Postal (video game series): Difference between revisions

{{quote|"''[[I Regret Nothing|I regret nothing]].''"|'''The Postal Dude'''}}

 

 

The 2003 sequel ''Postal 2'', doesn't play itself ''nearly'' as seriously. The Postal Dude is now married and lives in a trailer park, and the game covers what has to be the weirdest week of his life, as every day the simplest errands become life-or-death battles. (Cashing his paycheck? Robbers invade the bank and he gets caught in the crossfire. Returning a library book? Anti-book protesters ''[[Book Burning|set the library on fire]] with him in it.'') There is an expansion pack (''Apocalypse Weekend'') with its own campaign that covers Saturday and Sunday of The Postal Dude's weirdest week, with new weapons and characters. A popular [[Game Mod]], [[Ascended Fanfic|included in later releases of the game]], titled ''A Week in Paradise'' backports Apocalypse Weekend's enhancements and additional weapons to the base game, as well as merging the two campaigns and adding some extra content for good measure.

''Postal III'', which is built on the [[Valve Software|Source engine]], is co-developed by Running With Scissors, TrashMasters Studios, and Russian developer/publisher Akella. It was announced in 2006, and was finally set to be released worldwide via digital distribution on the [[Steam]] store Christmas week on December 20, 2011. As per possible mandate by Akella, three retail versions were released in Russia on November 23, 2011. Hard copies and Steam CD Keys are available for purchase on the Running With Scissors online store. It should be noted that the PC version was released unrated due to Akella not wanting to pay for an ESRB rating. The game had to wait until February 17th, 2012, to get a rating, and until then, you couldn't actually buy it on Steam. Console versions for both the Xbox 360 and [[PS 3]] are to be available at some time in 2012, should RWS find an American publisher. While versions for both Linux and Mac OS X were announced in 2006, [[Development Hell|those versions are possibly on hold indefinitely.]]

 

 

== General ==

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: Though frankly, most characters he meets [[Black and Gray Morality|aren't much better.]]

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: The second and third games to varying degrees. The first game, and the second game's expansion are linear, level-based games, but some levels are fairly open in design.

 

 

** This is the source of humor from a lot of the hate groups: protesters who are against violent video games holding signs stating "KILL VIOLENT GAMERS" and can later be found playing arcade games in the mall, a condemned house with graffiti sprayed by an otherwise-unseen "Parents Against Graffiti" group, and others.

* [[Its the Only Way To Be Sure]]: See below, [[Subverted Trope|except]] The Postal Dude's plan wasn't about the zombies that happened to have overwhelmed Paradise at the time.

* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: In the AWP mod, they're good for dismembering people with a quick slash and also assassinating people in public with an [[Secondary Fire|alt-fire]] [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|throw]] right after unsheathing it, [[Normally I Would Be Dead Now|unless they survive being impaled by a hurled katana.]] Police officers and soldiers are also strangely resistant to them.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Postal Dude, again. At the end of ''Apocalypse Weekend'' {{spoiler|he nukes an entire city killing an unknown amount of people, and he gets away free, despite taking out about half of the US Army in the process. He even gets to [[Pet the Dog|save his dog]], too.}}

* [[New Game Plus]]: Beating the game once enables "Enhanced Mode", which gives such bonuses as the ability to piss napalm. One can also access the cheat menu after having beaten the game.

* [[No Badass to His Valet]]: The Postal Dude's wife.

* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: The Mad Cow [[Tourettes Shitcock Syndrome|Tourettes]] Zombies from ''Apocalypse Weekend'', who grumble slurred strings of profanities whilst stalking their victims. Will not die if their heads are intact - yes, this includes a clean beheading, as pointed out in a cutscene. [[Your Head Asplode]] is a MUST.

* [[Pacifist Run]]: Difficult, but possible with skill and patience. You're rewarded with an endgame message saying "Thank you for playing, JESUS!". Impossible to do in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' and the ''A Week in Paradise'' mod, however.

* [[Strawman Political]]: The protesters, who are often hypocrites and are not above killing people and setting buildings ablaze to make their point. Especially blatant when the first group you meet, Parents for Decency, wants to '''kill violent video gamers.''' They inevitably end up wanting to kill The Postal Dude, who mostly just ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* [[Take That]]: ''Postal 2'' features some stabs at Senator Joe Lieberman, who said some rather bad things about ''Postal 1'', amongst other violent video games such as ''[[Doom]]''.

** There are a surprising number of details in the game itself too, showing that the development team truly cared to add depth to the game's interactivity: For example, if you "discard" a cat near a dog, the dog will pursue the fleeing cat until [[Ludicrous Gibs|it catches it]], allied dogs will fight just about any person who is assaulting you until the person or the dog is dead, and dogs will even leave waste matter on the ground, given time. Other touches include varied responses based upon your costume, such as police officers saying something similar to "It's not worth your pension!" if they see you "tasering" somebody while you're dressed as a cop.

* [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]: Can be done with the [[Secondary Fire]] of ''Apocalypse Weekend'''s melee weapons, though in the case of the machete it [[Precision Guided Boomerang|will return to you after a while]]. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] if an armed character sees it coming and blocks the thrown weapon with his/her own weapon.

* [[Tourettes Shitcock Syndrome]]: The "Mad Cow Tourettes Zombies" in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' as mentioned earlier.

