Is the PC Game Postal Any good?

[garagesaleking!!]

There is a pc game called postal that came out a long time ago, that was so bad they banned it from stores and now you have to order it online. I have always thought about getting it but never have. Has anyone ever played it? is it good?

[Jorpho]

Twelve years, and Gamespot's review is still up. How about that?
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/postal/review.html

[roushimsx]

Fun for a little bit but overall not that great. Multiplayer games were ok and there were a few notable moments in the game that stand out.

It's only $6 on GOG (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/postal_classic_and_uncut) if you want to bite the bullet. I'm debating on if I want to spend $10 on the sequel (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/postal_2_complete) knowing that it also suffers from being not-that-great in that special kind of way that sort of justifies the cost. Sort of. Hrmmmm....

[lazyhoboguy]

I never played the first but have played postal 2. It is fun doing the sick demented stuff in the game but it gets repetitive and boring after awhile. Plus loading times are very very bad. Every time you walk 20 feet there is a long ass loading screen. I have yet to finish the game, the only thing that keeps me going is that the cut scenes are funny sometimes.

my exploding head sig is from postal 2

[Diosoth]

If you get Postal 2, you should probably buy the "cereal box" setup. It's got the latest version of the game, apocalypse Weekend and a few fan mods thrown in. They also have the original Postal included.

Unfortunately, the game is buggy. Blame the Unreal Engine. RWS seems to hate it, to the point that Postal III switched over to Source.

[G-Boobie]

Its a mindless exercise from start to finish. Whether you enjoy it or not depends on how much fun you can derive from stupid, pointless ultra-violence.

The deck for that game should be "We're trying too hard to piss off your mom".

[Jorpho]

RWS seems to hate it, to the point that Postal III switched over to Source.They actually made a third one? I didn't know that.

Did that "Complete Guide to Going Postal" mentioned in that review ever surface?

[roushimsx]

Unfortunately, the game is buggy. Blame the Unreal Engine. RWS seems to hate it, to the point that Postal III switched over to Source.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Postal III were buggy as hell considering the first game using their own inhouse engine was a buggy, slowdown-ridden mess. Blaming the Unreal 2 engine is a bit misleading, especially when other games like Chaos Theory, Republic Commando, Tribes: Vengeance, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Rainbow Six 3 all used the same version of the engine without any real problems.

RWS just needs to spend more time QA'ing their stuff. Troika was in the same boat, but they had the benefit of a fan community that was more than willing to do their work for them (especially since they, you know, shut down).

[Diosoth]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Postal III were buggy as hell considering the first game using their own inhouse engine was a buggy, slowdown-ridden mess. Blaming the Unreal 2 engine is a bit misleading, especially when other games like Chaos Theory, Republic Commando, Tribes: Vengeance, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Rainbow Six 3 all used the same version of the engine without any real problems.

RWS just needs to spend more time QA'ing their stuff. Troika was in the same boat, but they had the benefit of a fan community that was more than willing to do their work for them (especially since they, you know, shut down).

It also wasn't designed for what the game was. Missions and an open-ended world aren't typcal FPS design. However, I'd hardly call Tribes: Vengeance a game of quality since it relies on heavy fog. The game came out around the time of Serious Sam and doesn't even compare to it.

But calling Unreal a perfect engine is a lie. Pandemic is using the current version for Destroy All Humans: POTF and they claim the engine is so buggy it's causing delays. And given that Epic is a dirty, greedy company that hates even their own fans, I wouldn't put it past them to provide poor code to licensors at random.

I had a retail copy of Unreal Tournament GOTY edition(actually purchased) and one day it randomly decided it didn't want to work anymore. Even reinstalling didn't cure the problem. Oh well, Quake III ended up being more fun.

And I could see Epic fans getting butthurt since even Vince Desi has had no problems insulting Epic, despite having a business deal with them for the Unreal engine. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnqYvMvKIgU&feature=channel_page) But if they're going to peddle inferior game engines and sue their fans for making custom toys, well, screw Epic.

[roushimsx]

It also wasn't designed for what the game was. Missions and an open-ended world aren't typcal FPS design. However, I'd hardly call Tribes: Vengeance a game of quality since it relies on heavy fog. The game came out around the time of Serious Sam and doesn't even compare to it.

But calling Unreal a perfect engine is a lie. Pandemic is using the current version for Destroy All Humans: POTF and they claim the engine is so buggy it's causing delays. And given that Epic is a dirty, greedy company that hates even their own fans, I wouldn't put it past them to provide poor code to licensors at random.
In this thread we should all: Randomly compare two dissimilar games using different engines and favor one over the other for its technical merits rather than its gameplay
Complain about the performance of a present iteration of a game engine and apply that criticism against that engine's technological grandfather.
Use the first two points to support our hatred for the engine developer and insinuate that said developer just hates gamers
To be fair, I've heard quite a few developers complain about the present generation of the Unreal engine (especially based on what Epic promised and what they delivered with it), but blaming their engine for RWS' inability to do any sort of proper research prior to licensing an engine to suit their game design is a bit misguided. RWS did an awful job with their own in house engine, they did a poor job with the Unreal engine and I have no doubt that they'll do a poor job with the Source engine.

Let's face it, their strength is in running a gimmick in the ground and getting some good laughs out of it, not game design, art or programming.

Oh, and if makes you feel any better, Serious Sam came out in 2001 (within a week of Tribes 2's original buggy as fuck release, actually) while Tribes Vengeance came out in 2004.

[ProgrammingAce]

Unreal engine 3 has some real technical and support issues. The original Unreal engine wasn't perfect, but it was the best multi-use engine on the planet at the time. If you couldn't make a technically competent game using it, then you fail as a developer.

If nothing else, it's the developer's job to pick an engine that fits their game. If Running with Scissors picked an engine that didn't fit their needs, then it falls on them. I can't take an engine built for puzzle games, try to turn it into an FPS, then bitch when it runs like crap.