It's funny that a disgraced 90s rockstar fart has something to reveal about FPS.

We have gone from understanding the space designed for the challenge of navigation and combat to offering it as a scripted process between arenas with action at 2 heights (maybe 3-4)

One of the things I remember about Duke Nukem 3d was the arsenal and the architectural makeup contributed to a slightly more irreverent (and farting) aesthetic that differentiated it from any Doom clone, ironic that forever feels like a frankenstein from the 2000 shooter without nothing that differentiates it beyond his big mouth

There is a way to look at Operation Anchorage and read it as a scathing satire of the state of first person shooter campaigns circa 2009. The extreme linearity, the way everyone treats you as the biggest badass, the lack of any meaningful lore or side content. You could look at that and see it being Bethesda saying "look how boring other first person games are. Ours is big and open and and so much Content™!" The problem is that the DLC does absolutely nothing to encourage that reading so instead we're left with an incredibly boring shooter campaign. It really seems like they looked at Call of Duty, looked at their dev tools, and said "yeah we can do that too!"

There is one bit of writing in this that I find particularly interesting: before you go into the simulation there is a terminal that suggests that certain elements of the simulation itself may be exaggerated or incorrect because of the person it was based upon. So you go in thinking that it might get weird (or maybe even wacky) but instead there's nothing that wouldn't reasonable exist in the Fallout universe.

In short, this DLC is a massive missed opportunity and a waste of time.

What if Overwatch was the same game but with wildly predatory microtransactions, overpriced skins, and no progression system. You've just made Overwatch 2.

Here we are again with another F2P game that learns zero lessons from Fortnite. Put premium currency in your pass and make it easy to level up! Encourage people to play your game because it's fun to progress. Don't encourage them to play under the threat of falling behind.

Biggest bummer about all this is that the game itself is actually fun as heck. After the server issues were resolved, I hopped on for a few hours and had a blast. I loved Overwatch and sank dozens of hours into it back in the day. I would love to play more Overwatch... it just sucks that the new hook Blizzard wants you to chomp down on basically requires you to spend money.

+ More Overwatch

- It's just more Overwatch
- Terrible microtransaztions

Before moving on from Postal 2 for a bit to see what the later entries in the franchise have to offer, there was one last stone I had to turn over. This officially licensed Russian expansion from, get this, Akella and one of its own internal studios. Yeah, that’s right. The company responsible for the nigh universally hated Postal III. After playing this though, it's not hard to see why Running with Scissors might have thought they'd be up to the task of making the third main installment. It’s actually quite solid.

That's because this is more along the lines of a fan-made total conversion mod than anything. The new protagonist even uses the exact same character model as the Dude despite what the cover art shows for crying out loud. So, this is enjoyable simply because base P2 is enjoyable. That’s not to say there aren’t any distinguishing characteristics to make it worthwhile. You can tell most of the effort went into the entirely original map. I’ve never been to Russia, but this looks like nearly every picture I’ve seen of a typical Russian town and considering it was made by actual citizens from there I’d wager it’s a pretty accurate, if somewhat satirized given the property’s brand, depiction that’s a blast to explore. There are also a ton of cool new NPC models to check out, a few of which are surprisingly detailed and well done.

I think the biggest thing people will have a problem with here is the writing. So far this is the most immature piece of the Postal series I’ve experienced, and I highly doubt that will differ by the time I’m finished with my marathon through it. The plot which puts you in the role of an amnesiac ex-pornstar on a quest to recover his missing manhood after awaking to find himself the victim of an unwanted sex-change operation feels as if it was penned by a bunch of twelve-year-olds. The "comedy" frequently dips into homophobic and borderline transphobic “jokes” because that was the sort of thing that was funny back in the 2000s, especially in countries like that. Plus, there’s a shocking amount of smut as well. RWS was prone to throwing up images of those half-naked IRL models they used to promote the games with on walls here and there, but Corkscrew Rules regularly displays blatant pornography in the form of fully nude women on its posters and billboards!

