The original Postal was a landmark title in the world of video games. It wasn’t very good, but it was important for being one of the first examples of what can only now be dubbed a murder simulator. The story, and even the mechanics in many respects, were put secondary to the overall tone of the game.
You play as Postal Dude who has, as the name implies, gone postal. You play from an isometric and top down perspective (depending on the map) and shoot everything that moves. From random citizens to all manner of law enforcement, Postal Dude is on a singular mission to kill everything while trying to shock the player in the process.
None of this changes for this Redux edition, instead just “enhancing” the graphics of Postal Dude and the people you slay. While this game was truly shocking when it hit PCs back in the day, in 2016 it serves as only mild amusement at best. Games have evolved beyond simple shock and controversy courting since then, and players have become desensitized to killing random civilians. I don’t know what that says about us as a culture, but with games like Grand Theft Auto doing gangbusters and Postal clones littering Steam Greenlight, you now need something engaging from a mechanics or story perspective to drive a game. The game is only about 3 hours if you take your time, so the killing doesn’t even last very long, yet still outstays its welcome.
Postal Redux is left with nothing that makes it special. Not a single time during the my play-through did I ever feel shocked or surprised by what was going on. You control Postal Dude using the W,A,S,D, and mouse, or you can play it like a twin-stick shooter using a controller which isn’t very precise. It’s all about as bog standard as those twin-stick shooters that litter the mobile markets. In fact, some of those are far more violent than Postal Redux. The gameplay we get is flat and unchanged from the original, and while it worked… pretty okay back then, it really comes up short now. Every stage feels exactly the same as your singular purpose lacks any depth or variety.
Every stage starts with an edgy journal entry that feels like it was written by a fifteen-year old from the suburbs that hates their parents something fierce. There is also no cohesion between each of the stages the game throws your way. Some change to a top-down perspective simply to try and keep things fresh, other than using the perspective change to do something differently from a gameplay perspective. Stages are also inconsistent in difficulty and length which brings up some real pacing problems with the game.
There simply isn’t enough in Postal Redux to warrant a purchase, even with the one new level added for this release and new kill-streak mode. Each stage on offer here is bland and repetitive and offer up the exact same goal: kill the required amount of people and find the exit. At the insane price of $14.99 it simply can’t be recommended, even for die-hard fans of the game, especially when the original Postal is almost always regularly on sale for around forty-nine cents. Also, add the fact that the game never properly loads requiring you to Alt-Tab to find it, long loading times, and the game letting the user load multiple instances of the game at the same time and Postal Redux is quite the mess of what is a very basic game.
The Postal series has always been about trying to shock the audience and enraging the general public, but when it no longer does either all we are left with is a shell of a game that has been done better in those free twin-stick shooters you can get on mobiles. Hell, not even that Hatred game that was a near copy of the original Postal manged to cause a stir longer than a few days, or be any good for that matter. If you really need your fix, I say just buy Postal 2 and let the original Postal live on in your mind as I can almost assure you it’s far, far worse than you are remembering it.
*A copy was provided for review*
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