By John Walker on March 25th, 2009 at 11:02 pm.
I feel terrible breaking the relaxing silence with this, but here’s some new game footage of Postal III. Fire, shooting and badgers. And it’s got some awfully raucous music on it, you know the sort, all shouting and banging and you can’t make out the words. It’s beneath.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen any signs of this in motion. There was the prison break-out level commentary last year, and the badger weapon footage before that, but what we’ve got here is a bundle of bits and bobs that show you the sort of naughty behaviour you’ll be getting up to.
There’s no hint of structure, although history suggests that’s possibly quite representative of the game. It shows off the cover system as you mow down police, passersby, old ladies, and so on, as well as the much-touted badger weapon, biting chunks out of people. And there’s the obligatory setting people on fire, although so far no sign of pissing on them to put it out. In case you didn’t play Postal II, that’s not an exaggeration-based joke, it’s a feature that will almost certainly be in the finished game. So, turn down your speakers and enjoy:
“This content is intended for mature audiences.”
Except it isn’t, really.
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I actually honestly enjoyed P2. For some reason. NOT CRAZY.
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Oh not crazy… Just a sociopath.
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Postal is a series you really don’t want to get more technologically advanced.
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I lurve me some Postal, a nice simple break from world domination, battle tactics and taxes in Empire: TW
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Postal 2 deserves credit just for NOT CRAZY breaking the norm of linear shooters. It is a game NOT CRAZY where I can walk into a store and kill NOT CRAZY shoppers with rotting cow heads, or pour petrol NOT CRAZY outside the entrances to a house and burn out the occupants. NOT CRAZY
…Seriously though, it’s just a ridiculous level of horrifically violent fun that Crysis can never hope to match, and for that it deserves a little praise.
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I absolutely loved that the missions in Postal 2 were completely menial tasks like “Pick up your paycheck”, “Return a library book” and “Buy some milk.” The rest of the game, sadly, I loved not so much. It felt more like an amateur mod than a ‘proper’ game.
Here’s hoping the production values and presentation can match the quality of their ideas.
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I absolutely loved that the missions in Postal 2 were completely menial tasks like “Pick up your paycheck”, “Return a library book” and “Buy some milk.” The rest of the game, sadly, I loved not so much. It felt more like an amateur mod than a ‘proper’ game.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere in the Postal format is a Best Game Ever. Here’s hoping the production values and presentation can match the quality of their ideas.
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It doesn’t count because it’s not a real badger.
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Oh, hang on, are there different types of badger you can use?
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There’s something that looks unquantifiably satisfying about knocking about on a segway shooting things.
But the requirement of big labels saying “Pre-Beta Footage” should probably indicate that it’s not in a showing-off state… not that the postal games appear to ever be, as fun as they are and all that.
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I actually sorta liked Postal II- though I am legitimately crazy.
This looks fairly “meh” so far. But it’s certainly looking better than it did in the previous footage, and it’s still in pre-beta, so it might turn out to be alright for a bit of vimsical ultraviolence upon completion.
Guilty Pleasure of ’09?
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Hmmm, I actually played just original Postal back in ’97 or something, and only tried P2 demo, but this installment looks like a lot of fun hehehe :>
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is thats supposed to be a badger ? it looks like a racoon to me, and the one in the picture looks like a shaggy dog with pipe bombs strapped to it … and he has his hand up both of it’s asses… heh
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Saves youtube uploaders adding their own music, I guess.
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Kieron’s original Postal 2 review for PC Gamer is one of the few games reviews that still sticks in my mind, years after the fact.
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Violent as this is, it seems to be a somewhat nutted version of postal.
In the video your just shooting random strangers at least in the second one you were fighting people who had genuinely pissed you off, whether that be police, games designers, marching band members or people who had kidnapped you and put you in a, assless gimp costume that you had to walk home in avoiding getting shot for being a “weird looking one”. i’m not saying the story was good but the scenarios were at least above duke nukem 3d, here. not seeing much evidence of that.
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Well, this shot doesn’t look like any of the badgers on Wikipedia: http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots_xbox360/postal/postal3_large.jpg (same as above, but with a face)
The video looks more like an American Badger, not a proper European Wind-in-the-willows-Badger badger.
