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Who said Postal doesn't have a storyline?
This article may contain significant plot details, please read at your own risk. |
"They're out to get you (or are they?)" — Box Art Template:Infobox VG POSTAL (known as Going Postal in Europe) is the first game in the POSTAL franchise. The development began in 1996 and was released in November 1997 by Running With Scissors and Ripcord Games. At the time, the game was very controversial due to the higher than usual violence and brutality, and therefore was banned in over 10+ countries.
Plot
The plot of POSTAL is deliberately kept vague as to not distract from the gameplay. From what can be gathered through the original website, manual, and the game itself, an average man known only as the Postal Dude discovers that a mind altering substance has been released on the town of Paradise, infecting the populace with insanity and bloodlust. Capped off by his sudden eviction from his home, the Postal Dude believes himself to be the only sane man left and sets out to put an end to the madness in his town, which he believes originates from the local Air-Force Base.
The game ends with the Postal Dude experiencing some sort of psychotic episode; he attempts to murder a group of elementary school students at recess, but realizes that his weapons are useless as the children are seemingly unaffected. After passing out, he's presumably captured and incarcerated in a mental institution.
The ending movie features a doctor making a report on the Dude's psyche, commenting on the phenomena of "going postal" and how the stresses of modern life can drive one to madness. The Dude himself is shown lying in a padded cell, straight-jacket bound, suggesting he was truly insane all along.
Gameplay
The game primarily has an isometric point of view, but some levels are set in a top-down perspective. The main objective of each level is to kill a certain number of hostiles. Enemies range from pistol wielding police, bomb throwing vigilantes, rifle toting SWAT teams, and rocket firing soldiers, among others. In addition to hostiles, each map has a number of unarmed civilians that the player has the option of killing. There is no reward or punishment for killing civilians. One also has the ability to execute "downed" (a state of near death where the target is crawling on the ground after being shot a number of times) hostiles/civilians which is completely optional holding no punishment or reward. Basically, the goal is to survive against waves of enemies while killing/executing as many or as little bystanders as you like.
Throughout each level, weapon and health pickups can be collected that aid the player in combat. After killing a given percentage of hostiles in a level, the player must press F1 to move on to the next level.
In addition to the Single Player Campaign, there is also a Challenge Mode (known as the Gauntlet) and a Level Editor where the players can create their own levels to play.
Multiplayer
The Game features a multiplayer mode for 15 players that can be played in LAN or the RWS server base. Due to the very high amount of glitches and connection problems, the mode was very unpopular. There are three modes:
- Going Postal: The typical Deathmatch, 2 to 15 players kill each other on any map of the single player levels. The player who kills more wins at the end.
- Capture The Flag (CTF): Two teams (Green and Yellow) are placed in a random spot of the arena and must capture the flag of the enemy and bring it back to the marked spot that is randomly generated. The team who captures the flag at least 3 times are victorious.
- The March: A challenge mode, two to six players are placed on the spawn but they cannot hurt one another like in Going Postal. They must kill the maximum amount of civilians in the quickest time as possible to earn points displayed on the top screen. The player who gets more points at the end wins.
Santa Patch
On December of 1997, a special patch was released to make POSTAL more christmasy. This included new lines for the Postal Dude and enemies, reskinned enemies into Santa Clauses, reskinned throwables into presents and Reindeer Ostrich. A Link to the patch found below.
Steam Version
On March 21st, 2013, POSTAL was re-released on Steam with several updates allowing the game to be played on modern hardware, a higher resolution, and widescreen support. However, this version removes the Multiplayer and the Level Editor.
On October 5th, 2015, the game received a major update which implemented proper twin-stick controller support.
Remake
Main Article: POSTAL Redux
POSTAL: Redux was released on May 20th 2016. Redux was developed in Unreal Engine 4 with almost all of the assets rebuilt from scratch in 4K definition and features a new arcadey Rampage Mode.
Hatred
Main Article: Hatred
A spiritual successor named Hatred was also announced on October 16th 2014 to massive Postal-esque controversy. Developed by Destructive Creations with no input from Running With Scissors, the game was released on June 1st, 2015 and currently holds a "Mostly Positive" rating on Steam.
Open Source
On December 28th 2016, the Source Code was released under the GPL2 license to the public. The source code can be found at the link below.
Along with the release of the source code, Running With Scissors have turned POSTAL 1 over to the fans to further improve the game as RWS currently has their plate full with other projects. The best mods/restorations are to be added into the game officially.
Trivia
- The Postal Dude (by default as it can be changed in the multiplayer settings) wears a red coat in the original disc version of Postal yet the first color on the list (as the config lists them by number) is black (which is number zero).
- This entry in the series is noted for being the darkest and most disturbing. Most people who are familiar with Postal 2 and its crude, over-the-top humor are often surprised to find out how radically different the sequel and first game are from each-other.
- The voice heard within gameplay voiced by Rick Hunter is not the Postal Dude speaking, but another voice (implied to be a demon) in his head taunting him and commanding him to kill. This is verifiable by the fact that within the game's files, this voice is labelled as "demon".
- Postal's Central Park theme was a sample from the Altered States sample collection. The track is called "Is That The Door?" This sample was used in other pieces of entertainment, most notably 28 Days Later, and Half-Life 2. HL2's version of the sample was a reworked version made specifically for the game itself.
- In the credits, there is a person credited as "The Pain Killer" who did the story and text with Vince Desi, Steve Wik, and Mike Riedel. This was later revealed to be Bill Kunkel by Vince Desi in the RWS podcast.