Postal 2: Share The Pain

How it all begins...

Postal 2: Share the Pain edition is the multiplayer version of the game which adds four modes for multiplayer. The game was developed by Running with Scissors Studio, by that name, you might even have concerns about this one.

So much pain

The plot Postal 2: Share the Pain has a controversial plot but it’s very out of the box. The game was banned in a couple of countries like Germany and Australia if that doesn’t make you want to play a game, nothing will! Do take this with a pinch of salt though as Germany has banned BioShock and God of War and Australia has banned The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and Fallout 3 and many great games. Ok, sorry, back to the plot. The plot spans through two weeks and you complete each day through completing certain tasks. The tasks are quite normal, for example, go get some milk and just go and do the tasks but the thing is, you can do anything you want in the world that’s what makes the game so out of the box and different.

Old but still a classic

The graphics of Postal 2: Share the Pain is a classic, simple even, could be classed retro these days. There doesn’t seem to be much effort put into the graphics, even for the time, it was made near enough the same time as Spider-Man and Kingdom of Hearts and both of them are massively graphically increased compared. There was more of a focus on the actual gameplay and how many different weird and crazy things you can do in the world. That’s never a bad thing and with great gameplay, a game doesn’t need amazing graphics.

Simulated goodness with pain

The gameplay of Postal 2: Share the Pain is the main draw to the game as it's out of the box as you can do almost anything you want. This is where the controversy comes from as its set in a fully simulated town. The live NPCs’ out there live like normal humans but as you do your daily tasks, they provoke you through insults. Here are some examples of things you can do, there are likely some more graphic ones, you can train a dog to attack anyone you like. You can pee fire after beating the game once. You can hit people with a shovel included weirdly enough Gary Coleman if wanted or you can literally go on a rampage with a gun or a shovel and just destroy and kill everything. The idea of doing anything you want within the living town, it is the main aspect, think of it as a more graphic version of Goat Simulator.

Summery (gulp for effect)

Postal 2: Share the Pain even though graphically it's pretty bland, it makes up for it with original gameplay as you virtually can do anything you want. It isn’t made due to the controversy that follows with that. This game throws caution to the win and made it anyway and you’ve got to respect any developers that do that.

I'm Dressed as a member of the Taliban, totin' a machine gun and pissing in a whore's face. And they say games are a bad influence. Postal 2 is of course the morally bankrupt first-person shooter that largely slipped under the mainstream outrage-o-meter when it was released earlier this year. Maybe the Daily Mail didn't receive its review copy, or perhaps the minor publisher simply lacked the PR weight to concoct a mutually beneficial tabloid storm. Either way, the pipe-hittin', animal-torturin', shock 'em up was dismissed as little more than a blip on the FPS radar.

The good/appalling (delete as applicable) news is that Postal is back, replete with all-new online multiplayer functionality. Postal 2: Share The Pain combines an enhanced singleplayer game with 14 multiplayer maps spanning four different game types. DeathMatch is the bog standard FPS perennial, with the key difference here being the diverse array of characters, spanning from Osama Bin Laden to Gary Coleman, aka the stunted kid from mawkishly moralistic '80s TV series, Diff'rent Strokes.

Capture The Slag

Team DeathMatch is much of the same, whereas the Grab mode involves collecting ten bags, each of which make you stronger, something that may or may not be due to the fact that they contain amphetamine-based drugs.

Finally, our favourite, the Snatch game sees you kidnapping a whore from your rival team and positing her in your bed. A simple variation of Capture The Flag, we can only speculate as to why they didn't call it Capture The Slag. Either way, it adds a new dimension to the basic tenet, in so much as the position of your stolen ho' is given away by her desperate screams. And besides, it's more satisfying to return a bitch' to a heart-shaped bed than it is to plant a flag in a generic science fiction landscape, particularly as the two rival ladies lez it up for the winner.

Are You Being Served?

That's pretty much the level of sophistication you're looking at throughout, so if that kind of thing appeals, it's all wrapped up in a moderately playable game. It has to be said, the servers aren't exactly bulging with players, but for an entry-level online FPS, you could do worse. You soon become so caught up in the frantic nature of the action that any moral issues are quickly forgotten about, and the bad taste aspect quickly becomes almost abstract (not necessarily a recommendation).

And if you already own the original single-player game, don't start crying, as a deal on the website enables you to upgrade it for a commensurate price. That said, choosing to condone this type of thing shouldn't really be a financial issue.