Postal
Postal is a computer game series by the US development studio Running with Scissors, Inc. (RWS). Part one appeared in 1997 and received a successor in 2003 based on the Unreal Engine . Part two is therefore a first-person shooter , while the first part still uses an isometric 2D view. The name of the game is based on the American idiom " going postal ", which means something like "start a rampage" or simply "go nuts".
Both parts are heavily criticized because of their clear portrayal of violence, including against unarmed civilians. Postal 2 is indexed in Germany . In New Zealand and Australia , Postal was another game alongside Manhunt that did not get an exam by the Office of Film and Literature Classification . Such games are then banned in these countries - an unchecked film may not be sold, bought, viewed or imported there.
Postal
Postal puts the player in the role of the Postal Dude, who has a number of weapons at his disposal in the game world to clear his frustration.
The United States Postal Service filed a trademark lawsuit against Running With Scissors, but lost it after six years.
In 1998, an add-on called Special Delivery was released , which expanded the game by four levels, new sound effects, new opponents and new game modes. The original and the add-on were launched together in 2001 as Postal Plus and were also ported to the Linux operating system by Loki Software .
On December 29, 2016 Running with Scissors released the source code of the game under version 2 of the GNU General Public License on Bitbucket. They explicitly asked the fans to port it to the Dreamcast game console from Sega .
Postal 2
| Postal² | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio | Running with scissors | ||
| Publisher | Whiptail Interactive Linux Game Publishing Running With Scissors |
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
PC: 13. April 2003 GOG.com : of May 2009 Steam : November 2012 |
||
| platform | Windows , Mac OS X , Linux | ||
| genre | Ego shooter | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard Mouse | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
|
||
| medium | CD-ROM , download | ||
| language | English | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
| information | Indexed in Germany | ||
Postal 2 was released in April 2003 for Mac OS X , Linux and Windows and was based on the Unreal Engine 2. The player takes on the role of the Postal Dude again, who in this part is shown as a tall, thin man with sunglasses , a beard and a leather coat. He lives with his wife, who is never seen, in an older trailer in the fictional town of "Paradise" in Arizona, USA. The game is divided into days of the week and covers five days in the life of the Postal Dude. The player's tasks are mostly of a purely mundane nature, his first "assignments" include: Pick up the paycheck from the employer, withdraw money from the bank, get milk in the supermarket and go to church to go to confession. The object of the game is to complete the respective tasks each day and return to your caravan. It is entirely up to the player how these tasks are solved, so the player has the choice, for example, of paying for the milk in the supermarket, taking it with the cashier or taking the unpaid milk through the back door. In the course of the game, however, it becomes more and more difficult to solve the daily tasks peaceably, as the Postal Dude attracts the hostility of various groups during the game and gets into different battles that are difficult to survive without the use of force.
In November 2012, Running With Scissors published a revised version on the distributor Steam , which among other things contains achievements . After the release, the sales of Postal 2 increased significantly, which is why the developer continues to provide the game with updates and announced a new expansion in 2014. As of May 30, 2016, it is no longer possible to purchase Postal 2 with a German Steam account.
criticism
The game has come under heavy criticism as it allows the player to become indiscriminately and excessively violent, which is depicted in great detail.
The developers of the game tried to counter the criticism of the game by stating that the decision to use violence rests solely with the player. He alone decides whether he carries out his tasks peacefully or causes mischief. However, the player is often tempted to use force. He is often attacked by exaggerated protest groups protesting against everything from books to Christians . The residents of "Paradise" are extremely rude, easily abusive when bumped into the player, and easily violent. Various weapons are also lying around freely in the area , from scissors that can be used like throwing stars, to assault rifles and napalm throwers .
The player is tempted to start a rampage, but this is never necessary. However, some missions put the player in serious danger, so he is encouraged to kill the attackers. For example, in the mission "Confession in the Church", a cutscene is faded in after the confession process in which terrorists storm the church and attack its visitors. The player is inevitably shot, whether he is armed or not. It is never obligatory to return fire, but without the use of force it is almost impossible to survive such a situation safely, especially in the case of higher degrees of difficulty.
However, the tasks do not always result in a potential rampage, but often loosen up the game with controversial humor.
In a mission, for example, it is the protagonist's task to urinate on the grave of his own father, whereby two hillbilly want to catch, kidnap and sexually abuse him, which is characterized by the fact that the protagonist wears a patent leather outfit from now on, that needs to be changed as soon as possible.
The course of the game is accompanied by sarcastic sayings from the Postal Dude, who comments on events and situations.
In the game there are always references to the real world. At the beginning, the player works for the game developer RWS, whose business premises are besieged by a group of demonstrators who protest against violent computer games. Ironically, they then storm the business premises very violently.
