Postal: Brain Damaged

 Apocalypse yesterday

The Steam Next fest is here, and that means we've all been treated to a smattering of demos for upcoming independent, small publisher and just all around smaller titles that don't usually get the spotlight like this. Now is the time for the unsung backbone of the video games industry to lay down the fruits of their labour and pick up fans amidst those that typically would never give these games a second or third look. Forget Playstation's loaded sales tagline, this event is about the games! (Oh wait, they say 'for the players' don't they? Ah well, same difference) I love this event, I really do. Because there's no greater feeling then bumping into that little diamond in the rough, that uncut gem (trademark) which you absolutely must stick on the old wishlist. And then there's just getting the chance to see fledging developers strut their stuff and see those early cogs of game design work in these debut titles. What's not to love?

I've been pretty scattergun this year, flying through the list of available demos and picking up anything that even captures a whiff of my eye and the results have been... underwhelming to utterly overwhelming. Yes, I've scored the gambit this time and there's more than one game going on my radar for the long haul, because I need to see what becomes of them. For some games however, like the one which is the focus of this blog, my attraction was to a familiar name that I knew to be safe. Just in case everything else failed me, I knew that this would be game well worth my time. And it makes for a poetic follow up considering I was just talking about this series on the blog recently, completely unaware that this demo was coming up. (Despite actually seeing it advertised during E3. I don't always pay attention, okay?) Thus it's time to talk once again about the Black Eyed Peas' favourite franchise: Postal.

'Postal: Brain Damaged' sounds like it promises to continue that once abandoned story thread from the end of the very first game where it was revealed that Postal Dude was actually inside of a psychiatric hospital for the entire duration of the story. Which is curious, considering Postal II specifically modelled a gravestone commemorating the death of Postal's storyline in a pretty clear promise that they weren't going to go there anymore. I guess alternatively this could be a direct follow-up to the end of Postal II wherein Postal Dude (spoilers) shoots himself in the head in order to stop listening to his wife, but we already know the direct events following that was a nuclear strike on Paradise and a whole bunch of stupid insane nonsense which blurs the line between the already warped reality of Postal and the extra warped hallucinations incurred by the gunshot. Or maybe this is a total stand-alone, I don't know and I honestly don't even know if it matters at this point.

The developers have used this thinly established premise to finally do away with the veneer of a storyline attached to the Postal games and achieve the series' ultimate form, they've turned it into a first person shooter. (or 'Boomer Shooter', as I'm just discovering is a genre title) Postal games have always juggled the open world exploration with the ultra violence, when deep down we all knew there was a DOOM clone hiding beneath the skin. What, you didn't know that? Well to be honest neither did I. But I do now and it fits the series a little too well. Plus, with the addition of the 'brain damage' plot element, it allows for the team to throw together so trippy level designs that aren't tethered to some degree of reality, fully embracing the Boomer Shooter aesthetic. (Hmm, not sure I like that Sub genre name, truth be told. Maybe it'll grow on me.)

Visually, you can see that Brain Damaged is built using that same faux-PS1 aesthetic that has blown up in the indie horror circles of late, almost as much as 3d backgrounds and 2d sprites has for the platforming scene. Obviously this has the effect of being unsettling and unworldly, as well as facilitating a lot more cartoonish action and gore then perhaps even the base Postal games can pull off for a more action leaning affair. Along with the style comes a gameplay set-up very much akin to DOOM, wherein you sprint around at highspeeds collecting guns and killing everything that gets in your way, with the Postal twist being in the fact that most of NPCs around the map are civilians who scream and run away from you, and the rest are old men with shotguns, murderous dogs or fat children floating on balloons. So is formed Postal's characteristic committal to vague wishy-washy commentary on... I guess this one is meant to be modern Suburbia. (Cutting.)

But whereas everything about the presentation is purposely designed to scream 'old school', the gameplay actually borrows from modern day shooters in order to not drive the fans insane. For one, we have that slide which every game post Far Cry 3 is forced to have under fear of total ostracization, as well as couple of movement options directly stol- I mean 'borrowed', from DOOM Eternal. I'm talking about the meat hook, a hook on the shotgun which drags you towards enemies so that you can blast them into gibbets up close. They've also borrowed the floating rings around the map that the hook can attach to in order to provide some aerial verticality to the exploration, although Postal does try to make it more 'them' by making them 'anal rings'. (Although I had to be told that in order to see it. Not sure if anyone on the team has ever seen an actual anal ring before.)

The actual raw gameplay loop here, shooting and running around collecting armour and health items, is actually decently solid. That surprise in my tone comes from experience playing other Postal games where the shooting was 'meh', and you were really around for the irreverent novelty. Now without that novelty, the team on the job have done a fine job stitching together a working shooter and one that I can really see myself having some mindless entertainment with in the long game. It's actually quite a lot of fun to go on an unprompted rampage through the town, ducking and weaving between flying hamburgers and shotgun buck, launching myself in the air with a meat hook before spraying urine down on my enemies. Oh right, you can still piss on people, because this is a Postal game and some things are just sacred. (Couldn't find a 'kick' button, however. But I guess the motor-powered Chain-spade did the job just fine.)

My only concerns coming away from the demo was the fact that the first level didn't have a boss encounter at the end, which very well could have been because it was exorcised from the demo or because that's the style of game design they're going for. (I hope it's the former, because I adore bosses in these sorts of games.) Also, the level design got samey fast, and I had a few moments of "Okay, where the heck did I come from and where am I going?" Which I feel might be a bit of the point of adopting both the PS1 style and the suburbia 'cloned houses' theme, but that doesn't take away from that feeling of being frustrated and lost because some places are too similar. Aside from those small gripes, however, Postal: Brain Damaged seems like an exciting little project that I wouldn't mind throwing twenty five buck down for if that's the pricing model they're shooting for. (I'm only guessing as much, no one's said yet) Nothing earth shattering, but a decent time waster, which somewhat works as a review of the entire Postal franchise, I guess.