I’ve really enjoyed the Postal 2 demo since I downloaded it based on a recommendation in an older Cafe Society thread. (IIRC, most violent video games).
Having exhausted all possible different kills and tricks in the Demo version, (thanks to ‘set gamestate demotime 9999’), I’m now debating whether to get the full version.
So I put it to my fellow SDMB Gamers - is it worth it? Any favorite weapons / kills / scenes that weren’t in the Demo level?
I didn’t play the demo, but I bet it didn’t have “enhanced game” option after you beat it once.
Among other things, in an enhanced game you piss napalm.
I also downloaded the demo after reading about it here. And I bought the full version maybe a week later.
I’d say it’s very much worth it. Many more weapons- my favorite would have to be the heat-seeking missle launcher. Groups of townspeople out to get you. Truly bizzare hidden areas. Pissing in the vats at the local brewry… I gould go on and on. But I hate spoilers, so I won’t.
There’s a fairly good CompUSA level floating around the mod community. If the Wally-World level is ever finished, my life will be complete.
The only thing that bugs me is the load time between areas.
There have been, I should note, a LOT of bad reviews of this game, and not just from wussy anti-violence crusaders, but also from swear-spewing gamerboys. While it serves as a refresher course in simplistic potty humor, apparently the gameplay is pretty lousily designed.
They’re just bitching because there is no multiplayer/online action yet, right Apos?
I’ve been reading about this game in a few places, and was wondering whether or not I should buy it, what with my cash flow being a PITA these days.
But what you said about your reviewer just sealed the deal. I’m off to CompUSA by first light tomorrow 
I played around with the demo for quite awhile. I think the high point in it was playing fetch with Dude’s dog, using some unfortunate’s severed head.
All in all, I’ll wait till it hits the budget bin. Twenty bucks? Sure, if I’m not investing time into any other game at the time I see it. Forty or more? No way.
I played the demo after reading this thread this weekend, and was awestruck at how mindlessly offensive this game is. Emphasis on the “mindless.” I get a kick out of non-PC humor as long as it’s done with a bit of wit – I adore South Park – but this game has zero. None. Nada.
Wait, that’s not right. I’ve read a bunch of reviews, and several of them note that there is exactly one – ONE – joke that is clever (and I find this credible based on what I saw in the demo). On one level, you have to deal with protestors in front of a library. One of the protestors has a sign that says “Hitler wrote a book.” There, I just saved you fifty bucks.
The rest of the “jokes” are amazingly stupid. Arcade games named “Fag Hunter.” A junkyard dog that, a sign informs us, has AIDS. Protagonist commentary that he should kill the women and minorities first to be “more PC.” It’s the electronic equivelant of your preschooler laughing at making a doodie. It just ain’t funny, and you don’t have to be a Puritan to see that.
And to top it all off, the game is technically deficient as well. Bland environments. Interminable load times. Abysmal AI. The works.
Computer Gaming World has never given a game zero stars – until this one came along. There’s an interesting discussion of that rating over at another board I occasionally read, including responses from Running With Scissors, the game’s creator. Suffice it to say that they don’t acquit themselves very well.
The sad thing is, the premise of the game is solid: instead of making the player save the world, let’s make him just get through a frustrating day or days, ala Infocom’s text adventure Bureacracy. And give the player (humorous) options on how to do that – preferably a couple in addition to “stand in line” and “kill everybody.” If someone like Trey Parker and Matt Stone had done the writing, that could be a good game – offensive, yes, but offensive with a sharp wit and a sense of the absurd. As it stands, it’s just a waste of electrons.
I, personally, am tired of fps games where the hero saves the world, usually by going to an alien planet and blowing up theirs. It’s refreshing to just have a game where you kill for killing’s sake, or perhaps because the line is too long.
I agree such a game would be refreshing. I disagree that this is that game.
A better example is Grand Theft Auto 3 (and, presumably, Vice City). Not a FPS, granted, but still a game that breaks free of the conventions of the ordinary shooter, contains non-PC subject matter, and still manages to be witty and entertaining. Hell, if Running With Scissors had gotten the guys who wrote the radio scripts for GTA3 to handle all the humor in their game, Postal 2 might’ve more than a turd in a box.
Dammit. “…might’ve been more than a turd in a box.”
Wow - forgot all about this thread! Thanks for the commentary, folks. Dewey, I have played GTA3 and Vice City to death, so I may as well get the full version of this one. I don’t really care about the message nor the unoriginality of same - I know what I’m getting. But I think I’ll wait for the budget bin.
It’s your money. FWIW, I own GTA3 for the PC and enjoyed it immensely, and will probably nab Vice City at some point. I am not a gaming prude by any stretch.
The problem with the game isn’t the basic anti-PC message. It’s the childish and moronic way that message is delivered. That same message can be delivered with considerable more wit; see, e.g., South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.
The game’s handling of that message is so clumsy that it induces groans. Not just “gee, that wasn’t terribly funny” silence, but actual groans – my reaction to most of the humor was “I can’t believe someone actually thought that was clever.”
Too bad. A Bureaucracy-themed FPS could be very interesting.