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I really fucking hate the elitist snobbery that Postal 2 (and likely this) suffers. Postal 2 was a really great laugh. Juvenile? Sure, but we like juvenile behaviour once and a while. Ground breaking? Absoloutley not, but then it’s not trying to be. Every game these days is trying to tout itself as revolutionary and ground breaking but they’re not [i]really.[/i]
At least with this you know what you’re going to get, and with plenty of immature swipes at popular society thrown in for good measure. It’s kind of like South Park in a game, but sillier somehow. And lets face it, postal 2 was at least as good as Quake IV or any other sub-par guff the big name publishers are pumping out at any given time.
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Running with Scissors does its best to get mature games banned in even more countries.
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“It’s kind of like South Park in a game, but sillier somehow.”
South Park is basically utter garbage – but the thing that makes it watchable (perhaps even “good”) is that you can feel the writers are actually smart.
Postal nails the first part. Not the latter one.
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OK, so who else couldn’t be bothered spending the time to put their actual date of birth in and just made something up that seemed old enough?
About as dumb and pointless as DRM.
Anyway, where’s the pissing on people? You can’t get much more juvenille than that (unless they add teabagging).
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The age thing makes actual sense. If you lie about your age, it’s your doing and not theirs. They had every reason to think you could watch the video.
DRM, yeah… sadly, people’s reactions to non-DRM these days seems to be “woohoo! Free game!” DRM has had terrible effects on the gamer psyche. Did I blame DRM already? Because I do.
Speaking of, will Postal ever be Steam material? I may then purchase it, then. Also, then.
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I’ve always wondered at what gametrailers.com think of the huge amount of people who watch their videos all born on the same day of January 1, 1900.
?
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Late bloomers.
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What’s wrong with postal? It may not have the best gameplay but the stuff you do is pretty funny! Geeze, it’s akin to Conkers Bad Fur Day in terms of content so whats the big deal?
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Like I said, PC gamers like to get all indignant like a load of bloody early 20th centuary gentlemen over anything that isn’t stuffed to the fucking gills with classical references and complex theory bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I like classical references and theory bullshit too, but sometimes I like to take a break with some juvenile, silly bollocks like this. Just saying.
But then I guess games like this weren’t meant to be taken seriously, so it gives idiotic PC users a superiority complex with which to bash the game and it’s devs over the head with. See also: DK’s post above.
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ANGRY!! GRRR!!
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Look, I’m a 45 year old white male (born Jan 1, 1964). I can’t believe video games are so behind the times. With maturity comes a shift of aggression away from people and towards the earth. I would prefer a game where I use badgers to saw down the Amazon or space shuttles to mine oil sands in Alberta or hand warmers to melt the ice around polar bears.
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My kingdom for a game whose slogan is “Explore a living, breathing world and put a stop to that kind of thing!”
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“I’ve always wondered at what gametrailers.com think of the huge amount of people who watch their videos all born on the same day of January 1, 1900.”
Actually, it takes much more effort to scroll all the way down to 1900 than it does to scroll once or twice on the mouse-wheel and end up in the 60′s or 70′s. I’d wager the large percentage of people are in that region, for simple expediency, rather than taking the extra time to scroll all the way to the beginning – human laziness wins every time.
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This game is so not coming out in germany. Speaking of germany, some cerrazzyyy german mayor has managed to ban all killer games in his city. Don’t ask me what that means or how he did it.
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Okami: The correct spelling in that instance must be “kerrazzyyy” with a k. It’s like a law or something.
Anyway, a game where you can do drive-by shootings on a Segway and then get off and maim people with a badger you keep in your pocket? Sold.
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@Okami, ban all “Killer” games? So no Killer Instinct or Killer7 then?
As long as they keep the “alternative” way to do things in this version of Postal then I might have a look at it. It still amuses me that the “missions” in previous postal games can still be achieved without any violence, which many other, more serious games still haven’t managed yet.
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I was sat thinking about that killer games ban when i first read the news.
Street fighter would be okay as they only ever get knocked out. Splinter cell 2 would be okay as you don’t need to kill anyone in that title, the other 3 have mandatory murder.
