The frantic walking simulators of Running with Scissors have never been very well received by critics. On the contrary, they have sunk the Postal saga to such an extent that it keeps getting worse. The third game in the series is often mentioned in discussions of the worst game ever, and the creators have used this reputation to boost marketing.
It’s no secret that critics’ ratings can be completely different from player ratings, as proven by the crown jewel of this saga, Postal 2. This game was heavily criticized, to the point that the media communication succeeded in banning it in several countries (including Sweden, for a time). This caused his sales to skyrocket. Postal 2 was a rough diamond buried underground, but the fun was completely shattered in Postal 3, a title that critics and gamers alike agreed was extraordinarily bad.
The Post has always stood for freedom of expression assorted. It’s a saga that never took itself seriously, which is its main appeal. After all, there’s something innovative and refreshing about letting go of all inhibitions and taboos and unleashing your fury on civilization. But it’s one thing to be arrogant and provocative, and another to be absurd and spoiled. When a game is completely buggy and childish in the most embarrassing way, it’s impossible to sleep a blind eye. Now that Postal 4: No Regerts is out, it’s obvious that it’s following the same path as the previous ones. It’s not as unfortunate as the slippage of the third opus, but it’s not far: it’s a total disaster.
My character is Postal Dude and at the start of the game my motorhome has just been robbed after stopping at a roadside restroom so I’m stuck with no house and no money.
I’m willing to work for a living, so I head to the fictional town of Edensin to find a job. After a frustrating search for an employment agency, I finally find the right place and come across a real nemesis lurking behind his desk. At least he’s willing to give me several shitty jobs at 50%, so I’m in. The deal is a complete insult, of course, and I didn’t expect Dude, who is easily offended and intense in other games, to take it no questions asked. Anyway, that’s what’s happening, so now I’m faced with a number of options, including changing light bulbs in the sewers, stopping a riot in a prison, or just walking around for food. ‘money. Each choice is more boring than the last, and the whole game is like that: daily missions from Monday to Friday. There is no deeper meaning, no political mockery or social commentary. There is no satirical criticism of society, just paid jobs mixed with jokes that usually deal with the environment or directly with the sphincter.
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As for the gameplay, the Postal saga is the least original you can find, but they make up for it with twisted humor and show that they clearly don’t care. An example is that you can use cats as silencers. This tip isn’t for everyone, of course, but it can work for the right audience. However, this is something very difficult to balance. When does it get too much? When does it stop being fun to walk around pissing on people? There are no concrete answers to these questions, but for me this game crosses the line. Postal 4: No Regerts is soporific and boring, has one of the worst gameplay I’ve ever experienced, the combat is very slow, the humor is very silly and it’s so buggy and buggy that sometimes I was on about to explode and throw the console and TV out the window.
When I fight someone, I always end up wishing I had gone the pacifist route, because the combat experience is so bad that I’ve rarely experienced anything like this. The AI is terrible and all the enemies are running into me and part of their head is already exploding in the process. Sometimes they are trapped in something in the environment or with each other, in large clumps, so they pose no threat. You just killed them, because they are easy targets. As usual, I have a lot of weapons in my inventory, but I don’t particularly like one of them. They all lack that feeling of weight and dynamism. In the end, I used the gun almost exclusively, which I thought was ok but still very weak. It also didn’t help that enemies could take a ridiculous amount of bullets without dying as the game progressed. It is believed that a half-magazine directly at the temple would be enough to sink even the strongest men, but no. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter if I die. I start again at exactly the same place and I lose nothing, except perhaps my honor. Each meeting is monotonous and lacks enthusiasm, it’s like a task that must be accomplished in order to progress.
Exploring Edensin is equally boring. Trying to find a location using the worst map ever is challenging, but not fun. Eventually, I got tired of going around in circles with no certainty and getting stuck on graphical glitches, which forced me to restart the game. I decided to rent a vehicle with my hard-earned paycheck and I I was surprised when the cure turned out to be worse than the disease. Trying to maneuver this stiff, slow, clumsy creature was by far the worst experience I’ve had in a video game in years. If there were a lot of bugs before, things haven’t improved. The world is flat but there is no shortage of places where you can get stuck and when that happens, well then you can say to the session “Sayonara you son of a bitch”. Another very “funny” thing is that when I rented the vehicle and left it parked for a while, it disappeared. It was gone, no more.
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Something I hate about games is when they platform themselves to the limit, even when the mechanics completely break down and aren’t suited for such a task. Climbing down a ladder should never be the hardest part of a game and that adds fuel to the fire. When in 2023 the creator didn’t even bother to make an animation of climbing a ladder, instead allowing the player to “float” down, you know it’s a totally sloppy title. While graphics aren’t everything in this world, those of Postal 4: No Regerts are downright atrocious. They’re so angular, lifeless, and hopelessly dated that the only way to tell them apart from those of previous games for the sixth generation of consoles is by year. The character models are some of the worst I’ve seen lately and the sound effects aren’t great either. They are usually out of sync, and since guns have no pressure, they almost look like fireworks.
All of Postal 4’s flaws put together are completely demoralizing and should stop any sane person from spending a single penny on the game, but the truth is that even if it had been totally free it would still be too expensive for what it offers. .