Go POSTAL: Official Website of POSTAL 2

To the delight of Senator Joe Lieberman, the twisted minds behind Postal 2 have returned with an all new adventure for the Postal Dude.

Postal 2 Apocalypse Weekend opens with the classic anti-hero Postal Guy recovering from a head injury in a local hospital. Of course all manner of ills are brewing to set the oh so volatile Dude off. First, his trailer has been repossessed, and his dog has been taken to the pound. If this is not bad enough, his old lady has decided to move back in with her mother, which is not such bad news in the dudes mind.

When the Dude checks out, he soon finds himself battling his head wound and all manner of demonic imps as he makes his way from the hospital to the streets of the city in a series of missions. The first such mission is to eradicate a restaurant full of Zombies. Not just the run of the mill zombies, but Mad Cow, infested Zombies. If this was not enough, then the Dude must wage war against a field of mad-cow infected cattle with a sledge hammer. Just be careful where you toss the hammer or the term stuck, will take on an entirely new meaning.

The subsequent mission has the Dude battling Mad Zombies with the Running with Scissors crew before ending up against a seedy software publisher and his minions.

For most, this would be more than enough for an add on pack, or even a game, but not for the Dude, he still has a second day of mayhem to endure is various locales ranging form an Elephant preserve to a terrorist training camp complete with obstacle course.

Just when you think the game is winding down, a nice twist has you arrest by the military and having to escape only to face a gauntlet of final challenges.

While a bad attitude and a thirst to stick it to the man power the dude, what makes his day is venting his frustrations via his arsenal which includes a shovel, a police baton, tazer, pistol, shotgun, machine, gun, rocket launcher, grenades, scissors, and much more. Old favorites such as the diseased cow head and the gas can and matches also return to rev up the hijinx. Not content to give you more of the same, the game offers a series of new weapons including, a boomerang machete, scythe and previously mentioned sledgehammer.

Sure the graphics of the game are showing their age as the Unreal engine the game is based on is in need of an upgrade, but that is not the point of the game. The game is about the achievement of a small development house as well as action and deviant humor which it has this in spades. I think one of the most telling aspects of the game was when I was showing it to a guest at our housewarming last weekend. This guest is in his 50's and is not a fan of shooters though he did like playing Doom and Doom 2 back in the day. He watched the carnage and the sharp humor and was unable to pull himself away. This is a guy who watches South Park but hates Beavis and Butthead-Crank Yankers, and as he calls it gross out humor, but he found the game compelling enough to keep him interested in my exploits.

Some my find issue with the gross out factors, the violence or a few of the glitches in the game. I chose to focus on the fun and had a great time. The countdown for Postal 3 has begun.

8 out of 10

Gareth Von Kallenbach
www.sknr.net

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