Maybe the most mixed bag of all the entries in the entire Postal franchise thus far. And yes, I am very aware that is saying something. I mean, the other installments have been consistently either outright good or bad, while this one constantly fluctuates wildly between those two extremes across its runtime. It’s honestly pretty bold of Running with Scissors to bring back that long-running gag of encouraging the player to pee on copies of Postal III when their “true sequel” to the second outing it’s housed within this time is only marginally better than that universally derided third effort at points.
I went with the console release here. Not just because my standard, non-gaming PC can’t handle a title this recent, but also due to it simply being kind of amazing to me to finally see the property branching out and becoming available to more than solely the mouse and keyboard community. I must confess RWS did a fantastic job of bringing it over too. Everything from shooting to driving and all your other inputs feels so natural and smooth that you’d find it hard to believe this wasn’t originally designed with a controller first in mind. I sincerely hope the PlayStation ports perform well enough to receive any of the future updates and expansions that are on the horizon, such as the announced upcoming addition of co-op. They have certainly been getting the same patches to date. Outside of a few minor issues, one of which did require me to start an extra playthrough I hadn’t intended on because a couple of the collectibles either didn’t spawn or the game failed to register I picked them up for some reason, the PS5 version at least is mostly stable showing things have come a long way for No Regerts since launch despite not being totally free of bugs and moments of broken hostile AI yet. You’ll also find the secondary go-kart vehicle and bonus of getting to choose your own voice actor have been included as well. The latter being particularly appreciated because Jon St. John makes the Dude sound more like the Nerd.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of people declaring this is merely trying (and failing) to be Postal 2 again, and I personally don’t think that’s an accurate or fair statement. To me, P4 is clearly striving to expand upon that game in the manner you would expect from a good successor. I’m not just referring to the greatly increased size of its world in comparison either. New features like the ability to buy special permits so that you can run around with your weapons unholstered without interference from the police, backpacks that will upgrade the player’s inventory space to literally unlimited capacity, chain-scythes that allow you to grapple onto specific points in the environment, and a drop kick maneuver that will send victims ragdolling through the air for crazy distances add to the ridiculous absurdity of the action in ways wholly befitting of the brand, while the optional “rampages” challenges which offer direction and concrete rewards for the violent, destructive tendencies you’d probably engage in anyway make so much sense you’ll wonder why they don’t show up on the map.
Not every attempt at modernizing the property’s well-established formula hits the mark, however. For example, the inclusion of alternate outfits and Fortnite-style emotes come off as superfluous until the option to roam “Edensin” with friends eventually drops, as the local inhabitants seemingly haven’t been programmed to react to you doing push-ups in the middle of a department store while wearing Zack Ward’s threads from the movie adaptation. It’s the side-quests that seriously fall on their face though. For starters, I only ever stumbled onto two in my 33 hours with the game (why are these also not marked on the map?), and worse they were incredibly mundane. I dug holes to help a guy recover his missing drugs that he couldn’t remember where he buried and was tasked with cleaning another fella’s mansion of blood, cum, and fecal splatter ahead of his next BDSM fling. It’s worth mentioning I couldn’t bring myself to finish that second one, because on top of potentially being glitched due to some of those stains simply refusing to wash away the task kept going on for what felt like forever. I just ended up shooting the quest giver in the head, losing out on any on the goodies I would’ve otherwise received, and running off to do anything else. A shame since the deeper I went into the many rooms the more evident it became that the kinky sex stuff was part of a dark occult ritual that may have had a nice payoff by the conclusion. An interesting touch of creepy environmental storytelling.
Yet, although definitely an undeniable flaw, the inconsistent quality of its supporting content isn’t what brings the package down. No, Postal 4 has proven divisive and disappointing for even longtime fans due to its overall lackluster and flat vision. A big question I guess we all should have had in the back of ours minds beforehand was how the heck Running with Scissors was actually going to pull off delivering a worthy follow-up to arguably the most controversial products the gaming industry has ever spawned as of this writing in our highly sensitive modern age. Pushing the boundaries of good taste and spitting in the face of moral standards was super popular back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s when the series was at its peak. But today? Maaaan, do anything remotely offensive and the internet is coming after you with its full fury. Evidently aware of that fact, the eccentric Tucson devs opted for a bit of a rebrand of sorts. On the About section of their website and various social media platforms they describe themselves as a maker of “outrageous” experiences, implying their releases are more wacky and over-the-top than sources of genuine umbrage for people with certain sensibilities. The problem? There’s nothing that goofy or outlandish here.
