Postal 2 Share The Pain PC Game

Last April's Postal 2 seemed to purposely divide gamers into a "love it" or "hate it" camp, the latter of which was considerably larger. The sequel to the controversial 1997 shooter promised to be even more offensive than its predecessor, and it did in fact deliver tons of gross-out humor, racist jokes, and gory violence, all while being perfectly flippant about it. Truthfully, Postal 2's content wasn't far in excess of what you could find on a typical episode of South Park. Yet while the game flaunted its naughtiness, it unfortunately didn't offer enough in the way of entertaining gameplay or longevity to justify all the irreverence. More than half a year later, a rerelease titled Postal 2: Share the Pain addresses the most glaring technical issue of the original--the painfully long loading times between gameplay areas--and adds some goofy multiplayer modes (those who already own Postal 2 can get the multiplayer upgrade at a discount, though it was initially promised as a free download). The result isn't going to convince anyone who took Postal 2 the wrong way to give it a second chance, but it's a better game now than before, and those looking for some seriously lowbrow humor in first-person shooter form would likely get a kick out of it.

The single-player portion of Postal 2: Share the Pain is largely the same as before. Rather than adopt the conventionally linear structure of most first-person shooters, Postal 2 has a more open-ended structure reminiscent of the recent Grand Theft Auto games, only you're stuck running around on foot. The cars lining the streets are apparently just there to mock you. As The Postal Dude (that's actually his name), you're tasked with completing a series of mundane errands over the course of a work week. You may attempt to complete these errands conventionally--for example, on Monday all you need to do is collect your paycheck, cash it, and then buy a carton of milk--but you'll probably end up resorting to violence, and not just because you can. As the week goes on, certain factions will automatically get on Dude's bad side, so going through the game without killing anybody becomes practically impossible after a while. Also, the freedom to explore the town of Paradise is undermined somewhat by the loading times that crop up in between relatively small sections of town. Again, these are shorter and definitely more tolerable than before, which makes the game less frustrating to play, but you'll still find yourself plotting routes through town that require you to go through as few of these transitions as possible.






Minimum:
 OS: Windows XP SP3
 Processor: 2 GHz Intel Dual Core Processor
 Memory: 2 GB RAM
 Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800/ATI Radeon HD 2600 (256MB minimum)
 DirectX «: 9.0c
 Hard Drive: 10 GB HD space
 Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Recommended:
 OS: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Windows 7
 Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Quad Core Processor
 Memory: 3 GB RAM
 Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX460/ATI Radeon HD 5850 (512MB minimum)
 DirectX «: 9.0c
 Hard Drive: 10 GB HD space
 Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible