Postal: Brain Damaged

 


Postal Brain Damaged is a spinoff title not developed by the original Postal devs, Running with Scissors. This game is developed by Hyperstrange and CreativeForge Games, whom seem like have not made any other FPS games before, but indie roguelikes and 2D turn based games. Interesting choice for a Postal developer. The other distinguishing thing about this game is unlike the other mainline Postal Games (besides 1), it is not Open-world at all, but a more Traditional FPS with Level based gameplay. That is about the extent of the knowledge I had of the game before I jumped into it.


Immediately the main menu is pretty cool, when you start a new game and select levels it shows you the Postal Dudes skull being cracked open and then each indivdiual level is a piece of his brain. Theres 4 Difficulties and I put it on the default Medium. The game starts off with a cartoony cutscene about the Postal Dude having crazy dreams, that basically this whole game is a fucked up dream and the first goal is to get a TV.  The first level is these colorful bright Suburbs, you wakeup inside some random persons house and the very first striking impression is the graphics and the artstyle. The graphics are this crude PS1/Ps2 or Gamecube style Lofi, Low polygon low res textures look, even the other characters don't have faces but just this blur of pixelated graphics, It makes sense since its all a dream and its an interesting choice for sure, but at the same time it strays even further from Postal 1 and Postal 2's any semblance of grit, horror, or dark edgy vibes. Its just gone totally zaney and silly, like a sunday morning cartoon.

The first level is almost like a parody of The Sims. You go in and out of ordinary houses in some floating suburban neighborhood, it looks all dreamlike and kinda cool in the distance with floating houses you traverse to. You get introduced to the first batch of enemy types. There's rabid dogs, flying fat guys with a helicoptor hat throwing sandwiches at you, rednecks shooting at you with a shotgun, theres even innocent civilians running around, and at times it feels almost like Serious Sam than Postal 2 or 4. The first level even has Sims references with dead civillians in some houses with the sims icon above their head.

Here you get aquianted with the basic arsenal, a pink pistol with a goofy looking tv screen on it, a double barrel shotgun but each barrel is oddly a Pepsi and a Coke can, a shovel that also acts as a chainsaw. The shotgun especially is important as it takes notes from Doom Eternal in it being a hookshot gun, you need to use it to hook across to certain areas in the map to progress through the game. The first impression of the guns is with hesitation, they honestly look kinda lame and like toys. I get its supposed to be a dream, but some of the fun in a FPS game is the guns feeling satisfying and threatening to use, when you make them look so silly it makes it a bit harder to get invested in combat, for me at least.

The basic level design takes notes moreso from Traditional FPS games more than open-world modern ones. I guess this game is a "Boomer shooter" as in, your guns dont have reloads, you do a lot of key and switch hunting, you have a big variety of guns you switch between with the number keys, the game is broken up into level segments, it has a large emphasis on movement, jumping around, bunny hopping, moving fast, and so on.

The game is broken up into 3 unspoken episodes.
The first episode is about trying to find a TV, the second episode is about trying to find some toilet paper, the third episode is about trying to hunt down Leon Dusk (basically Elon Musk reference).

Though only really level 1 is that standout or unique in Episode 1, nothing else quite captures the same level as wonder and marvel, not to say level 1 is amazing or anything, but its a bit more memorable. Level 2 is inside this sewer+prison, the game faetures Jump Pads, where it launches you up into the air which you can use to either progress through the level or use during battle, something also featured in DUSK as well as Rise of the Triad. Speaking of Dusk, I get the sense lots of things are inspired by that game, which I'll touch on later.

The enemies really do swarm you a lot, once again like Serious Sam. Not long into the game and youre getting waves upon waves of never ending enemies coming at you, theres even enemies that spawn other enemies until you kill them, adding more to the chaos, some of these can be just annoying to deal with.

The main way the levels progress is you go around finding Keys, but more than that youre also constantly either looking for buttons to press, or these Toilets to piss in which also are mandatory to progress, or youre looking for these Red circular targets to shoot which unlock new areas of the maps, or you have to frequently pickup this Pink lever and go place them around the map; its just a lot of unessesary busy work and causes many "What the fuck do I do / Where do I go moments". Finding keys is fine, hitting switches is fine, but theres just too much stuff to find and press or unlock which can really throw a wrench in the pacing. This problem is further exacerbated by when you do press a button or unlock some area, it never will say exactly what it did. It will just say "Sequence complete" so youre left wondering what that just did, so you end up running around in circles for a dozen minutes combing through the map trying to find it.

 One part in level 3, the desert level, theres a sign that says "Dont blow up". well I figured I could throw an explosive at it, or place my TNT which I had at it, so I threw explosives and tried to blow it up but nothing worked. Turns out you have to just walk right up to it and press E, that wasted a few minutes of pointless time. Maybe an icon should of popped up , I dont know. Things like that is just an example of the kind of unintuitive stuff that wastes your time. On the fourth level of "episode 1" is another example of such annoying unintuitive time wasting mechanics.
you start off and theres a lazer grid and a gap you cant jump across, theres nowhere to go. After wasting a dozen minutes it turns out you have to look up, and piss onto some platform with a hidden toilet that lowers the platform. Just what the hell. Stuff like this happens pretty commonly and it would start to get really aggravating and boring.


As you progress more and more through the game of course it keeps reveaing new enemies, lots of them are satire and characbtures, lots of enemies saying "You dirty liberal/leftist" that kinda stuff. Lots of pop-culture references which range from amusing to just stupid. The actual roster of enemies is hit and miss though, many of them just feel like reskins or pointless enemies to fill up space, like the BDSM suit girls in the vents or the multiple different versions of the sheriffs, multiple different kinds of dogs and humanoid enemies, there is just a ton of enemies but some of them feel like just more fodder to add to the chaos than distinct unique enemies with new mechanics.


Much of the rest of Episode 1 is factory type levels where youre going around pressing buttons on walls, looking for these pink levers and placing them around, while being attacked by waves of enemies, mixed in with some more desert village levels. Nothing that stands out too much, and has its fair share of annoying moments. Though the last level of Episode 1 is a boss fight inside Walmart with Karen, as in the Karen meme. This managed to get a chuckle out of me, so good job there. Its actually a fun boss fight too, shes this giant hulking enemy that stomps the ground which hurls shockwaves at you, and charges at you, while theres also normal enemies coming at you, it was a fun little arena battle.

Episode 2 takes place in a mental asylum, it takes your guns away and youre surrounded by civillians in straight jackets, the game has lots of different powerups and items you can collect  and holdon to use at will, stuff like Slow-mo pills, Crack  pipe for health. ARmor jacket for armor, Ammo boxes, these pills that make your kicks super strong, among others. These are fun to collect and add new opportunities during battles.

And already here in Episode 1 level 1 is another instance of this annoying time wasting "what the fuck do I do" moment. The way some of the levels are designed make it incredibly easy to miss crucial parts of the map. Like this part in the asylum where the hallway splits off but the way you turn the corner makes it really easy to miss because it blends in so much, if it was designed better it would have a big landmark near it, some big bright poster on the wall that makes the player turn his head and look, or just anyhting eyecatching. Instead, I ran past this split hallway like 10 times, I ran in circles at a dead end combing through every room in the mazelike asylum for 10 minutes needlessly. This issue comes up too often.

Episode 2 level 1 is on the outside of the Asylum, which is visually a pretty cool level. Although it was by this point my mood was starting to shift on the actual combat its self. Like I said earlier, the guns don't really look or feel all that exciting, they're more like Nerf toy guns and wacky designs, but moreover they dont really feel impactful or satisfying to shoot. The shotgun is espcially started to feel lacking and not powerful. I'd go up to a group of say, 6 standard enemies, point blank blast them with the shotgun and maybe only 2 of them would die. The shotgun just doesnt have enough spread and doesnt do enough damage. Bigger enemies take like 6 shotgun blasts point blank to take down, and its not uncommon to see like 10 of them on screen. It just results in making the guns feel weak and uneffective and incentivies you to just try running past the enemies than actually have fun engaging combat. Indeed, sometimes I would see so many enemies on screen, knowing how bullet spongey they are, and just say fuck it and run past most of them. Its kind of a bad design in a FPS game where the player doesnt feel like actually shooting. Something is gone wrong there. Its not just the Shotgun, either, guns like the Assault Rifle also look lame and cartoony, but doesn't feel much better either. It shoots these slow moving nail projectiles, and sure its decent enough in taking down some enemies, but of course its not gonna be great against more bigger foes, but at times it felt like that was the only viable weapon I had. Theres another sort of laser gun, but it similarly felt weak and barely had enough ammo even at maximum capacity to take down 5 enemies. The rocket Launcher is just okay, but again I feel like it could of had a bigger blast radius and done more damage ,it still takes 5 rockets to take down common enemies.

You have other weapons like the Dildo Crossbow, but obviously this just looks stupid, but doesn't feel much better. The only notable thing about it is that you can zoom in, other than that it takes ages to fire and barely does more damage than say, the Pistol. Yet another disappointing weapon.
Even more lackluster is the alternate fire on all the weapons. Each weapon has an alternate fire, but they similarly do not excite me and I hardly used any of them. The pistol has a lock-on autoshooting thing, id rather shoot enemies manually myself. The shotgun alternate fire is the Hookshot, which you have to use anyway to progress some parts,the Rocket Launcher alt fire shoots Holy Hand Grenades (Worms reference), but I diddnt find myself compelled to use it much, the Assault rifle alt-fire shoots this blue orb which temporarily freezes enemies, but you cannot even shoot the enemies while freezing so its like whats the point? And so on. I didnt really think any of the alt-fires were fun to use...

