KG

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Portrait of a serial-reviewer.

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DELIVERANCE

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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%

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’.

not my sort of thing really :(

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.

neat. We have the same birthday!