"Jeez, whoever designed this town was on serious crack."
- Dude

Postal has never been a pretty series, although it was always simple to understand and deeply tied to the mundane. Postal 4 has divorced from this and gone on a drinking spree; Not at any point are your objectives easy to understand, nor are you provoked to act out and be creative with your arsenal. Your character behaves like a complete pushover both mechanically and in the narrative, from start to finish, regardless of how many people you decapitate; it is painfully boring as result.

Fundamentally, this game is actually awful and not in the expected way. Even beyond what's tolerable for jank in this series, Postal 4 does not feel like a Postal game. It feels like an extremely (and I mean extremely) dumbed down version of Saints Row.

To help you understand what this means, here's a quick rundown of each main game in the series:

• Postal
  
  • You got out of your house and killed people because you were going mad (read, going postal).
    
  • That was the sole point. It was basically the original HATRED, with surprisingly better writing.
  
  
• Postal 2
  
  • You got out of your trailer house and ran mundane errands in a semi-open world.
    
  • How you accomplished these ordinary tasks didn't matter, you could do them normally or just brutally murder everyone that dared bother you in the way. It provoked you to go postal and have fun with it.
    
  • The main character remains completely neutral about whatever the player chooses to do and all dialogue works.
  
  
• Postal 3 4
  
  • You have your trailer house stolen in a cutscene and you're bossed around by other people to run absurd quests for maybe a chance at finding your trailer.
    
  • You can't kill your bosses until someone else bosses you to kill your last boss, or until they finally threaten to kill you.
    
  • You can't actually go on your own to find your trailer in the so-called "open world", which is barely a step up and littered with load zones.
    
  • You have animated cutscenes telling you how your character feels and often showcasing what kind of silly set up he's going to fall victim of next.
    
  • You're forced to clean feces off the street, and your "option" is to whether or not mortally wound the Mexican food workers that are actively trying to kill you for taking away their "taco toppings".
    
  • You may pick highly effective non lethal weapons and ammunition.

In case you haven't noticed, Postal 4 wanted to be the odd one from the bunch. And it managed to, it's not very good.


It's borderline unplayable; glitches are a common sight, soft locks are omnipresent, performance is deplorable. Crashes are almost as exciting as the actual game and happen quite often.

The map is bigger, but now there are extremely long paths to traverse with nothing in them; I have not personally found a way to traverse them fast enough in my 10 hours of play. There are no actual vehicles you can drive, only speed capped mobility scooters with different colors. I expected there'd be some sort of drug that helped, but no. Somehow, there are still load zones exactly like those from 2003 in Postal 2 - just in case you think you're going too fast.

You have random "minigame" points around the map that challenge you to "kill 10 people with a shotgun" or run a miniscooter course. Collectibles. Again, this is a painful amount of effort that just makes the game look like a bootleg Saints Row.

The inventory has grown larger with numerous redundant items like 3 different types of Junk food or Spray cans and Mops that you can carry. Navigating it by the end of the week is painful. Using items like health pipes takes like a 4 second hold down press which is very bothersome.

As mentioned earlier, the presence of effective non-lethal weaponry and ammo is basically a discouragement from doing the one thing the game had to do; provoke you to go postal. Normally I'm all for choice, but between having a Postal game where not going mad is encouraged I'd much rather just go play a more sane game.

As of currently, there are only 3 difficulty settings compared to the dozens of difficulties in Postal 2, and none of them are equivalent to the POSTAL difficulty which would give every pedestrian a gun and instant aggro towards you. So, replayability is sorely limited.


There was an obsession by the team with detailed art assets and interior design, resulting in highly decorated stores and houses. But, there are usually no people or things to buy or even interact with. This involves things like entering a Porcelain store and finding out you're not able to break a single vase.

Of course, this needs not mean the game will be pretty! The game is super fugly. Even if you find the place to pick a different set of clothes, your character will still wear their purple bathrobe in every cutscene and quite frankly it's an eye sore.

Audio is highly reused and remixed from Postal 2, including pedestrian voice lines, screams and sound effects. Map Muzak is somehow worse by having a filter on top. The poor NPC interaction is highly reused and might as well be the same code.

I do not know how they messed up the violence but they did it. You hit someone with the broad side of a shovel and their neck is cut clean. Gore, which was the best candidate for improvement, is plain cartoony rather than cathartic and excessive. Pedestrians can tank hits from bladed weapons which feels absolutely terrible.


Postal 4 underdelivers at every front. It fails to be a graphical upgrade, it fails to be a gameplay upgrade, it fails to be a Postal upgrade. All it truly upgraded was the models of feces, and it seems like they were real proud of this one - at least one whole errand day is dedicated to toilets and fecal matter.