Some more controversial game features and events:
- cow heads filled with anthrax as a weapon
- Cats can be misused as silencers for shotguns and assault rifles
- Crack “health” pipes that heal the player and even give them additional life energy, but lead to addiction and withdrawal symptoms
- the ability of the player to urinate on fellow human beings and thereby make them vomit, or on themselves to extinguish themselves if they catch on fire
- Islamist terrorists who carry out a suicide attack on a church
- When Dude tries to visit his uncle Dave, a cult leader , he finds that the cult ranch is surrounded by ATF troops . This is an obvious reference to the Waco siege .
- There is a hidden mission where you have to kill Osama bin Laden.
Extensions
The add-on Postal²: Share The Pain expands the game with a multiplayer function . However, this version also includes the normal single player version. The multiplayer portion of Postal²: Share The Pain was made available for free download on May 20, 2008.
The add-on Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend , has been available since mid-May 2005. It adds the weekend to the main game, which is played Monday through Friday during the week. In contrast to the main game, the add-on has a more linear structure, so the player can no longer choose his path as freely as was possible in the main game. But this gives a much denser story than in the main game. It continues to take place in the fictional city "Paradise", which has been expanded to include new areas.
The possibility of beheading passers-by with a shovel or shotgun has been expanded so that it is now possible to cut off all parts of the passers-by, i.e. arms, legs, etc., or to split the whole body in two. There are also new weapons such as a scythe , machete or sledgehammer . In this expansion, the player gets it mainly with "Mad Cow Tourette Zombies" ( BSE- infected zombies with Tourette syndrome ), terrorists, militant animal rights activists and US soldiers who consider the Postal Dude to be a terrorist and are sent to a Guantanamo-style prison camp stuck to do. The original Postal² or Postal²: Share The Pain is required to play.
The Mod A Week in Paradise (AWP for short) also expands the solo campaign of the main game with the features from Apocalypse Weekend and adds numerous more. A Week in Paradise requires an Apocalypse Weekend installed .
In June 2014, Running With Scissors announced the DLC Paradise Lost . The expansion for the eleven-year-old main game Postal 2 was released in April 2015.
Postal III
| Postal III | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio |
 Trashmasters Running With Scissors Akella
|
||
| Publisher | Akella , Running With Scissors | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
December 20, 2011 ( Steam ) / December 23, 2011 | ||
| platform | Windows | ||
| Game engine | Source Engine | ||
| genre | Third person shooter | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard & mouse, gamepad | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
Pentium4 3.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM (XP) / 4 GB RAM (Vista / 7), DirectX 9.0c-compatible graphics card with 128 MB RAM and Shader Model 2.0 (from Nvidia 6600 GT or ATI X800), 16 GB free storage space (Deviations possible), Windows 7 / Vista / XP | ||
| medium | Download , DVD-ROM | ||
| language | English, Russian | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
| information | Indexed in Germany (List A) | ||
Postal III or Postal 3 is the third part of the Postal series. A third part was already being considered in 2004, but development did not begin until October 2006. Unlike Postal² , you now play in third-person mode. The action takes place in the fictional city "Catharsis", because the Postal Dude blew up his hometown Paradise at the end of Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend with an atomic bomb. When asked what was new, the developers replied: "Animals Animals Animals Babes Babes Babes". Early in-game footage of the game at E3 2008 revealed new weapons including the Badgersaw, a badger that the Postal Dude uses like a saw, a vacuum cleaner that can pick up and shoot out small objects, and an M60 machine gun . The petrol known from Postal 2 will also be available again. A new concept of the weapon is a laboratory monkey that reacts to a laser operated by the Postal Dude. The official trailer shows that you will at least be able to drive Segways. The developers also announced that there will now be three different game types. Once as the really nice guy, then as the really bad guy and finally as the crazy guy, also called Insane. However, Postal has lost none of its black humor and is supposed to be just as satirical as it used to be.
In addition to the American developer Running With Scissors, the Russian studios Trashmasters and Akella also worked on the game.
The game's release has been postponed several times. Postal 3 was supposed to be released in autumn 2008, but then the release was announced for winter 2009. This deadline could not be kept either. According to GameStar , one of the developers (Vince Desi) had said in February 2011 that a release was planned for May 2011, as Postal III was almost finished and you only needed a publisher. Running with Scissors finally issued a message that Postal III can be pre-ordered and will arrive no later than 2 days before Christmas 2011.
Since the previous parts were indexed in Germany, indexing the third part was obvious. The development studio confirmed that Postal III will not appear in Germany.
For the development, the studio licensed the Source Engine from Valve , which was used for the first time in Half-Life 2 (2004).
The game received mostly negative reviews. The Gamestar evaluated the shooter with 45 percent, and criticized the gameplay, technology and numerous bugs. The metascore is 24.
As a result of the poor ratings, developer Running With Scissors decided to stop offering Postal III on the official website and recommend purchasing the Postal Fudge Pack instead . In addition, the studio was negative about the cooperation with the Russian developers.
Postal 4: No Regerts
Postal 4: No Regerts started as the fourth part of the series on October 14, 2019 in Early Access .