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: At the start of the day, you're given three or four errands and then left to your own devices. You can even choose to do some errands in different ways - for example, the bank robbery mentioned at the very top of the page? You can sneak into the vault and steal the money yourself while the intended robbers and police are fighting each other, and then {{spoiler|sneak out through a secret passage behind a bookshelf}}.

** The ''Postal III'' intro lampshades this, the Dude saying that he "hates that fucking name". When asked if he has a real name, he sheepishly admits "I forget".

* [[You Got Murder]]: The package intended for you later in the main game is a letter bomb. You can later find the exact same packages among the Taliban, most notably in ''Apocalypse Weekend''.

* [[Affectionate Parody]]: Believe it or not. The game's cutscenes have a grindhouse flare.

* [[Batter Up]]: A nail-bat, even. [[Secondary Fire]] tosses the bat at an enemy, [[Bloody Hilarious|where it sticks fast.]]

* [[Charged Attack]]: How the [[Stuff Blowing Up|rocket launcher]] works. The longer you hold down the left mouse button, the further the rocket will go before detonating. [[Too Dumb to Live|Try not to just tap the button.]] The [[Secondary Fire]] is a [[Homing Projectile]] instead.

* [[Custom Uniform]]: Ever so slightly. If the dude goes the "good" path and thus has to wear a variety of police uniforms and suits, he keeps his happy face and Christian cross buttons, as well as his [[Fingerless Gloves]].

* [[Difficult but Awesome]]: This installment's [[Obvious Beta|rather loose physics]] has made using [[Machete Mayhem|the Machete's]] [[Precision Guided Boomerang|alt-fire throw]] much more difficult, though it still kills enemies damn quick.

* [[Emergency Weapon]]: The kick returns. There aren't any doors you need to kick open, but it'll knock over most human foes, setting them up for any number of nasty finishing attacks.

* [[Fan Disservice]]: The Dude's first job in the game is working as a cleaner in a sex shop ran by Mayor Raul Chomo (played by Ron Jeremy), 'nuff said.

** Said Mayor also has a Malaysian slave boy... which ends up being a 40-year-old slave ''man''. In a gimp suit. That's assless. And has nipple tassels. And a Gary Coleman mask on the back of his head.

** Bad Ending: {{spoiler|Starts off almost the same as the Good Ending, but instead of the Dude going after the Mayor, Uncle Dave, and Osama, he fights his way out of Daveland with Champ and leaves them to the Hockey Moms. Dave decides to drink the "plutonium" rather than have the Hockey Moms kill him, but finds out that the jar was full of piss. The Hockey Moms end up tearing the trio apart akin to a zombie horde. After a fake-out "The End", the Dude continues his tale, showing that him, Champ, and the Motorhead monkey were captured by the US army and sub-sequentially given the electric chair. Another scene change [[The Reveal|reveals]] that the person the Dude was telling his tale to was Saint Peter, in hopes of bullshitting his way into Heaven. After Peter trounces the Dude's story, he says that he has no choice but to send the Dude to his eternal damnation. As the Dude and Champ are dropped into Hell, the Dude yells out "I regret nothing!" and the credits roll.}}

** Neutral/Pacifist Ending: {{spoiler|Same as the Good Ending, except for the final outcome. The Postal Dude ends up on Limp Dickerson's late night talk show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous", sharing his story of having escaped the Venezuelan Army in Catharsis without killing anyone. He announces that his best-selling book: "The Fall of Paradise: If I Did It" (a jab at O.J. Simpson's book) is coming out on softcover. He has since married Jennifer Walcott after finding her trying to hotwire his car, with their wedding ceremony taking place in Machu Picchu. The couple then take this moment to advertise the Peruvian Big Mac and Peruvian NAZCAR [sic]. The host then congratulates them on their highly publicized lottery jackpot win of $500,000,000, with the Dude also mentioning that they've moved into their dream house, ending with the obligatory quip: "I guess you could say, I regret nothing." Champ then proceeds to gnaw the host's nads, the signal fades and the credits roll.}}

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: For the most part, celebrities appear as themselves (Jennifer Wolcott, Randy Jones, etc.) or as in-name parodies of such (Uwe Boll, {{spoiler|Al Gore, Hugo Chavez}}) but there is one major exception- the unnamed leader of the Hockey Moms [[Take That|looks a whole hell of a lot like Sarah Palin.]]

* [[Obvious Beta]]: The game does have some glaring glitches. Certain Steam achievements are bugged and don't unlock. The AI for certain NPCs are still primitive or broken. Certain computer builds make the game crash constantly.

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: You've got grenades and a rocket launcher. Have fun.

* [[Take Cover]]: Added along with a general third-person perspective shift.

* [[Tempting Fate]]: The setting of this installment is a town called "Catharsis".

** Sure Mr. UN Officer guy, [[Too Dumb to Live|put the Postal Dude in charge]] of a [[Big Red Button]] and [[Idiot Ball|ask him not to push it, or let anyone else push it.]] [[Sarcasm Mode|That's a good idea.]]

* [[Vaporware]]: The official title was announced in 2006, with very few screenshots or videos being released since then and the official website being mostly filler. In October 2011, the game finally appeared on Steam's store under "Coming Soon" with the release scheduled for December. The exact date has finally been revealed as December 20th, although the game is only available in the Running With Scissors online shop.

** Given that the only weapons usable while riding one are the taser and pistol, it's not that awesome. The Dude repeatedly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades this fact.]]

** Chainsaw Badger!

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: Seems to be returning to this after ''Apocalypse Weekend'', with more of a focus on making mass-murder [[Pacifist Run|optional]].