If you think Postal 4 sounds interesting for its violence and open world, check one of the following instead:

- Postal 2
- Saints Row 2
- Dead Rising

[i]"Jeez, whoever designed this town was on [b]serious[/b] crack."[/i] - Dude Postal has never been a pretty series, although it was always simple to understand and deeply tied to the mundane. Postal 4 has divorced from this and gone on a drinking spree; Not at any point are your objectives easy to understand, nor are you provoked to act out and be creative with your arsenal. Your character behaves like a complete pushover both mechanically and in the narrative, from start to finish, regardless of how many people you decapitate; it is painfully boring as result. Fundamentally, this game is actually awful and not in the expected way. Even beyond what's tolerable for jank in this series, Postal 4 does not feel like a Postal game. It feels like an extremely (and I mean extremely) dumbed down version of [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/9480/Saints_Row_2/]Saints Row[/url]. To help you understand what this means, here's a quick rundown of each main game in the series: [list] [*][url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/232770/POSTAL/]Postal[/url] [list] [*]You got out of your house and killed people because you were going mad (read, going postal). [*]That was the sole point. It was basically the original [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/341940/Hatred/]HATRED[/url], with surprisingly better writing. [/list] [*][url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/223470/POSTAL_2/]Postal 2[/url] [list] [*]You got out of your trailer house and ran mundane errands in a semi-open world. [*]How you accomplished these ordinary tasks didn't matter, you could do them normally or just brutally murder everyone that dared bother you in the way. It provoked you to [i]go postal[/i] and have fun with it. [*]The main character remains completely neutral about whatever the player chooses to do and all dialogue works. [/list] [*]Postal [strike]3[/strike] 4 [list] [*]You have your trailer house stolen in a cutscene and you're bossed around by other people to run absurd quests for maybe a chance at finding your trailer. [*]You can't kill your bosses until someone else bosses you to kill your last boss, or until they finally threaten to kill you. [*]You can't actually go on your own to find your trailer in the so-called "open world", which is barely a step up and littered with load zones. [*]You have animated cutscenes telling you how your character feels and often showcasing what kind of silly set up he's going to fall victim of next. [*]You're forced to clean feces off the street, and your "option" is to whether or not mortally wound the Mexican food workers that are actively trying to kill you for taking away their "taco toppings". [*]You may pick highly effective non lethal weapons and ammunition. [/list] [/list] In case you haven't noticed, Postal 4 wanted to be the odd one from the bunch. And it managed to, it's not very good. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] It's borderline unplayable; glitches are a common sight, soft locks are omnipresent, performance is deplorable. Crashes are almost as exciting as the actual game and happen quite often. The map is bigger, but now there are extremely long paths to traverse with nothing in them; I have not personally found a way to traverse them fast enough in my 10 hours of play. There are no actual vehicles you can drive, only speed capped mobility scooters with different colors. I expected there'd be some sort of drug that helped, but no. Somehow, there are still load zones exactly like those from 2003 in Postal 2 - just in case you think you're going too fast. You have random "minigame" points around the map that challenge you to "kill 10 people with a shotgun" or run a miniscooter course. Collectibles. Again, this is a painful amount of effort that just makes the game look like a bootleg [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/9480/Saints_Row_2/]Saints Row[/url]. The inventory has grown larger with numerous redundant items like 3 different types of Junk food or Spray cans and Mops that you can carry. Navigating it by the end of the week is painful. Using items like health pipes takes like a 4 second hold down press which is very bothersome. As mentioned earlier, the presence of effective non-lethal weaponry and ammo is basically a discouragement from doing the one thing the game had to do; provoke you to go postal. Normally I'm all for choice, but between having a Postal game where not going mad is encouraged I'd much rather just go play a more sane game. As of currently, there are only 3 difficulty settings compared to the dozens of difficulties in Postal 2, and none of them are equivalent to the POSTAL difficulty which would give every pedestrian a gun and instant aggro towards you. So, replayability is sorely limited. [h1] Art Direction [/h1] There was an obsession by the team with detailed art assets and interior design, resulting in highly decorated stores and houses. But, there are usually no people or things to buy or even interact with. This involves things like entering a Porcelain store and finding out you're not able to break a single vase. Of course, this needs not mean the game will be pretty! The game is super fugly. Even if you find the place to pick a different set of clothes, your character will still wear their purple bathrobe in every cutscene and quite frankly it's an eye sore. Audio is highly reused and remixed from Postal 2, including pedestrian voice lines, screams and sound effects. Map Muzak is somehow worse by having a filter on top. The poor NPC interaction is highly reused and might as well be the same code. I do not know how they messed up the violence but they did it. You hit someone with the broad side of a shovel and their neck is cut clean. Gore, which was the best candidate for improvement, is plain cartoony rather than cathartic and excessive. Pedestrians can tank hits from bladed weapons which feels absolutely terrible. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] Postal 4 underdelivers at every front. It fails to be a graphical upgrade, it fails to be a gameplay upgrade, it fails to be a Postal upgrade. All it truly upgraded was the models of feces, and it seems like they were real proud of this one - at least one whole errand day is dedicated to toilets and fecal matter. If you think Postal 4 sounds interesting for its violence and open world, check one of the following instead: - [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/223470/POSTAL_2/]Postal 2[/url] - [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/9480/Saints_Row_2/]Saints Row 2[/url] - [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/427190/DEAD_RISING/]Dead Rising[/url]