Postal II

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Allright, bear with me as I record my thoughts while playing. I'll eventually turn all this mush into a nice long review.

o The Postal Dude kicks his dog in the pre-game cinematic. Most cinematics suck -- this one filled me to the brim with rage (well, disgusted me for a second) which, seeing how it's a different emotional reaction than filling me with rage, makes it the first pre-game cinematic in the last five years not to suck.

o Old Man Murray reference right at the beginning.

o I got killed by this hot girl (she shot me, basically). After dying, you can still rotate the camera around. She proceded to kick my corpse. A female police officer shows up after a little while. The girl kicks my corpse after a few seconds, and accidently kicks the cop. These two crazy bitches then have a shoot out OVER MY CADAVAR. The cop kills the hot chick, and some NPC who looked on comments, "Someone go get Lieberman." ... I can't "Bwahahahah" loudly enough. I really, really can't.

o Ah, yes, there is a "urinate" button (well, a "zip down your pants button" -- hitting "shoot" causes you to then piss.

This is totally reprehensible and should not be played by humans. I am loving it.

[bruce]

Allright, bear with me as I record my thoughts while playing. I'll eventually turn all this mush into a nice long review.

Like your review of <i>Daredevil</i>?

Bruce

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

...

... Hey, when the hell did *I* get the reputation of being the guy around here who never finishes anything??

But I will answer your question, Denizen Bruce. No. Not like the Daredevil movie. Daredevil cost me $8.50, and I got the impression that the DVD release would be much better.

Postal II cost me $49.99 plus tax, and will probably wind up being much less fun than Daredevil. Plus, we really need to review some "new" games over at Caltrops.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

o You can essentially play the thing as a serial killer sim at any time. You can follow unsuspecting members of the population around, and when they are alone kill them without arising the attention of the police. You can also kick their corpses across town and pile them all on top of one another in some sort of sick pantomime of a "trophy room."

o There's a scripted event where, after cashing your paycheck, a bunch of bank robber attempt to hold up the place. You can play "hero" or hide behind the counter with the girl behind the register and hope you don't either get shot or assumed to be a member of the gang by the police. The latter produced more positive results.

o Can't skip the in-game cinematics. REALLY annoying.

o After using an auto-load the game immediately auto-saves. That's really stupid and slows things down a lot.

o The level load times are just as bad as everyone says.

o Lots of graphical tearing, but it could be that I am playing on a Pentium III 800. I have a Geforce 4400 and I see tearing nowhere else... dunno.

o The devs are really, *really* unfunny. They try, alright. But this game could have been a lot better if they had hired somebody with a real sense of humor or some wit as a script consultant. I'm not a humor snob -- I appreciate almost all kinds -- but much of the stuff in this game is stupid.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

o Putting the lastest Geforce4 drivers on my system has resulted in the game running 1 out of 3 times I attempt to run it. Aces! Progress! Oh, and it didn't help the tearing at all.

o I'm on Wednesday, currently (I have heard that there are five days to this game) and in order to artifically lengthen the game, they have you going from one end of the game's ultimate map to another. With plenty of hot, hot, load time action in the way. They knew that they had crappy loading times because they mention it in the manual ("upgrade your fricking machine!" they say) but didn't design around it at all. Unbelievable. So I need to remember this -- it's a short game, and it's reprehensible that they charged $49.99 and not $39.99 for it when it first came out.

o There is a site gag in the game when you go to vote. I actually did laugh at the ballot when it first came up, so I guess I have to give it some credit there, because "hanging chad" jokes were terribly fucking unfunny when they were the "hot topic" for unfunny people to mention and reference to death a few years back.

[Worm]

Geez, I really hope I didn't in any way prompt you buying this.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Nah, it wasn't anything like that. There wasn't any "recent" games that I had gone through lately, and I wanted to get a review of one that's on the market together for Caltrops, where the timeliness of it can still do some good. I think that basically the review will state that there's no way it's worth $50, but when it hits $19.99 it's definitely one to go grab.

I just have to say all that citing specific examples and using profanity, now.

[Worm]

Not to mention making interesting references to assumedly "taboo" actions that are actually plastered all over the internet and really are common place. I might wait for a custom level where it is like the original Postal. No fucking milk, just killing until you reached the precentage you needed to.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I did end up writing a review for this that'll eventually go up on Caltrops. It's right here if you want to look at it in the meantime.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

OK, I got some advice from an editor. The pacing's a little better. I'll bump this one last time when it actually "goes lives."

Here's a fun FAQ:

Q: Did you include a Solaris reference in there for one and one guy only's benefit? That guy being Ben?
A: Well, yeah.

Q: Fag.
A: Well... yeah. WAit

[Worm]

They apparently have made a mod ... or patch, whatever, that lets you get head shots.

Now only if there was a cheat to give me a fire hose piss so I could pop off heads with a super stream of piss ... I would pay full price.

[Lex]

YES>:>