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Retro Dose #3 - Postal
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One of the most brutal games ever made is the theme of our new Retro Dose, and the only thing that beat that silly, sadistic fun is its sequel - Postal 2 in 2003.




In 1997 a group of enthusiasts gathered in Arizona under the name Running With Scissors decided to make a game that is primarily supposed to suit their own taste. I believe that they themselves did not realise they would make such a sick game that the whole gaming community, various psychologists and psychiatrists and numerous supporters campaign to ban violence in video games will talk about it for years. This is a title that has shared a bunch of GOTY awards for second place on PC Gamer's list of "Most Controversial Games of All Time", it's Postal.



Postal is an isometric, in some parts, top-down shooter with 3D objects that you can still purchase today for Linux, Mac or Windows via Steam, GOG, Desura and similar download services. The backgrounds of 21 levels in the game are hand-drawn, and an interesting fact is that the game does not have a classic storyline, despite the fact that some of its contours related to the Postal Dude, the protagonist of the series, can be spotted by detailed monitoring of events on the screen and the background information on the manual of the game.



The goal of the game was to kill as many armed characters as possible using eight different types of weapons and the interesting thing was that the level could be completed even if the player died as long as the main task of the level was completed. Previously mentioned enemy killing was often extremely brutal and it is no wonder that the game is on so many lists of the most brutal games ever made.  But despite the numerous awards that the game picked up, some of which are for GOTY, the current score on Metacritic is quite low ( 56 ) which is unjustified and it sheds a dark light on the game's ingenuity.



The good pace of mindless violence continued with Postal 2 in 2003, but unfortunately, Postal 3 which came out in 2011-2012 wasn't good enough and it even didn't get enough attention to continue the traditional Postal series. There is also a Postal movie, which was made by Uwe Boll, which fortunately, is not the worst movie he made and it's even watchable, so if you miss a little Postal atmosphere you should check it out.



As for the quality Postal sequel we all expect, we can only hope that such a day will come and rise in the dust of the world of gaming due to the excessive levels of controversy which a Postal game should have.


So, would a remastered version of this game work? Actually, there is a remastered version called Postal Redux and it is great, but I think a new Postal game would be better, the developers just need to consider what made the game so popular.


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