From the dawn of its creation, difficulty has been an integral part of the Postal series. In Postal 2, the game has many options for difficulty, but the easiest is Liebermode, and the toughest is Hestonworld. Postal 2 STP introduced They Hate Me as a difficulty beyond Hestonworld. A Week in Paradise added the last two difficulties, making the game even more of a challenge. As the difficulty increases, enemies have better weapons and more power, although their health is unaffected for the most part. On the Hestonworld difficulty, bystanders get very good weapons such as Shotguns, and Machine Guns and the occasional Rocket Launcher or grenade.
Insane-o is simply an upgraded version of Hestonworld, giving bystanders even stronger weapons. They Hate Me changes the game entirely, as you can no longer complete a pacifist run (without nigh impossible luck or use cheats) because every armed bystander (and police) will attack you for being too close to their proximity and line of sight, especially with a weapon drawn. This is the same for difficulties beyond They Hate Me. The player will also be unable to normally purchase any items past Insane-o. Although the hardest difficulties have been changed, they are balanced quite interestingly.
In Postal 2 Complete, there is a secret code that unlocks the ability to make your own custom difficulty. The game must first be beaten on at least POSTAL 2 mode (Monday To Friday) to be able to input the code. Go to New Game and input the following via the D-Pad or the arrow keys:
UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A
This is the old Konami code in Nintendo games.
Beyond They Hate Me and Postal 2 Complete/original AWP differences
- In Postal 2 Complete, on the Impossible difficulty, enemies are given more health, and are not as easily disposed of with fire.
- In both games, playing beyond They Hate Me puts the game in a special harder mode which only lets you save once per loading zone, and all healing items smaller than a medkit are used up instantly, similar to the item itself.
- In Postal 2 Complete, the petition errand on Tuesday is skipped due to the police uniform being removed.
- In AWP, it is possible to play the harder difficulties with Enhanced mode. You must play them without enhanced mode in Postal 2 Complete.
- It was also possible to pick up food items while having 100 HP and uselessly using them up instantly. This was fixed in Postal 2 Complete.
- In AWP, on the hardest difficulties, bystanders can wield even the strongest weapons such as nukes, or sawed-off shotguns on occasion, being able to kill the Dude in one or a few hits sometimes, where as in Postal 2 Complete, the most powerful weapon enemies will have is a Rocket Launcher.
- In AWP, the final 2 difficulties added were 'Nightmare Mode' and 'Really Fucking Hard'; this was changed to 'POSTAL' and 'Impossible' respectively in Postal 2 Complete.
- In AWP you can pick up and hold on to Health Pipes and M@DJ@cK@L's bong and Weed like normal, but Postal 2 Complete switches up the deal by changing the health pipes themselves into basically reskinned medkits, and there are no M@DJ@cK@L items in Postal 2 Complete.
- In both games, the Chompy Game Cartridge will still add its rewards directly into the player's inventory, this is also true if the player purchases an item.
- In Postal 2 Complete, when the game is beaten under the POSTAL or Impossible Difficulty, it will unlock a new menu option under options.
- In Postal 2 Complete, the game will automatically make a checkpoint save before a dangerous fight, or obstacle, which does not interfere with the saving limitation.
- In Postal 2 Complete, on the higher difficulties, the player is given a fish finder with infinite lifetime.
- Postal 2 Complete aids the player by placing more Healing items and catnip around for the player to use. Most notably during the weekend.
- Enhanced Mode gives many more bonuses in Postal 2 Complete when compared to the original AWP.
Gallery