Tf2 as a medic, shadowgrounds(they are aliens its okay)
Other violent titles which don’t have plot lead mandatory killing anyone?
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There comes a point when aimlessly shooting computer people in the face stops being fun and you have to ask yourself why you’re doing it. The basic idea behind Postal is something I find abhorrent and, as someone mentioned above, this is a game we don’t want to get more technologically advanced. Imagine Soldier of Fortune 2′s brutality with modern tech if you will – not for me, random badgers notwithstanding.
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But i think that brutality has a place, especially in instances where the death is undesirable. People are basically meat pinata’s when it comes to warfare. Sanitised war where people don’t bleed or lose hunks of meat when shot. Is that healthy? During call of duty 2 (to a lesser extent 4)the enemy started to become nothing more than popup targets. No threat, no tactical assessment, no sign of emotion, a lack of blood would have made this even worse. In games that allow non lethal take downs not taking then is blood on your hands alone. When games force you to kill? The deaths are meaningless.
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I very much enjoyed Postal 2 in a juevaile pissing on people who were on fire kind of way. Its that kind of game where you play for about 10 inutes after a long hard days work to get the frustraton out of your system.
It probably actually stops work shootings. So it should get a Nobile Peace Prize.
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Mummy, why is Kieron killing all those people?
Mummy?
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Heh, looks like Saints Row 2 has a playmate. I’ll finally be dipping my toe in the Postal pool with this one.
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Postal 2 was ALMOST a genuine and thought-provoking game.
I loved the menial “missions”, and the way that the world conspired to annoy you as much as possible, and then give you access to automatic weaponry.
It would have been a much better game if there weren’t sections in which violence was mandatory. I would much rather have made violence ENTIRELY THE OPTION OF THE PLAYER in response to the annoyances of the everyday world.
I prefer the option of being a dick to a game which forces me to be a dick on command.
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I think I approve of a world in which the postal games exist, because I feel like something has to be at the other end of the bell curve to, I dunno, the Path? World Of Goo? Whatever the gaming opposite of forcing a badger to eat someone’s face with your hand up it’s arse is I guess.
PS, if this is alpha footage, maybe they’ve not put the missions in yet, they’re just making sure the important badger>face>eating bits are working ok
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Postal is like the big fucking middle finger shoved up the ass of tight-up flower-power-ladies demanding censorship, decency and reduction in freedom of speech. Things like postal are, indeed awful and fucked up, but they’re also necessary in a world where everything is censored. I’ve never like the games, but I’ve always played them, and in short doses they might be enjoyable as, as an instrument of stress release. The trick is, that when everything is overdone it doesn’t feel that bad any more.
Sure, a new breed of sociopaths is probably born the moment Postal III is released, but would that then be avoided, or would it have been inevitable anyway?
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And here is me sitting here thinking that the Source engine was old hash =P
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“Sure, a new breed of sociopaths is probably born the moment Postal III is released, but would that then be avoided, or would it have been inevitable anyway?”
Ah, nature vs nurture. My old friend. Almost certainly the latter. Games don’t create sociopaths – sociopaths play games, world of difference there if you’re listening, Knee-Jerk Media. The evidence for this is the billions of people who play games with a ‘violent’ component and DON’T then decide to hone their skills on real people. Postal looks like lots of fun – fuck censorship.
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I’m glad I live in a time when the Postal series can exist.
There’s something very subversive about Postal’s take on the mundane. You could almost see it as a Foucaultian / Derridean post-Butler take upon the performativity of everyday life; whereby even the quotidian is part and parcel of the reinstatement of social normatives which when analysed clearly maintain inequalities, and disenfranchise, in this case, the protagonist in more or less overt forms of exploitation.
The protagonist in Postal could be said to be rebelling not so much against this everyday performativity of others who annoy, anger and exclude him, but, moreover, his very own complicity in that structure.
Or, it could be a load of adolescent sociopathic fun…
?
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I loved the original Postal as a kid, and the second was so delightfully evil that the person at the store I bought it from actually looked disgusted that I was buying it!
It was great for a laugh though. For all its amaturish production values, it knew that it was completely ridiculous and it reveled in it. The AI was capable of some very funny things as well, including people interacting with each other without your intereference and even going as far as to start going postal themselves.
