Postal (video game)

Postal
File:Postal Coverart.png
Developer(s)	Running With Scissors
Publisher(s)	Ripcord Games
Distributor(s)	Good Old Games Gamersgate Direct2Drive Desura Steam
Series	Postal
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, Android
Release date(s)	Postal Plus
Genre(s)	Isometric third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Singleplayer, Multiplayer

Postal is an isometric third-person shooter video game developed by Running With Scissors and published by Ripcord Games in 1997. A sequel to the game, Postal², was released in 2003. Director Uwe Boll bought the movie rights for the series, and produced a film of the same name. A March 2001 re-release of the game, called Postal Plus, included a "Special Delivery" add-on.

General information

Postal is a 3D shooter with mainly isometric, but also some top-down levels featuring hand-painted backgrounds. Gameplay and interface are similar to first-person shooters of the time in most, but not on all counts:

• Movement is always relative to the orientation of the player character ("The Postal Dude"). The player therefore must always be aware of the direction the character is facing, which can be difficult to some players on the isometric maps.
• There are eight weapon slots, each with a fixed amount of maximum ammo. The default weapon is a weak machine gun with unlimited ammo. Although it serves no practical purpose, the player can conceal their weapons by pressing the tilde key.
• Contrary to first-person shooters, however, the goal is not to stay alive and just reach the next level, but to kill a given percentage of the armed NPCs on the map. Only then the exit to the next level is activated. Even if the player is dead, they may still exit the level as long as the required number of hostiles have been killed.

There is no plot as such. The presence of a moving van on the first level suggests that the Postal Dude has been evicted from his home and is therefore "going postal", and the manual describes a supposed "madness plague" that has been released on the town, but no background story evolves during the game, save for ominous diary entries shown in-between levels containing phrases like "The earth is hungry. Its heart throbs and demands cleansing. The earth is also thirsty...", hinting at the protagonist's insanity. The game ends with the Postal Dude attempting to massacre an elementary school, but failing due to having a mental breakdown and ending up getting captured by the government and incarcerated in an asylum, the very final image before the credits are shown being the Dude curled up in his cell, straitjacket bound.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 57.00% Metacritic 56/100 Review scores Publication Score Game Revolution B- GameSpot 6.6/10 Computer Games Magazine Games Domain mixed

Postal received mixed reviews from critics. GameRankings and Metacritic scores are respectively 57.00% and 56/100. GameSpot's Mark East gave the game a 6.6/10 score and commented: "The lack of longevity in the single-player mode and the simplistic multiplayer options make Postal a moderately fun ride, at best."

In a retrospective, GamingOnLinux reviewer Hamish Paul Wilson gave the game 7/10, commenting that "there is no denying that Postal has some faults even when compared to some of the other games that were released around the same time as it, and time has definitely not been very kind to the title itself. But the concepts that the game explores, the ideas being expressed, and much of their actual implementations are just so interesting and compelling that one can still actually look past many of these faults and see the hidden gem that lies underneath."

External links

• Postal at MobyGames
• Postal Plus at MobyGames