Postal Redux

Before there was Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt and Hatred, there was Postal. Released all the way back in 1997, this overhead shoot 'em up was a lightning rod for controversy, maligned by parent groups and labeled a "mass murder simulator" by critics. Now all the death and destruction has come to the Switch in the form of Postal Redux, a remake with slightly better graphics, a few extra levels and a brand-new ending. After nearly a quarter-century, console owners will finally have a chance to see what all the fuss was about. And while this old school shooter may not be as shocking as it once was, it still remains a fun action game that holds up surprisingly well.

I wouldn't worry too much about the plot, if I were you. It's vague and we're dealing with an unreliable narrator who seems to believe that the local Air Force base has unleashed some sort of mind-altering chemical on his home town. Believing that he's the last sane person around, our unnamed protagonist sets out on a mission to kill anybody responsible for the infection, which quickly spirals into a cross-county killing spree where nobody is safe.

Look, it's obvious that this guy is no hero. He's clearly suffering from some sort of mental condition and is more than a little pissed off about getting evicted. I was never under any allusion that he was the only sane person as he gunned down cops, gang members, soldiers and innocent bystanders. In that sense, the critics of the mid-1990s were right -- Postal is indeed a mass murder simulator. And I don't mean that in a bad way, because the idea of playing the villain in a horror story is intoxicating. Who wants to be a Paul Allen in American Psycho if they can be a Patrick Bateman?

The journey to the Air Force base is spread across seventeen levels, all of which play out exactly the same way. We run into each area with one goal -- kill all the hostiles. That is to say, anybody who has guns, grenades, missile launchers or any other kind of weapon. Once we've cleared the place out, we move on to the next stage, where we do the whole thing all over again. It may be fun, but this is clearly not a very deep shoot 'em up.

The variety comes in both the stage designs and the weapons, which include everything from shotguns to assault rifles to a flame thrower. Although small and contained, the levels are all wonderfully detailed and manage to have their own identity. We get the usual classic horror locations you would expect, like the truck stop and sleepy suburban streets, as well as a few fun surprises. I loved seeing the chaos unfold when the killer interrupts a parade, murders everybody at a carnival and gets into a shootout on a mini-golf course.

On top of the seventeen stages found in the original game, Postal Redux also adds six additional levels that take us on an international killing spree. These locations are even more outlandish, featuring everything from a supermarket to a fancy mansion to major cities in Japan. They are also larger, more open and brighter in tone. This is a nice change from the dark and grimy look of the first seventeen stages, and it made me wish there was more of the new content to play through.

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And that brings us to the problems with Postal Redux, which are largely the same problems that plagued the original game. A lot of the issues revolve around the combat, especially when it comes to dodging bullets. This game is bad about showing you who is firing or where it's coming from, a problem that is only amplified when they blend in with the busy backgrounds. It doesn't help that they are simultaneously hard to shoot and able to take a ton of bullets before going down. The developers seem aware that the gameplay is an issue, so they paint an "X" on the enemy to show the player that the shot is lined up properly. That helps, but ultimately underscores the problem.

For as much as I like the varied level designs, they also contribute to the issue. We're given a fixed isometric camera perspective that generally gets the job done, but can be a real nightmare when enemies are hiding between buildings and behind walls. The aiming is frustrating enough when you can see exactly who you're shooting out, so you can image how much worse it is when you can't see the bad guy. It all adds up to a game filled with cheap hits, especially when you bump up the difficulty.

There's no question that this game feels dated, but I was surprised at how well Postal holds up. While the gameplay could use a little tweaking, I was impressed by the exciting action and nice variety of stages. And more than anything else, it's just a lot of fun looking through the window of what was considered controversial just a quarter-century ago. After decades filled with Manhunts and Grand Theft Autos, this simple overhead shoot 'em up comes across as tame in comparison. It's no longer controversial or subversive, but rather is just another dual-stick shooter on modern consoles. Postal glorified mass murder in the same way that Smash TV glorified game shows.