The first Postal is a game that I feel is underrated in regards to what it accomplishes. What it accomplishes is a harrowing and unsettling atmosphere where the levels lack music, leaving the only sounds for the player to hear being the screams of those they've slain echoing through the wind and the sounds of their weapons.

When music does appear, it's all very droning and is paired with loading screens that feature grotesque artwork. The dude makes comments like in the other games but he's quite a bit more sadistic and uncaring in this game compared to later ones (and might not even be the dude himself if the file names tell us anything)

No hate to the later games intended but the first one is it's own beast, decidedly more horror in nature and less dark comedy.

More a mood piece than a functional video game and just a really strange example of something with such repetitive shooting gameplay yet the atmosphere and the storytelling and just the sort of feelings conveyed with it definitely compelled me. What's so interesting is how staggeringly different this is from Postal 2 both in terms of their interactivity (this is literally just shoot people to complete the level.) and also in terms of their tones where this one favours way more of this dark, angsty tone and seems to favour psychological horror above black comedy. This game's relationship with horror is the same as Postal 2's relationship with black comedy is and vice versa - like this starts off with Se7en esque title sequences and noisy industrial music just exuding dread. Some of the Postal Dude's quips and some parts of the game definitely do have understated dark humour behind it but unlike Postal 2 - it's not like the overwhelming element of it. That said, god, both games are just not at all subtle with their storytelling and I guess also notable is how the September 11th attacks happened in between the two games and this one just seems more focused on the psychology behind a spree killer and the inexplicable nature of it. Who knows what makes people tick?

Also definitely is elements of this game that feel edgy for the sake of edginess and it's also definitely a game that's very short and minimalist and will probably take you about three hours tops to complete. I dunno but this was kind of a weird stress relief game for me. Nothing relieves stress more than a game where you just gun down a bunch of people for the sake of it. Oh, also the fire mechanics in this are kind of fun but nowhere near as fun as Postal 2's fire mechanics. Also you can't urinate in this game but you can definitely still kill yourself. Oh how times change.

Uh yeah. Did anyone know this game existed without just logically deducing it from Postal 2? Possibly.

Quite different from the more popular Postal 2, but still enjoyable in a way. The gameplay begs for more weapons and ways to kill your enemies, but what can you do.

They nailed the atmosphere, it's surreal and creepy going around looking for that one hostile so you can go to the next level, and you look at all of the dead bodies. Mix that with some creepy ambience, it really makes you think what you've done.

Today's patches make this game play like it's remake, Postal Redux and that's a BIG improvement. Trust me, this game would be insane and i'd give it 1 star if you could only play only with a keyboard.