Developer: Running With Scissors | Publisher: Running With Scissors
I was hoping to enjoy Postal 4: No Regerts after a good friend of mine got me Postal 2 to play. Now, I am regretting it in more ways than one. To be fair, the game starts off okay; You can do anything and go anywhere you like. You even have an easy enough time making your own fun, be it through violence or just by being an utter asshole in every rude way. Postal 4: No Regerts does that much, at least when it’s not crashing repeatedly. However, when I say “make your own fun,” I mean that you have to figure out how to make the game fun for yourself. I started off exploring and doing small stuff like urinating on NPCs and using cats as gun suppressors; whatever crazy antics possible. Beyond that, it gets challenging for all the wrong reasons.
Postal 4 Has Oh So Many Regrets
One of my first problems was a lack of wanting to do anything the game directed me to do. The main goal in the game is to make money, but the missions to do so are just boring. They try to come up with some wacky missions like running a prison till there’s a riot or cleaning out a sewer, but the execution just isn’t good. Combine that with the fact that you can easily make boat loads of cash by save cheesing at slot machines, and there just isn’t much reason to play along. Even if you don’t want to stoop so low, houses will have grenades, guns, and more randomly laid out to grab.
My issues hardly stop there. For one, you can’t drive cars, but they let you drive scooters!? Traveling alone made the game very dull because I rarely wanted to use scooters since you have to rent them. That is particularly frustrating after you see dozens of trucks and cars! Why design this game as long as the developers have and make it so you can’t drive other vehicles? Then there’s combat. Simply put, it’s so bad you might as well be on god mode.
Perhaps worst of all is the glitches. Unfortunately, when glitches occur, they are noticeable; take, for example, invisible furniture. Yes, that gun is floating on invisible furniture and that very house had me running into what were supposed to be couches and more. The game is also repeatedly crashing and has pathetic load times. Even after updates, it feels severely lacking.
Postal 4‘s Freedom to Find Fun
Postal 4 mainly provides you random humor. You will find many examples of the developers making fun of anything and everything which happened from 2020 to now, in 2022. For example, a miniature trucker convoy protesting a guy with certain political vibes at his trailer home.
To be fair, I did enjoy the jokes and humor in each section of the game I explored. However, I still find the main game boring, and the entertainment of the various places was never long-lasting. The game is also somehow lacking what Postal 2 has; such as good environment interactions. For example, in Postal 2 I can break bottles and other objects in houses. In Postal 4, however, even wine glasses are like tanks! How does that even happen within a game series that has been around as long as Postal has? Granted, I haven’t played all of it, but the game fails to hook me in to doing so.
Not Worth Going Postal Over
The game does have some good points, but it is fundamentally lacking in many aspects. I mostly did what the game is known for and, well, went postal! My favorite was using the gas can to set fires or create a chain of explosions. The scenes and how the NPCs react made it fun, but honestly, my amusement at this is mostly due to the contrasting boredom of the main gameplay.
I like the choice and freedom the game tries to provide you, but the execution of it is what failed. The issues with this game just seem like an out-of-season April Fools joke, and I find it boring. Would I play it again? For what little I liked, sure, but I’d rather play other games.
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