Postal (video game series)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


General

  • Acceptable Targets: Postal 2 lets you shoot Islamic (Hindu?) terrorists, Moral Guardians, the game's developers, and shotgun-wielding rednecks, among others. The expansion also includes a PETA-like organization.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: The first game suggests that the Dude is some sort of Well-Intentioned Extremist; however, the presence of a moving truck outside your house in the first level has led some to conclude that he's snapped because he was foreclosed upon.
    • Confirmed by Postal III's intro.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: The ostriches in Postal 1.
  • Catharsis Factor: To varying degrees. Postal 1's atmosphere may repulse or disturb players. Otherwise, the sequels play this straight.
    • Postal III features Uwe Boll, kill-able in the same way you could kill Gary Coleman in Postal 2.
  • Crazy Awesome: The Dude himself.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: When the over-the-top gore whips back around and becomes funny again.
  • Dude, Not Funny: the rather blatant violence against certain groups (animals, random civilians, police/servicemen) smacks a little too hard if brought into the light of reality.
    • The game's initial start-up screen is the developers blatantly stating that this type of violence should stay in the game and not be played out for real.
  • Excuse Plot: Everyone is your enemy and you want to kill them all because... well, that bit was excised so it wouldn't get in the way so much. You're probably just deranged.
  • Game Breaker: The likely reason that the Apocalypse Weekend expansion does not have a multiplayer component is that the new melee weapons are so much more effective than, well, every other weapon in the game.
  • Good Bad Bugs: There are several - lighting yourself on fire makes the instant-death fire harmless, dogs propel you skyhigh, and one well-aimed rocket lets you skip the "Confess your sins" chore.
    • You can prevent the Parents for Decency from storming the RWS HQ after you collect your paycheck just by dropping a grenade in the path of the one guy who rallies them all up to go forth and kill you and the RWS guys. When the in-game cutscene plays, he sets it off and dies, and the rest just stay there. It won't prevent some scripted protesters from showing up to attack if you try to exit out the front door, but it does mean you won't get shot in the face the instant you regain control of yourself and have much fewer people to fight off.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Pigeon Hunting mission. The Postal Dude has been given a rocket launcher and told to take out flocks of pigeons carrying disease. The game then cuts to a live-action video where it's shown the developers have run out of money and cannot possibly afford designing another mission. When we return to the Postal Dude later in the day, he is standing amidst enormous puddles of blood and feathers, proclaiming what he has just experienced as "the most awesome thing [he's] ever done." Also doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • So Bad It's Good
  • Squick: Tons of it.
    • In Postal 2, you can pee on things. Peeing on people generally causes them to throw up violently, with some fairly advanced liquid physics for the game's time. In one level, the Dude gets gonorrhea, and his urine becomes green and burns when you pee, which guarantees that people you pee on will throw up in reaction. And, in Apocalypse Weekend, it's possible to decapitate someone as they're vomiting, causing it to continue to spew out of their neck stump.
    • The cats and dogs in S&M gear near the end of Apocalypse Weekend.

The movie

  • Crosses the Line Twice: The opening scene alone undoubtedly offended MANY people and is the main reason why the film was barely given any sort of significant theatrical release.
  • Squick: Dave Foley's penis makes an appearance in all its uncensored glory.