Game collections
Postal Fudge Pack
On November 13, 2006, RWS released the Postal Fudge Pack game collection , which contains all parts and add-ons from the series, mods and other extras. The collection appeared on a hybrid - DVD for Windows , Linux and Mac , which includes:
- Postal Plus ( Postal with Add-on Special Delivery )
- Postal²: Share the Pain ( Postal² with multiplayer expansion Share the Pain )
- Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend (add-on for Postal² )
- Eternal Damnation (Mod for Postal²: Share the Pain )
- A Week in Paradise (Mod for the Apocalypse Weekend add-on )
- Extras (videos, trailers , photos of "Postal Babes" and recording of a radio interview)
The Postal Fudge Pack was added to List B by the BPjM in March 2008 and, according to the Federal Inspectorate, may contain content that is criminally relevant.
Postal 10th Anniversary Collectors Edition
This limited collector's edition was released as a muesli box from the "Postal KrotchyO's" brand. All parts and add-ons of the series are again included, as well as other extras. The collection includes:
- Postal Plus ( Postal with Add-on Special Delivery )
- Postal²: Share the Pain ( Postal² with multiplayer expansion Share the Pain )
- Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend (add-on for Postal² )
- Eternal Damnation (Mod for Postal²: Share the Pain )
- A Week in Paradise (Mod for Postal² )
- A Very Postal Christmas (Mod for Postal² )
- Audio CD Music To Go Postal By
- Extras (videos, trailers , photos of "Postal Babes" and recording of a radio interview, sticker sheet)
- Sneak preview of the movie and Postal³
- "Golden Ticket" competition for a Christmas dinner with the developers
Postal 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition
The collection includes:
- Postal 1
- Postal²: Share the Pain ( Postal² with multiplayer expansion Share the Pain )
- Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend (add-on for Postal² )
- Postal²: Paradise Lost ( DLC for Postal² )
- Postal Redux (remake of Postal )
- Postal The Movie (film adaptation)
- Postal III
- Postal XX Sticker (sticker)
- Running With Scissors Temporary Tattoo (stick-on tattoo)
- Krotchy's Nut Rag (towel)
- Postal XX Art Book ( Artbook )
filming
On October 24, 2005, Running with Scissors, the game's developer and rights holder, announced that a movie was planned. The director Uwe Boll , who was controversial because of controversial films , directed. As a marketing measure, Boll announced that Postal will contain all of the elements that the fan base loves about the computer game series. Black humor, excessive violence and even the cat silencer were mentioned. Actor Zack Ward stood in front of the camera as "(Postal) Dude" . The film was released in Germany on October 18, 2007 and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray .
literature
- Brock Wilbur, Nathan Rabin: Postal . Boss Fight Books, Los Angeles 2020, ISBN 978-1-940535-22-7 .
Web links
- Official Postal Website
- Postal² (VG) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend Speedrun
- Interview with Postal creator Vince Desi
Individual evidence
- ↑ Engadget : Violence for all: 'Postal' goes open source. And the developer wants someone to port it to Dreamcast
- ↑ Exclusive Postal 2 New DLC Paradise Lost on InsideGamingDaily.com, accessed July 27, 2014
- ↑ Valve cleans up the German Steam Store: 28 games indexed in Germany removed. In: Schnittberichte.com . June 6, 2016, accessed February 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Gamespot.com: 10 Years After Release, Postal 2 Gets New Expansion. Retrieved January 6, 2018 .
- ↑ Postal 3 - New release date for Steam and retail version. Retrieved on March 18, 2013 (German).
- ↑ requirements. Archived from the original on December 31, 2010 ; Retrieved March 18, 2013 .
- ↑ Postal 3 indexed. Retrieved on March 18, 2013 (German).
- ↑ Postal 3 - Work is about to be completed - News - GameStar.de. Retrieved on March 18, 2013 (German).
- ↑ Postal 3 (PC) - rating, conclusion - GameStar.de. Retrieved on March 18, 2013 (German).
- ^ Postal III for PC Reviews - Metacritic. Retrieved March 18, 2013 .
- ↑ Postal III has been removed from our store. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 29, 2013 ; accessed on March 18, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marcel Kleffmann: Postal 4: No Regerts - Completely over-the-top "Over-the-Top-Shooter" started in Early Access. In: 4Players . October 14, 2019, accessed November 17, 2019 .
- ^ Official announcement of the Postal Fudge Pack . Archived from the original on April 25, 2009 ; Retrieved March 18, 2013 .
- ↑ Postal: 10th Anniversary Collectors Edition Offers the Complete RWS Library, Postalforms and a Golden Ticket! Retrieved March 18, 2013 .
- ↑ runningwithscissors.com: POSTAL 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition. Retrieved May 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Deutscher shoots first parody film on 9/11 I'm worth it: Uwe Boll defends his reputation as Germany's worst director with his terror-trash comedy "Postal". Retrieved on March 18, 2013 (German).
