer games. Some of the company employees show up in other areas too, such as Mike Jaret, who appears as the cross-dresser in the gay bar, and executive producer Vince Desiderio, who appears as himself in the game. RWS personnel are considered allies to Postal Dude and will often attack NPCs that attack the player (although they may also attack Postal Dude if he accidentally or purposefully shoots at them several times in a row).

Some game critics regarded Postal² as being a single-joke affair which clearly sets out to shock and has limited play value, but it also has quite a cult following. Postal² did not achieve moral panic in the sense that the Grand Theft Auto series did. While violence and sexuality were part of both games, it is used with discretion in the GTA series, while it was excessive enough in Postal² that it was considered tasteless and senseless. Violence aside, reviewers gave low ratings to Postal² for its cheesy production values and occasional technical flaws. Unlike the GTA games, Postal²'s content was sufficiently over the edge to preclude widespread distribution, and many North American retailers would not stock it.

The game received additional negative publicity following the 13 September, 2006 Dawson College shooting incident in Montreal. Media coverage regarding the shooter, Kimveer Gill, indicated that he played violent video games. Postal² was cited as one of these games, although some coverage by CTV erroneously stated that the game was only available for sale in the United Kingdom.

Regardless of the critical commentary received by Postal², the game has earned a cult following and a movie has been produced.

Controversial aspects

Violence and police brutality

• The option of attacking and/or killing not only innocent bystanders, but also police officers and even soldiers in the US National Guard.
• Decapitating people with shovels or similar weapons (katana, matchete etc.) and kicking the heads about.
• Setting people on fire with a variety of methods, from gasoline and matches, to molotov cocktails and napalm launchers or even the kicking about of burning heads. If a kill by burning is achieved in multiplayer, the game will refer to it as a "Tibetan monk experience."
• Stun gunning people until they cower on the ground and urinate on themselves.
• When Postal Dude wears the police outfit and brutalizes innocent people, the other police officers openly admit that they are corrupt. At several points in the game, police NPCs are seen attacking and killing civilians for no apparent reason. Furthermore, while they will attempt to arrest Postal Dude if he commits a crime, they will always attempt to kill any NPCs they participate in monster infighting with, usually by beating the NPC to death with their batons even if the targeted NPC has surrendered and is begging for mercy.
• Playing "fetch" with dogs using the severed heads of slain NPCs (it should be noted that dogs "friendly" to the player will also fetch any non-food items dropped or kicked around by the player).

References of current and past events

• Al-Qaeda terrorists who carry out a suicide bombing of a church and a marching band (these characters all resemble Osama bin Laden and many characters in the game of Middle Eastern descent are shown to be connected in some way with the terrorists. Osama bin Laden himself appears in the Tora Bora area).
• The hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is parodied in the weapon called the "Weapon of Mass Destruction", found in the Tora Bora area after killing bin Laden. It is a variation of the rocket launcher that fires chemical missiles.
• Anthrax-filled cow's heads used as weapons which make the victims vomit blood.
• A scene that bears resemblance to the Waco Siege of 1993, with a cult group being surrounded by ATF agents at "the compound".
• Jihad, the company that makes the goat milk in Monday's chores.

Stereotypes

• Homophobia in the shape of an arcade game prop called Fag Hunter (the Share the Pain release replaces this with a game called Bastard Fish). The AWP mod (included in the Fudge Pack release) expands Fag Hunter into a mini-level where the player has to kill 20 stereotyped gay NPCs (depicted as bald, unshaven men wearing pink dresses).
• Racial stereotypes, such as Habib, the owner of the Lucky Ganesh convenience store, who speaks with a stereotypical Indian accent similar of that of Apu from the The Simpsons. Habib appears to be a Muslim yet at the same time his store has obvious Hindu elements.

No Regrets

Postal Dude can be made to commit suicide. He shouts: "I regret nothing" and then shoves a grenade into his mouth. The grenade explodes, killing Dude and any NPCs within range.

