kind of a horrible game made by definitely horrible people, who nonetheless managed to make a really compelling sorta-rpg, seemingly on accident. little bit deus ex, little bit shenmue, too much south park.
you do chores around arizona while a bunch of parodies of ~2001 news headlines try to kill you. you wait in line for milk at a racist corner store stereotype, go to work to get your paycheck, and then are targeted by a violent faction of violent game protestors. you wait in line to get gary coleman's autograph, then again to confess at church, then again to return a library book, and then are targeted by a violent group of environmentalists. postal workers. al-qaeda. etc. same shit different day. most of these are just shitty jokes that i didnt like. but the map is the key - its a vignette of a hopeless american city (not unlike the one I live in), with laundromats and liquor stores and steel mills all fully mapped out for you to explore. i was always frustrated by not being able to go into random buildings in, say, grand theft auto - this game maps EVERYTHING. half of the map isnt used for any gameplay at all. youre just hanging out in an open world without trinkets, small enough to not need fast travel, mundane enough to not feel too "video gamey." its great, in a way. the melee combat is nice too, and some of the guns, but it's not super interesting as a shooter - maybe one notch above fallout 3 lol
ofc it's all plastered with terrible edgy humor from 2002. i don't blame anyone who can't get over that part - it was actively unfunny to me, but i enjoyed the maps enough to push through. the way the game depicts, say, al-qaeda is grating (copypasted cartoony osama bin laden, voiced by white guys yelling "we reclaim this holy land in the name of allah!"), but finding the al-qaeda base, and wandering around it, was a lot of fun. i probably would have been more bothered if my marginalized identities were more of a target, but eh. all the gay jokes were just lazy lol
apocalypse weekend sucks. the seekrit feature you get for beating it on hard is not worth it. dont even try it. it's that bad. i have no clue how it has a 3 star average.
imo, if you like this game for the reasons i do, you should try second life. tons of open, explorable spaces just like these, just with worse controls.
some stats:
Total people murdered: 1282
Cops killed: 382
Army FUBAR'd: 199
Heads lopped: 336
Doors kicked in: 292
Times arrested: 1
Game mode: POSTAL 2: A Week In Paradise
Difficulty level: Hestonworld
you do chores around arizona while a bunch of parodies of ~2001 news headlines try to kill you. you wait in line for milk at a racist corner store stereotype, go to work to get your paycheck, and then are targeted by a violent faction of violent game protestors. you wait in line to get gary coleman's autograph, then again to confess at church, then again to return a library book, and then are targeted by a violent group of environmentalists. postal workers. al-qaeda. etc. same shit different day. most of these are just shitty jokes that i didnt like. but the map is the key - its a vignette of a hopeless american city (not unlike the one I live in), with laundromats and liquor stores and steel mills all fully mapped out for you to explore. i was always frustrated by not being able to go into random buildings in, say, grand theft auto - this game maps EVERYTHING. half of the map isnt used for any gameplay at all. youre just hanging out in an open world without trinkets, small enough to not need fast travel, mundane enough to not feel too "video gamey." its great, in a way. the melee combat is nice too, and some of the guns, but it's not super interesting as a shooter - maybe one notch above fallout 3 lol
ofc it's all plastered with terrible edgy humor from 2002. i don't blame anyone who can't get over that part - it was actively unfunny to me, but i enjoyed the maps enough to push through. the way the game depicts, say, al-qaeda is grating (copypasted cartoony osama bin laden, voiced by white guys yelling "we reclaim this holy land in the name of allah!"), but finding the al-qaeda base, and wandering around it, was a lot of fun. i probably would have been more bothered if my marginalized identities were more of a target, but eh. all the gay jokes were just lazy lol
apocalypse weekend sucks. the seekrit feature you get for beating it on hard is not worth it. dont even try it. it's that bad. i have no clue how it has a 3 star average.
imo, if you like this game for the reasons i do, you should try second life. tons of open, explorable spaces just like these, just with worse controls.
some stats:
Total people murdered: 1282
Cops killed: 382
Army FUBAR'd: 199
Heads lopped: 336
Doors kicked in: 292
Times arrested: 1
Game mode: POSTAL 2: A Week In Paradise
Difficulty level: Hestonworld