Forget Grand Theft Auto, State of Emergency, Redneck Rampage and Hooligans, the single most controversial of all time was Postal, the original anarchy game created by maverick development team Running With Scissors.
The game centred around the concept of “going postal,” an American term for flipping out in a bloodthirsty manner, an affliction that apparently afflicts US postal workers with worrying frequency. It was a game of pure, unadulterated, free-roaming murderous activity, and appalled almost everyone who saw it, from the clergy right down to the humble postal worker.
Well, Running with Scissors has announced that it is hard at work on a super high-tech sequel, presented in the first-person view. “Postal 2 is the sequel to the infamous Postal,” said RWS president Mike Riedel. “We are carrying over those aspects of the original game that were clearly successful: the basic premise of ‘going postal’, the main character (the Postal Dude), the realistic audio, and the brutally effective AI system. And we are addressing the areas where the original game fell short: lack of story, sub-par graphics, restrictive multiplayer, and poor support for user-built levels.”
As far as technological advancement is concerned, the Running With Scissors team has been very busy indeed. To enable a first-person view of the Postal world, the latest build of the Unreal engine has been licensed, along with the Karma physics engine from MathEngine. “We will be adapting the original Postal AI technology to work with the Unreal engine. Our unique approach to AI gives the level designer total control over how he wants the characters in any part of the level to behave,” Riedel continues, “a key design element separating Postal 2 from other games in the genre. Our characters will react to the player and various situations in more subtle, unpredictable and realistic ways than have been seen in games before. There is more of course, but we're not ready to spill everything yet.”
He goes on: “The key premise on the game is: what do you do when faced with such everyday annoying situations? Do you grin and bear it? Or do you go postal? All we do is put you in the situation. It's up to you which way you go... We sincerely believe that most players will just grin and bear it and patiently trudge through one obnoxious situation after another, just as they do in real life. Of course, if that were true, the original Postal wouldn't have sold over 200,000 units worldwide and we wouldn't be doing a sequel. Clearly, most players are going to jump right in with both barrels blazing and that's exactly what this game is all about. Who hasn't wished they could expedite the line at the bank using a high-powered machine gun? Who hasn't wanted to forever silence the obnoxious salesman at the mall? Well, I certainly never did, but the rest of you sick f**ks are gonna have a great time! The real point is that you can play the game at either extreme, totally passive or completely aggressive, or anywhere in between, and the game will react appropriately. Not only is this a great hook for getting players interested in the game, but once they do play, it adds immeasurably to its its replay value.”
In summary, it would seem that Postal 2 will see you going about your everyday life, and encountering various annoying situations. Just like real life, except that flipping out in-game means that you don’t wind up in jail.
Expect a lot more on Postal 2 in the coming months, as well as a full preview from E3 in May.
The game centred around the concept of “going postal,” an American term for flipping out in a bloodthirsty manner, an affliction that apparently afflicts US postal workers with worrying frequency. It was a game of pure, unadulterated, free-roaming murderous activity, and appalled almost everyone who saw it, from the clergy right down to the humble postal worker.
Well, Running with Scissors has announced that it is hard at work on a super high-tech sequel, presented in the first-person view. “Postal 2 is the sequel to the infamous Postal,” said RWS president Mike Riedel. “We are carrying over those aspects of the original game that were clearly successful: the basic premise of ‘going postal’, the main character (the Postal Dude), the realistic audio, and the brutally effective AI system. And we are addressing the areas where the original game fell short: lack of story, sub-par graphics, restrictive multiplayer, and poor support for user-built levels.”
As far as technological advancement is concerned, the Running With Scissors team has been very busy indeed. To enable a first-person view of the Postal world, the latest build of the Unreal engine has been licensed, along with the Karma physics engine from MathEngine. “We will be adapting the original Postal AI technology to work with the Unreal engine. Our unique approach to AI gives the level designer total control over how he wants the characters in any part of the level to behave,” Riedel continues, “a key design element separating Postal 2 from other games in the genre. Our characters will react to the player and various situations in more subtle, unpredictable and realistic ways than have been seen in games before. There is more of course, but we're not ready to spill everything yet.”
He goes on: “The key premise on the game is: what do you do when faced with such everyday annoying situations? Do you grin and bear it? Or do you go postal? All we do is put you in the situation. It's up to you which way you go... We sincerely believe that most players will just grin and bear it and patiently trudge through one obnoxious situation after another, just as they do in real life. Of course, if that were true, the original Postal wouldn't have sold over 200,000 units worldwide and we wouldn't be doing a sequel. Clearly, most players are going to jump right in with both barrels blazing and that's exactly what this game is all about. Who hasn't wished they could expedite the line at the bank using a high-powered machine gun? Who hasn't wanted to forever silence the obnoxious salesman at the mall? Well, I certainly never did, but the rest of you sick f**ks are gonna have a great time! The real point is that you can play the game at either extreme, totally passive or completely aggressive, or anywhere in between, and the game will react appropriately. Not only is this a great hook for getting players interested in the game, but once they do play, it adds immeasurably to its its replay value.”
In summary, it would seem that Postal 2 will see you going about your everyday life, and encountering various annoying situations. Just like real life, except that flipping out in-game means that you don’t wind up in jail.
Expect a lot more on Postal 2 in the coming months, as well as a full preview from E3 in May.
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