It isn’t until Thursday with its motocross races on mobility scooters and dives into VR with Tron-esque visuals that you witness so much as a hint of the gonzo imagination that made Paradise Lost a delightful blast. If I had to guess I’d wager they wanted to replicate Postal 2’s hook of assigning us a daily to-do list of humdrum, everyday IRL objectives, but completely missed the part where we could turn them into exciting messes of bloody chaos and dark humor through our actions. Essentially bypassing the boring true to reality bits of waiting in line and such altogether. Can’t do that in Regerts. Choosing to gun down all of the homeless squatters when acting as a sewer worker doesn’t grant you a means of skipping the need to screw in those lightbulbs and unclog the pipes before moving on, unfortunately. It leads to the main missions being rather dull the majority of the time. The same is true of the comedy. In their desperate bid to upset as few as humanly possible, they’ve neutered the satirical element almost entirely in favor of very safe and half-hearted Trump, border wall, and Covid references that have zilch to say on the topics, mixed with (often literal) toilet humor. A single one-off segment poking fun at the whole 2022 election rigging debacle that truly had me laughing out loud stands as the sole reprieve from a constant stream of jokes that fail to leave an impression. Shoot, even the subtitle is a pun stolen from that movie We’re the Millers, only far less funny.
This restraining of Postal’s angsty soul has stripped it of personality right down to the world design too. Outside of a few notable locations, buildings carry the appearance of being compromised of a bunch of Unity asset store flips and NPCs are of the same caliber as any of the non-bangable ones in your average forever early access, Together BnB-style adult indie project on Steam.
To conclude I’ll admit, in spite of my paragraphs of complaining I did still derive enough enjoyment from the core of roaming NR’s giant playground urinating everywhere, barging into homes with a boot to the door, and behaving as an all-around menace to unlock that platinum trophy. Plus, I have heard the perspective of how it should be taken into consideration the number of years it took P2 to reach its current level of quality. Albeit I do believe the counterargument of that game having originally been built on significantly stronger groundwork blows that defense out of the water. Seriously, the sole instance one of the primary story stages in this adventure carries a comparable vibe to any of its predecessors is a brief off-map excursion where you’re captured by cannibalistic hillbillies. A sequence offering further proof of the potential the studio has to create a solid work of full horror if they’d garner the confidence to risk stepping away from their comfort zone. So I don’t hate this. I’m simply of the opinion that if this is the best RWS can do anymore then perhaps they should let others take the reins from now on. Reports are reception to Brain Damaged was warm…
7/10
I went with the console release here. Not just because my standard, non-gaming PC can’t handle a title this recent, but also due to it simply being kind of amazing to me to finally see the property branching out and becoming available to more than solely the mouse and keyboard community. I must confess RWS did a fantastic job of bringing it over too. Everything from shooting to driving and all your other inputs feels so natural and smooth that you’d find it hard to believe this wasn’t originally designed with a controller first in mind. I sincerely hope the PlayStation ports perform well enough to receive any of the future updates and expansions that are on the horizon, such as the announced upcoming addition of co-op. They have certainly been getting the same patches to date. Outside of a few minor issues, one of which did require me to start an extra playthrough I hadn’t intended on because a couple of the collectibles either didn’t spawn or the game failed to register I picked them up for some reason, the PS5 version at least is mostly stable showing things have come a long way for No Regerts since launch despite not being totally free of bugs and moments of broken hostile AI yet. You’ll also find the secondary go-kart vehicle and bonus of getting to choose your own voice actor have been included as well. The latter being particularly appreciated because Jon St. John makes the Dude sound more like the Nerd.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of people declaring this is merely trying (and failing) to be Postal 2 again, and I personally don’t think that’s an accurate or fair statement. To me, P4 is clearly striving to expand upon that game in the manner you would expect from a good successor. I’m not just referring to the greatly increased size of its world in comparison either. New features like the ability to buy special permits so that you can run around with your weapons unholstered without interference from the police, backpacks that will upgrade the player’s inventory space to literally unlimited capacity, chain-scythes that allow you to grapple onto specific points in the environment, and a drop kick maneuver that will send victims ragdolling through the air for crazy distances add to the ridiculous absurdity of the action in ways wholly befitting of the brand, while the optional “rampages” challenges which offer direction and concrete rewards for the violent, destructive tendencies you’d probably engage in anyway make so much sense you’ll wonder why they don’t show up on the map.
