i went into this with zero expectations, right after finishing (and enjoying) the base game. i was fully ready to have a good time. then i noticed the map button didn't do anything.
its trash. horrible. devoid of anything that makes base postal 2 interesting (open exploration, mundane environments, loitering), leaving only a mediocre corridor shooter. bland hallways, bland scripted setpieces, checkpoints, literally "kill x of y" checklists tasks 3 times in a row, followed by SIX military base levels (counting the al qaeda base), three of which are just backtracks of the previous levels with fire added. (one of the levels is literally called Military Base Part Four i'm not joking) you spend half of it fighting zombies and/or zombie dogs, and the other half fighting Army Guys and/or Terrorist Guys, either in concrete hallways or mazes made of blown up cars. even the jokes are worse - i dont care for most of postal 2's jokes, but apocalypse weekend phones it home even by those standards. and the final boss is worse than the vampire bloodlines ming xiao fight!! somehow!!!!!
i could excuse this, knowing they were strapped for cash (the macguffin is the original game's master disc, which you steal from Whiptail Interactive, the actual IRL publisher of the IRL game whom the devs had recently split from), as long as they had good ideas, or good jokes, or SOMETHING. but they did mad cow disease zombie apocalypse instead. the only other ideas they can manage are new melee weapons and a dismemberment system... which i'd already gotten to play with, because i played the updated steam version. oh well.
i made it even worse for myself by playing on "hestonworld" difficulty, apparently the hardest included in the original game. the anniversary remaster whatever update added some mystery unlockable thing in the menus if you finished all 7 days at that difficulty. there are like eight difficulty tiers above it now, so i figured it wouldnt be too bad. it wasn't worth it. nothing would've been worth it! i heard every single Dude-Berates-You-For-Quicksaving-Too-Often line at least 10 times. ("did you just save again?" "my grandmother could beat this game if she saved as much as you." there's a third one, but it's 2 am.) and there still werent enough healing items for someone playing like that! but hey, "4.2% of players have this achievement."
postal 2 is shenmue by way of a bad half-life mod; this is just a bad half-life mod. can you imagine paying money for this? in 2005?? i'm mad it's even on my computer.
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the one "mundane life" thing they nailed in this whole runtime: the operating room in the animal shelter level looks exactly like the room where my childhood dog was put down. tile and all. which i think means i might be the only person to feel some sort of non-anger emotion in response to this game, ever lol
its trash. horrible. devoid of anything that makes base postal 2 interesting (open exploration, mundane environments, loitering), leaving only a mediocre corridor shooter. bland hallways, bland scripted setpieces, checkpoints, literally "kill x of y" checklists tasks 3 times in a row, followed by SIX military base levels (counting the al qaeda base), three of which are just backtracks of the previous levels with fire added. (one of the levels is literally called Military Base Part Four i'm not joking) you spend half of it fighting zombies and/or zombie dogs, and the other half fighting Army Guys and/or Terrorist Guys, either in concrete hallways or mazes made of blown up cars. even the jokes are worse - i dont care for most of postal 2's jokes, but apocalypse weekend phones it home even by those standards. and the final boss is worse than the vampire bloodlines ming xiao fight!! somehow!!!!!
i could excuse this, knowing they were strapped for cash (the macguffin is the original game's master disc, which you steal from Whiptail Interactive, the actual IRL publisher of the IRL game whom the devs had recently split from), as long as they had good ideas, or good jokes, or SOMETHING. but they did mad cow disease zombie apocalypse instead. the only other ideas they can manage are new melee weapons and a dismemberment system... which i'd already gotten to play with, because i played the updated steam version. oh well.
i made it even worse for myself by playing on "hestonworld" difficulty, apparently the hardest included in the original game. the anniversary remaster whatever update added some mystery unlockable thing in the menus if you finished all 7 days at that difficulty. there are like eight difficulty tiers above it now, so i figured it wouldnt be too bad. it wasn't worth it. nothing would've been worth it! i heard every single Dude-Berates-You-For-Quicksaving-Too-Often line at least 10 times. ("did you just save again?" "my grandmother could beat this game if she saved as much as you." there's a third one, but it's 2 am.) and there still werent enough healing items for someone playing like that! but hey, "4.2% of players have this achievement."
postal 2 is shenmue by way of a bad half-life mod; this is just a bad half-life mod. can you imagine paying money for this? in 2005?? i'm mad it's even on my computer.
the one "mundane life" thing they nailed in this whole runtime: the operating room in the animal shelter level looks exactly like the room where my childhood dog was put down. tile and all. which i think means i might be the only person to feel some sort of non-anger emotion in response to this game, ever lol