Couple the weak feeling, lame looking guns, with nonstop hordes of enemies AND some of these enemies are spawners which will constantly spawn more enemies until you track them down and kill them, it started to just make the combat feel like a chore more than anything. Most of the game I just used the Assault Rifle and Pistol, I gave up on trying to use the shotgun because its so unsatisfying and weak, you get a Chaingun which is useful but the ammo runs out too fast, the rocket launcher is useful sometimes but still felt weak, many of the enemies are just damage sponges, and oddly enough the Pistol seemed to be the most viable weapon in a lot of situations as its the easiest way to get consistent headshots and headshots actually do more damage. The combat and weapons are just underwhelming.

Episode 2 frequently uses these wheel switches you have to turn, then it says Sequence Complete, but again you dont know where, so you run around in circles using them. Turns out what it does is turn on some Water fountain you have to walk up to to get giga powerful Piss so then you have to pee on different vines to melt them. Is this fun gameplay? Not really. More obtuse busywork. One level in Episode 2 has you going around finding these mystical Alien eye orbs to open some portal, that level was okay, the enemies youre fighting are these short aliens, and weird frog things constantly spamming projectiles at you. Lots of back and forth pressing switches to unlock laser grids, you crawl through vents and theres these weird BDSM lady enemies in there which arent so much a threat but just bizarre.

At some point you get this Cat launcher weapon which is a vaccume that shoots out cat, this thing looks goofy and absurd but it basically just acts as a slightly more powerful pistol, its an okay weapon but again, not exactly the most fun. The rest of Episode 2 is just a lot of indoors factory facility type levels or alien indoors levels where youre just going around pressing switches and trying to find what they unlock. Theres a new enemy that shoots lasers from its trinalge head which is a real pain in the ass because it just constantly shakes your screen and hitscans you across the map.

The end of episode 2 is pretty underwhelming, its a boss fight in some vertical tunnel where you keep hookshotting up to this circular orb enemy with a bunch of eyes, you just keep shooting his eyes and hookshotting up and hes dead before you know it.

The last episode, Episode 3, is a satire of Elon Musk or something like this, it has you going after a guy called Leon Dusk and killing him and stoppoing his evil space plans or whatever.

It starts off on this big convention level where youre going around to different convention stalls trying to make your way through the level but theres all sorts of barriers in your way. First you need keys, then you need Illuminati pieces, then you need to go press buttons and it has more of that "What the fuck do I do" moments, with waves of infinite enemies, also its Episode 3 so it took your weapons away again so all you get is like a Shovel and a machine gun and it wants you to deal with tons of bullet sponge enemies it just doesnt make sense so I ran past most of them.

The levels in episode 3 continue on to be more about being in space, being inside space ships and space stations, shooting various types of aliens, lots of going around pushing buttons and switches to turn off laser walls, it starts to just be a chore. I really got tired of the whole "go find the lever and put it into the holes, go find the buttons to turn off the laser grids, go find the target on the wall to unlock the next section" its too much downtime, and the levels themselves are just bland and not much to look at or much to remember. Theres a few sections where youre going around in zero gravity floating around looking for switches, or moments where you press a switch and it turns the level upside down or sideways, kinda like that one level in Dusk again, Episode 3 was probably the worst episode.

The last level of the game is inside an arena in space, where you first fight a clone version of Postal dude who bunny hops all around, again just like the final boss of the game Dusk, they must have been inspired by that game. After you kill Postal dude then he jumps up into some big mech suit and you have to battle the mech, blowing off pieces of its armor with your hookshot then shooting his weak spots. You kill him and you get a cutscene of Postal dude shooting his enemy clone and then he wakes up from his bad dream or whatever. Thats Postal: brain Damaged


I wanted to be able to say good things about it, and I wanted to like it, but the combat just didn't hit for me, and the obtuse level design with having to constantly do busy work making you backtrack and say "What the fuck do i do now" moments really brought down the pacing. Oh and the levels themselves are often 20-30 minutes long, they should of been broken up into smaller segments to make the pacing feel better. Theres just too many gripes I have with the game, I don't enjoy the weapons, also the whole artstyle and graphics again go more into the so wacky zaney territory, more like modern Saints Row or Borderlands moreso than classic Postal, I dont know why they keep gravitating towards this style and abandoning the old more darker gritty edge of Postal, its disappointing.  Sure theres some funny moments, some fun levels, lots of pop-culture references that made me smirk here and there, but overall sadly it was just lukewarm. Also I beat it in just 1 session, so its not like its an overly long slog or anything, which ended up helping its case.

5/10