Not every attempt at modernizing the property’s well-established formula hits the mark, however. For example, the inclusion of alternate outfits and Fortnite-style emotes come off as superfluous until the option to roam “Edensin” with friends eventually drops, as the local inhabitants seemingly haven’t been programmed to react to you doing push-ups in the middle of a department store while wearing Zack Ward’s threads from the movie adaptation. It’s the side-quests that seriously fall on their face though. For starters, I only ever stumbled onto two in my 33 hours with the game (why are these also not marked on the map?), and worse they were incredibly mundane. I dug holes to help a guy recover his missing drugs that he couldn’t remember where he buried and was tasked with cleaning another fella’s mansion of blood, cum, and fecal splatter ahead of his next BDSM fling. It’s worth mentioning I couldn’t bring myself to finish that second one, because on top of potentially being glitched due to some of those stains simply refusing to wash away the task kept going on for what felt like forever. I just ended up shooting the quest giver in the head, losing out on any on the goodies I would’ve otherwise received, and running off to do anything else. A shame since the deeper I went into the many rooms the more evident it became that the kinky sex stuff was part of a dark occult ritual that may have had a nice payoff by the conclusion. An interesting touch of creepy environmental storytelling.
Yet, although definitely an undeniable flaw, the inconsistent quality of its supporting content isn’t what brings the package down. No, Postal 4 has proven divisive and disappointing for even longtime fans due to its overall lackluster and flat vision. A big question I guess we all should have had in the back of ours minds beforehand was how the heck Running with Scissors was actually going to pull off delivering a worthy follow-up to arguably the most controversial products the gaming industry has ever spawned as of this writing in our highly sensitive modern age. Pushing the boundaries of good taste and spitting in the face of moral standards was super popular back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s when the series was at its peak. But today? Maaaan, do anything remotely offensive and the internet is coming after you with its full fury. Evidently aware of that fact, the eccentric Tucson devs opted for a bit of a rebrand of sorts. On the About section of their website and various social media platforms they describe themselves as a maker of “outrageous” experiences, implying their releases are more wacky and over-the-top than sources of genuine umbrage for people with certain sensibilities. The problem? There’s nothing that goofy or outlandish here.
It isn’t until Thursday with its motocross races on mobility scooters and dives into VR with Tron-esque visuals that you witness so much as a hint of the gonzo imagination that made Paradise Lost a delightful blast. If I had to guess I’d wager they wanted to replicate Postal 2’s hook of assigning us a daily to-do list of humdrum, everyday IRL objectives, but completely missed the part where we could turn them into exciting messes of bloody chaos and dark humor through our actions. Essentially bypassing the boring true to reality bits of waiting in line and such altogether. Can’t do that in Regerts. Choosing to gun down all of the homeless squatters when acting as a sewer worker doesn’t grant you a means of skipping the need to screw in those lightbulbs and unclog the pipes before moving on, unfortunately. It leads to the main missions being rather dull the majority of the time. The same is true of the comedy. In their desperate bid to upset as few as humanly possible, they’ve neutered the satirical element almost entirely in favor of very safe and half-hearted Trump, border wall, and Covid references that have zilch to say on the topics, mixed with (often literal) toilet humor. A single one-off segment poking fun at the whole 2022 election rigging debacle that truly had me laughing out loud stands as the sole reprieve from a constant stream of jokes that fail to leave an impression. Shoot, even the subtitle is a pun stolen from that movie We’re the Millers, only far less funny.
This restraining of Postal’s angsty soul has stripped it of personality right down to the world design too. Outside of a few notable locations, buildings carry the appearance of being compromised of a bunch of Unity asset store flips and NPCs are of the same caliber as any of the non-bangable ones in your average forever early access, Together BnB-style adult indie project on Steam.
To conclude I’ll admit, in spite of my paragraphs of complaining I did still derive enough enjoyment from the core of roaming NR’s giant playground urinating everywhere, barging into homes with a boot to the door, and behaving as an all-around menace to unlock that platinum trophy. Plus, I have heard the perspective of how it should be taken into consideration the number of years it took P2 to reach its current level of quality. Albeit I do believe the counterargument of that game having originally been built on significantly stronger groundwork blows that defense out of the water. Seriously, the sole instance one of the primary story stages in this adventure carries a comparable vibe to any of its predecessors is a brief off-map excursion where you’re captured by cannibalistic hillbillies. A sequence offering further proof of the potential the studio has to create a solid work of full horror if they’d garner the confidence to risk stepping away from their comfort zone. So I don’t hate this. I’m simply of the opinion that if this is the best RWS can do anymore then perhaps they should let others take the reins from now on. Reports are reception to Brain Damaged was warm…
7/10