I think the best part is when I showed my dad it. He isn’t much of a gamer, and never played a FPS until I showed him it, but after decapitating some people with the shovel he was crying with laughter. He actually played the entire game to completion and loved every minute of it.
It’s a perfect way to let off steam after a stressful day and I hope Postal 3 delivers just as many laughs.
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I am trynig to do 9 things at once, and consequently misread the title of this as *Portal* III.
Then spent several confused seconds wondering why the screenshot seemed to show a third-person Gordon Freeman brandishing a belt-fed dog.
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I always liked Postal 2′s piss-physics.
KG
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I like how these comments are more about Postal 2 than Postal 3
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There’s not really much to comment about Postal III… Sure it looks like a decent shootie, based on the vids, but that’s it. One thing though: They should’ve spent some more time in making a more disgusting dismemberment/mutilation system, similar to the ghoul system used in the all-time classic Soldier of Fortune 2. I mean all mutilations nowaday are the same old basic “head and limb go off and torso is instact” instead of the Ghoul variation: Part of face is torn off, stomach is gutted and eventually cut in half”.
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Can’t be as bad as the Uwe-Boll-movie, but hey what do I know. Whatever happened to Tunnel rats? Already released? Did I miss the eurogamer review?
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@zigs: Because Postal 2 had a definite gem buried under mounds of crap (the gimp mission, in particular, was awful in the manner in which you were forced into violence).
Although nobody ever really played it, the MP modes introduced in the expansion were a decent bit of fun. Especially when you play the not-real “fireman” mode. Don’t think about it too much, although someone mentioned how to deal with fire above.
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@Thiefsie
” I’ve always wondered at what gametrailers.com think of the huge amount of people who watch their videos all born on the same day of January 1, 1900.”
neat. We have the same birthday!
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Speaking of awfully raucous music, does anyone know what band that is?
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A “juvenile” mature rated game. Oxymoron much?
Despite us all knowing that the game is pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy about games being violent, it has the superficial school-shooter charm to it that will convince Merkel and the rest of the EU parliament to ban all games with a gun in them.
Because games are for kids of course.
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I actually enjoyed Postal 2 but this one looks… uninteresting. Maybe it has a deep storyline with creative and varied missions and… ah, who am I kidding
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@357Sig at the end of the vid it says:
Music by Wrythe
http://www.myspace.com/wrytheband
not my sort of thing really :(
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Will Gary Coleman still be in it?
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I didn’t mind Postal 2 much I have to say. Because, well, when you think about it it’s actually far less evil and immoral than GTA.
After all, your missions are all ‘buy milk’ etc, it’s often perfectly possible to do so without doing anything evil or immoral. It’s entirely your choice to do so. GTA on the other hand forces you to break the law constantly, and let’s not get started on Manhunt, which I honestly would dub ‘sick filth’.
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I hope it’s similar to Postal 2 where you don’t HAVE to go around killing people (at least not people who aren’t trying to kill you first). A few bits of Postal 2 bothered me but mostly you could play it without being terribly evil. Also I really hope it can be played in 1st person.
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Andrew Dunn / Kieron: I see you (Andrew) mentioned Kieron’s PC Gamer review of Postal 2. Can I get a link to that?
I’m genuinely interested to see what Kieron thought.
I personally loved the game, although I felt they went a little too far with the Osama Bin Laden references.
It had sandbox gameplay in spades, and as somebody else here mentioned, I loved the fact that for some of the game, violence was purely an option, but the game conspired to aggravate you into flipping.
If they had been brave enough to make every scenario of the game “do-able” without resorting to violence, I think that it would be being hailed as a classic today.
Here’s hoping they can do this in 3.
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//title//
POSTAL 2
//strap//
Portrait of a serial-reviewer.
//word//
DELIVERANCE
//main body//
MONDAY: Package received in the mail. Brown paper, wrapped up in string. One of my favourite things: Game with note attached: “This is Postal 2. Sequel to gore-a-thon syndicate clone. First was rubbish, try-too-hard controversial nonsense. Review it”. I obey.
