Postal III Review

I remember, Postal 3 was announced back when Postal 2 was burning computers, monitors, and the minds of schoolchildren of all ages with napalm. People were still impaling cats instead of silencers, shooting the relatively peaceful population of a small virtual town called Paradise (well, we were all running around in Paradise back then), remembering the main local jokes, and were generally ready to come back and continue the fun when the first reports appeared that yes, Postal 3 was in development. And then it got even better – it turned out that the game was being developed by the domestic developers who were still somewhat proudly parading in front of the grateful public. Even the screenshots presented by “Akella” were pleasing. But a year passed, two, three…

…and however many more there were, until the end of 2011, when the already half-forgotten, half-rejuvenated, and simply ignorant audience was presented with that very Postal 3 from that very “Akella”.

We are watching

To say “you’re late” means to say nothing. The whole point of developing the third part of the widely popular trash shooter was to continue the amazingly vulgar banquet. It’s not that it had ended – in the place of the previous debauchery, generations of world flowers had already grown. Chaos in a large virtual sandbox managed to break through from rare ambitious projects into the mainstream and evolved into total destruction of entire cities and even small island nations, while vulgar non-conventional three-dimensional jokes ceased to shock long ago. It is very difficult to understand what exactly “Akella” was counting on by releasing a product from the mid-2000s here and now.

Well, the company could have adapted its old project to new standards, shaken up the gameplay, but none of this was allowed, either by the budget that had already run out in the hairy year or by laziness. Breaking through loading screens, intro videos, and other start menus, I saw exactly the same game that I had the pleasure of examining in screenshots during the reign of King Pea.

Judging by the logos (as well as the game console), Postal 3 runs on the Source engine. I must admit, I have never seen anyone manage to ruin the wonderful creation of Valve Software like this. First of all, no Source project has ever lagged as much as P3 does. That is, no Source project has ever lagged for me at all, neither on my old computer nor on the new one I bought in 2011. It’s especially ridiculous to see these 10 random fps after… Portal 2 Periodically lags everything and on any settings, from in-game graphics to the menu. The only episode with consistently fast game performance is the main screen, where the Dude sits in front of the TV and clicks the remote control.

And I have never seen (maybe I looked poorly) Source giving such a miserable picture. No, seriously – to hell with 2012, to hell with the competitors, but here you got such an amazing tool for constructing your project, you played with it for a long time, probably even planned to impress someone with your game, and now you released this? Miserable houses, decorated even poorer than in the second part (but with AG.ru on local monitors, yes), chopped NPC models, empty streets with nothing – and, I remind you, all of this is also lagging. Oh yes.

Bonus track: Postal 3 – the first game on Source that crashes when I use Alt+Tab. And also crashes when loading levels.

And I haven’t even started playing properly yet.

Let’s play

Remember what was the worst element of the game series. Gears of War Correct, the seizure camera, which was activated every time the main character ran.

Guess which gameplay element Postal 3 borrowed from Gears of War? That’s right, the seizure camera, which was activated every time the main character ran.

By the way, this is not a joke from the developers. When they want to joke, they make us collect tissues covered in semen with a vacuum cleaner and shoot them at the governor of Alaska. But when they show us that they’ve done rolls-cover-runs just like in that famous game, they are completely serious. It really makes you want to laugh when, after several GoW-like runs (well, with some adjustments for the poor retelling, poor graphics, and lag), you come across a poster that says “Gear Whore – Different maps, same gameplay.” I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the name, as I couldn’t really examine the texture of the poster.

Having overcome the “training” missions, I finally broke through to the claustrophobic expanses of our cheerful town. Or maybe not, because in the “town” there was some annoying glitch with completely closed levels two to three meters high. I had already started to suspect that the whole new “Postal” would teleport me from one microscopic location to another, but then I was attacked by the workers of the “Mexi-sushi” restaurant.

It turned out that, firstly, in Postal 3, it can sometimes be funny in a good way, and secondly, that shootouts in the old-new game are more like Freedom Fighters than Gears of War. There was such a good game, by the way, with a pretty trashy storyline. The same over-the-shoulder camera, emphasis on headshots, and overall combat mechanics. You know, it could have been worse. After all, the second part of our “Postal” was almost unplayable in terms of shootouts, and here we have a very decent shooter, even though it continues to lag and crash.

For the suffering old-school sadists, take note – silencer cats, gasoline, and a “wrench” are still there. My failing memory suggests that when it comes to crazy ways to get rid of enemies and anyone who gets in the way, the third part of the series has surpassed the previous ones. However, to go into detail about the new means of inducing nausea in the townspeople, bottles with bullet-time, and other joys of a crazy life would be like spoiling the coolest plot twist of a recently purchased trash horror movie on a disc. So if you are planning to buy (or worse, have already bought) the new “Postal,” enjoy the wonderful and marvelous discoveries, let’s not spoil that pleasure for you.

(Do not) pass by

Okay, now onto the good stuff. As mentioned above, Postal 3 can be really funny. Essentially, the deliberately crude humor is the game’s only true (albeit very peculiar) merit. On one hand, there’s complete nonsense happening on the screen, on the other hand, various homages, allusions, and parodies are creeping into your brain, and on the third hand, there are ear-splitting voice acting and soundtrack. It makes you want to forget about everything, ignore the brakes and the raw gameplay, and push through the stages just to see what’s next. However, the enthusiasm usually doesn’t last long, until the next crash.

After about the fifth restart, eating cactus becomes annoying. Really annoying. Postal 3 has three critical flaws: first, the fact that the game was released several years late, second – despite the long development period, the project came out unfinished technically. And the third flaw stems from the first two – who needs it all when it’s been several months since it was released. Saints Row 3, where there is almost everything the same and much more, but none of the problems mentioned above?

If you have been chasing crowds of unhappy computer citizens in Postal 2 until the last moment, then it makes sense to switch to a new game. Good advice to everyone else – spend your money and time on something else.

P.S. Download your own patches, they are as useful as a dead man’s parking.

P.P.S. Sincerely hope that I did not write the word “Portal” instead of “Postal” anywhere.