So, should you check this out? Only if you can handle what is easily the most offensive content any Postal game has to offer. Not to mention, it can be kind of a pain to get a translated/dubbed version running if you too aren't very computer savvy since the one on Steam's Workshop is broken (although not being able to understand the dialogue would probably be a plus). For better and worse though, this is essentially Russian Postal 2 and it's pretty fascinating because of that.

7/10

Random notes you may find interesting:

- The campaign only goes from Monday to Thursday rather than the whole workweek

- Objectives are doled out in a linear manner, and even when you are given the option to visit more than a single place at a time you're supposed to do it in a specific order.

- In the original, unmodified version you can't pee and there are only three new weapons, but in the tweaked English-dubbed release they reskinned a couple guns to better fit the setting, added a drunk visual effect whenever you drink vodka, and gave you the ability to urinate, but only straight down (because you have a vagina instead of a penis).

- Believe it or not, there is a legitimately humorous bit where every secretary you talk to in a business just sends you to a different one on another floor before you can eventually reach "the boss" you were looking for in the first place. It stands as the sole clever moment in the entire package.

You know, for the big, bad black sheep of the Postal franchise I was expecting something a whole lot worse. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some deluded apologist fan trying to convince you this is actually a misunderstood masterpiece or even a good game at all. I'm just saying it's more a cheap and disappointing product than the unplayable affront it's known as. Honestly, I've played a little over half the property's entries and expansions at this point, and PIII is about par for the course in terms of quality. Sorry, not sorry.

Its biggest problem is budgetary, which has continuously proved to be the only thing that has been more detrimental to the series' reputation and reception than even its controversial content. Running with Scissors passed development of the project off to Akella, the company responsible for publishing their works in Russia, and one of its internal studios fittingly named "Trashmasters" because those guys had deeper pockets. Unfortunately, the country's Great Recession from 08-09 completely mucked up any chances for the potential greatness that you can still catch the occasional glimpses of while playing.

The whole package was built around the idea of replayability, featuring a branching storyline that will lead you to one of three possible endings depending on your choices and behavior. The notion of getting to see entirely new content in the form of different missions and cutscenes is as compelling in this format as it is in your typical Western narrative RPG, although it's more than a bit weird that they decided for outcomes to be determined by a morality system. I mean, actively encouraging players to be upstanding, law-abiding citizens in a Postal game?! What sense does that make?

Ultimately however, I didn't find the gameplay enticing enough to pull me back in to go for another ending, and not simply because I feel I happened to pick the most interesting path of the bunch on that first playthrough either. The financial struggles behind the scenes led to this being nothing more than a generic, linear third-person shooter. Admittedly one that can be mindlessly entertaining due to the fun gore and silly guns, even if some weapons don't seem to work (I'm convinced it's impossible to hit anyone with the fire axe). Might have earned a cautious recommendation were it not for the plethora of technical issues. As if long levels without checkpoints weren't enough, I experienced multiple crashes to desktop and repeated instances of critical doors inexplicably failing to open that forced regular mission restarts.

Never knowing if something was about to go wrong and cause me to have to replay possibly lengthy stretches of a stage if I didn't remember to manually save every few minutes is what really kills this for me. I legitimately enjoyed the return to a more grounded style and tone after Apocalypse Weekend, and found the writing fitfully amusing by virtue of how nasty and vulgar they were willing to be with the shock humor in their blatant efforts to offend. It is perhaps worthier of the Postal name than the vast majority give it credit for. Regardless, while I believe the overall general vitriol this has received over the years is a tad overblown, I wouldn't recommend the curious members of the fanbase check it out. The dev's lack of proper funds led to this being too unstable and lackluster to be a fulfilling use of your time. It may be too early to tell for sure as I've still got quite a few releases left to try, but based on all I've gotten to thus far I'm beginning to suspect this property doesn't have anything consequential to offer after its second outing.

5/10