TL;DR – Postal Redux is a remake of Postal 1 which is where Running with Scissors got their start. It’s a slightly bizarre isometric shooter game, that isn’t bad but I wouldn’t really recommend. Fortunately the game has a modest amount of content and co-op. So if you’re looking for a co-op game you could do worse.
Postal Redux is a slightly peculiar game. On the one hand, it’s a fairly simple shooter that uses an isometric perspective. You enter a level, there are a certain amount of enemies, you need to kill 96% of them. The game couldn’t be more straight forward. At the same time, it’s a game that goes out of it’s way to be edgy. Part of this is because the developers had hitherto been working on children’s games. So for them, Postal 1 was a way of letting off steam.
And to their credit, Postal 1 and it’s remaster Postal Redux are certainly as far away from a kid’s game as one can get. You play as the Postal dude, and you go postal across the course of 22 levels. You can shoot yourself, and indeed are encourage to shoot basically everything that moves. Animals, civilians, the police, clowns, it doesn’t matter. Now you can play through levels without killing civilians, but I think that’s missing the point really.
As for the gameplay itself, it’s fairly enjoyable if a little basic. You do get access to a whole host of different weapons, although ammo tends to be limited. You just run around shooting everything that moves. There are some health kits to pick up, and that’s about it. Every level is largely the same, at least in terms of objectives. The whole thing should only take you around 3 to 4 hours to complete. Once you’ve finished all 22 stages, the game is pretty much over. Fortunately you can play through every stage with a friend, if you know any sick puppies.
Regarding the rest of the game, there isn’t much to say. The soundtrack was extremely minimal even if the soundscape is appropriately mad. The graphics are decent and have certainly been touched up since the original release. The performance was alright considering this is an Unreal Engine 4 game. The plot barely exists. One thing to note is that the camera is a bit all over the place, with the perspective changing between levels. Also the train station level is weirdly hard. Oh and the AI bots (the clowns) are beyond useless.
And that’s about all I have to say about Postal Redux. I know it’s a short review, but this is a short game. It’s nothing special, but it is nice to see a remaster/remake that adds some new content for a relatively niche release. The gun-play is fine, nothing special but the weapon variety does help. I do wish that there was a bit more to do, that the bots were better and that the OST wasn’t so minimal. Otherwise what you see is what you get. Namely a isometric shooter for people who want society to EAT LEAD.