Things have changed. It’s a first person shooter using the snazzy new Unreal Engine. The playground is a city whose areas are unlocked as you continue, with you moving in a non-linear fashion between zones. You play a computer programmer working, in a Meta-game style, for Running with Scissors. Your job is, simply, to go about your daily tasks such as collecting your pay-cheque, getting milk and pissing on your Dad’s grave. Oddly, there’s no real reason for you to hurt anyone – you can theoretically just walk around doing your work and then progress to the next day’s errands. So I do. Calmly, and with the minimum of violence. Immediately, problems abound: The loading pauses are extensive unless you turn down the texture details. The textures themselves are amateurish. The humour sophomoric. The physics system more than a little buggy. As an FPS, it’s really not very good at all.
On other notes, I met the girl today. I am to take her on a drink tomorrow. If all goes to plan, the rest of the week will be booked. Until Sunday, when I will chill.
TUESDAY: I play, but my anxiousness about the date is clearly effecting me: I’ve submitted to the violence. In many ways it was inevitable – playing Postal 2 is very much like being a deaf, dumb and blind paraplegic who’s only possible means of interaction with the world through the two pistols in the place of his hands. There’s such a great variety of weapons, many useable in ways a little bit more interesting than the standard “Point at” and “Fire”. Take the gas can, where you can lay down petrol then throw a match. Or the scissors. And how about the crack-pipe which you smoke for a health bonus, only to lead to a constant and crippling need to find more?
Clearly it’s in terribly bad taste. Beyond bad taste – the game is, quite simply, indefensible. Anyone even trying is a bit thick. This isn’t something that you should try and justify: this is the Jackass team rewriting the Marquis de Sade for the Attention-deficit-disorder generation. Occasionally it could justify itself as Satire. In fact, it’s easy to read its violence as a meta-criticism on videogaming itself – any situation, no matter how innocent, is always ready to explode into violence. Mostly, however, it just finds the nearest taboo and slaps it around the face with its engorged penis. Curious. I cease playing, and will now head out for the drink with the girl. Wish me luck.
WEDNESDAY:
I am not making love. The plan has gone awry. No matter: I will continue to play Postal, forever. This is well. I don’t like to leave the flat before night-fall anyway. Light creaks through window, chasing me across the room. I hide from it. I’m now continuing to explore. The Taliban has stormed a church, attempting to reclaim it for Allah. Gary Coleman signs autographs in a mall. Rednecks dress me in a gimp-suit, causing the entire town to laugh at me. It’s odd – in the darkness I’m beginning to see something here, pass the amateurism. It’s got more ideas per square inch than any FPS since No-one lives forever. With the physics system and AI interacting to create unpredictable situations, you could draw it into a family tree with GTA3 and Deus Ex as the inbred hillbilly cousin. It’s funnier than it used to be. Blood flows downhill and I giggle. I’m sure I used to think this was wrong. I’m sure I used to remember what “wrong” was.
THURSDAY
I kill a woman who has her face made up JUST LIKE A WHORE and kick her up and down the street a few times. I then decapitate her with a spade, sending the head flying into the air, bouncing down the street. A friendly dog runs after it, picking it up and returning it to my feet. I cover the dog in petrol and light the match. It runs away, igniting a crowd of passersbys. I watch, until they all fall to the floor twitching and raw-skinned, before walking over, opening my flies and extinguishing the fires with the flow of my urine. Someone watches, cowering, vomiting in fear. I step closer, hand grasping my shovel and… The cops are coming! Quick!
I also eat donuts.
ER… TUESDAY?: No matter how hard I try, I can’t put all the blood back in. It just won’t fit.
GUNDAY: Game complete. In fact, now I look again, I’ve played it many times over. I will now go and find that girl. The song is speaking, but do not understand. If I must eat the girl on Monday, how will be able to kill on Sunday? Postal 2 has the answer. Postal 2 is the answer.
KIERON GILLEN
Verdict:
Postmodern and Posthuman, its entertainment factor just about overwhelms the rampant amateurness ad bugs. Just don’t show the Daily Mail.
71%
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Cheers Kieron, good review. I also get the feeling that you agree that there’s a good game in there (“It’s got more ideas per square inch than any FPS since No-one lives forever.”).
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It’s certainly unique.
KG
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