Misc

• Vulgarities such as cursing, spitting and rude gestures are rampant throughout the game.
• The ability to urinate on bystanders to make them vomit in disgust. As cops will eat food items dropped by the player, urinating on a food item that is subsequently eaten by a cop will make the cop regurgitate.
• The use of cats as silencers for shotguns and machine guns, involving pushing the barrel of the gun into the feline's rectum was commented on in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• Crack cocaine "health" pipes that can be smoked in order to boost Dude's health to 125, above the usual limit of 100, no matter what value of health the Dude previously had. These items will cause the Dude to become addicted, and if another dose is not used while the Dude is complaining about his withdrawal symptoms, his health will eventually be damaged, after which there are no further ill effects (unless another pipe is smoked).
• A kid's TV show mascot named Krotchy (probably a parody of Krusty the Clown of The Simpsons), who is essentially a giant cartoon scrotum. A talking toy with his likeness even says phrases such as "Daddy said only he can touch me there!" or "Don't touch me! I callin' my lawyer!" when used. Krotchy has a partner character named Larry the Crab, whose toy seems much less popular (indicated by the toy store being literally filled with Larry dolls and no Krotchy).
• An arcade game called SymHomeless, which claims to be edutainment to teach children about their future (oddly enough, Paradise seems completely devoid of children NPCs or places where they might congregate, such as parks or schools). The game is an undisguised parody of Will Wright's Sim games, down to a blurb in the Monday newspaper claiming "lawsuit narrowly averted by changing 'i' to 'y'."
• Numerous jabs and insults aimed at Joe Lieberman, including a banner that reads "Lieberman, God sees your lies", the easiest difficulty setting is "Liebermode", and in the final newspaper announcing the apocalypse on Friday, a byline that reads "Lieberman blames Doom". (After a player's death or suicide, if the game is left running without restarting or reloading a saved game, NPCs standing around the body will invariably make statements such as "Somebody call Lieberman" and "I blame Doom"). Similarly, several jokes are aimed at Dave Grossman such as a video arcade named "Grossman's Arcade".
• The AWP mod (officially released as part of the Fudge Pack) includes a small segment of hardcore pornography; when visiting the Paradise School (a section added to the AWP mod), in one of the offices several NPCs are watching a looped, uncensored clip taken from the porn DVD Virtual Sex with Tera Patrick.

Legal status

• Postal² became the second computer game to be banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification of New Zealand after Manhunt.
• It was also banned in Australia by the OFLC due to the absence of an 18+ rating for software.
• In Sweden, the attorney general took the Swedish distributor of the game to court. He was prosecuted with "illegal depiction of violence", a crime falling under the Swedish freedom of speech-act. The court dismissed the case on December 12 2006.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator Game Rankings, Postal² received an average score of 61% based on 37 reviews. On Metacritic, the game received an average score of 50 out of 100, based on 27 reviews — indicating mixed or average reviews.

Some of the game's better reviews came from PC Gamer, which gave the title a 79% out of 100, and Game Informer, which gave it a 7.5 out of 10. On the other end of the spectrum, GMR and Computer Gaming World each gave Postal² scores of zero; CGW stated that "Postal 2 is the worst product ever foisted upon consumers."

Postal²: Share The Pain received an average score of 63% based on 15 reviews on the review aggregator Game Rankings, and an average score of 59 out of 100 based on 10 reviews on Metacritic.

Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend received an average score of 56% based on 7 reviews on the review aggregator Game Rankings, and an average score of 45 out of 100 based on 4 reviews on Metacritic.

Sequel

Main article: Postal III

Postal III is set to be released in 4th quarter 2009 on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is currently being developed by Running With Scissors and Akella, using Valve's Source engine.

Trivia

• Postal² appears briefly in the hip-hop music group The Black Eyed Peas music video "Where is the Love?", showing young children playing the game and running around with a gasoline can.
• Apocalypse Weekend teases the player with an apparent "super-fun" pigeon hunting mission at one point as Postal Dude is handed a rocket launcher, only to break into a video from the Running With Scissors offices of an angry Vince Desiderio shouting profanities and exlaiming "we ain't got no budget for pigeon mission!" at Steve Wik, with a title card reading "super fun pigeon hunter mission cancelled due to budgetary restrictions. Thank you, the management". Afterwards, Postal Dude is standing amidst a tremendous blood smear in Paradise with numerous feathers in the air, proclaiming "wow, that was the most incredible thing I've ever done!".
• Various headstones in the cemetery section read of things that were cut from the game at some point, including "Rebar Gun", "Meat Gun", "Rape Clowns", "Fetuses with guns", "Pigeons" (later referenced in Apocalypse Weekend- see above note) and "Postal Storyline" (a likely reference to the first Postal having no in-game story told). The AWP add-on also adds one called "Zomboe Dad"; if urinated upon like the one for Postal Dude's dad, a zombie comes out of the ground and attacks the player.
• At a certain part of the game, The Postal Dude, after being knocked out from being hit with a shovel, wakes up to find himself dressed as a gimp, and locked in a box. Upon leaving the box he overhears two men having a discussion stolen from a famous Pulp Fiction scene, involving "Zed".

External links

• Official Running With Scissors web site
• Official Running With Scissors myspace page
• Resurrection-Studios: official company modding team
• Postal² at MobyGames
• Interview with the makers of Eternal Damnation
• Free Multiplayer version of Postal2STP Windows
• Free Multiplayer version of Postal2STP Linux
• Free Multiplayer version of Postal2STP Mac