Remember Postal? In the last 48 hours publisher Running With Scissors has announced a new game, insulted fans, apologized, canceled the game, the studio making it denied wrongdoing & shut down anyway
The Postal series is essentially the videogame equivalent of Uwe Boll's filmography*. They're notoriously awful—the last one we reviewed was Postal 3 in 2012, which earned a dismal 21%—and they keep happening for some reason. A new addition to the lineup was announced on December 3, in fact, called Postal: Bullet Heaven. And then approximately 24 hours later, everything went very sideways.
"After revealing Postal: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal community," RWS wrote on X, the day after Bullet Paradise was revealed. "The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation.
"We’ve always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken, therefore we've killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don’t)."
It's very funny to think about a videogame that's so odiously bad it doesn't even meet the standards of the guys responsible for Postal, but this is where we find ourselves. "The concerned Postal community" also comes off as a knee-slapper, although that may be unfair: Postal 4: No Regerts, released in 2022, has more than 10,000 user reviews on Steam, and a Kickstarter for Postal 2 Redux more than doubled its $250,000 goal earlier this year.
Can I explain it? Absolutely not. But there is clearly a community of some sort here, they like what they like, and they do not like generative AI: Complaints about it are plentiful on the Postal subreddit and Steam.
LeninWeave [none/use name, any] - 1w
How can you be a games "journalist" and not be aware that there is a large community of people who like Postal, especially Postal 2. Seriously strange article.
I'm not saying it's good or bad (I don't play any Postal games, so I wouldn't know), but just implying that all Postal games are a uniform pile of trash when Postal 3 was notoriously a huge flop of a sequel, and acting like no one actually plays them when you admit yourself in the article that a large number of people do, is very strange behavior for someone who is meant to be covering video game news.
34
KobaCumTribute [she/her] - 1w
I remember the original Postal being absolute shit (it's a janky isometric shooter that was just not very good or memorable), but I do remember Postal 2 being actually ok as a game for its time. It was absolutely edgy garbage in line with how the early 2000s were in general and it was in many respects emblematic of the sort of reactionary currents in the counter-culture that would later crystalize out of solution into pure malding fascism in the early '10s, but it did still have like an actual bit of artistic satire to it with how the goal was officially to get through a bunch of banal tasks peacefully in the face of frustrating gags.
I would genuinely say Postal 2 is less offensive than something like any Call of Duty game that's not one of the ones about fighting Nazis. Although I will also say that it's been well over a decade since I played it (pirated it, obviously) so if there's anything really gross and abhorrent that I've just forgotten about, that also wouldn't surprise me.
I have literally never heard anything good about any of the games after that, though. Like it's been more uniformly negative than what I've heard about the work of that Polish chud dev studio that made Agony and Succubus.
18
BelieveRevolt [he/him] - 1w
so if there's anything really gross and abhorrent that I've just forgotten about, that also wouldn't surprise me.
There's a part where you go into the basement of a convenience store that's full of stereotypical Muslim terrorist caricatures.
8
LeninWeave [none/use name, any] - 1w
They probably meant for that to be some kind of "clever" commentary on post-9/11 Amerikkka which immediately fell on its face because both they and a lot of their audience actually are just racist.
8
la_tasalana_intissari_mata [comrade/them] - 1w
it's a bunch of ossama bin ladens
3
LeninWeave [none/use name, any] - 1w
I have literally never heard anything good about any of the games after that, though.
At a glance, Postal 4 doesn't seem as bad as 3. It doesn't seem too good either though, lol.
3
Awoo [she/her] - 1w
Does this dude look like an artist or a manosphere influencer? You decide.
22
Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them] - 1w
I love how CHUDs will hit this wall with AI, they want it everywhere and in everything, but not anything they actually consume, because they know that it actively enshittifies it. They want everyone else's media to be replaced with AI slop and only the finest human generated slop for them.
Also, what kind of dev upon being called out about using AI would just delete the whole project? Sounds like they had nothing planned and were just hoping "AI" could make a game for cheap that they could cash in on.
19
KobaCumTribute [she/her] - 1w
Sounds like they had nothing planned and were just hoping "AI" could make a game for cheap that they could cash in on.
Did you watch the trailer? It looked really, really bad. The trailer cartoon bits were awful, and the actual gameplay literally looked like what you'd get if you stuffed a buncha small handful of AI generated sprites and literally nothing else into a unity tutorial project. So they probably had literally that, which generously would represent like a week of work for one competent programmer and maybe a month or two for someone vibe coding it instead.
11
BelieveRevolt [he/him] - 1w
They said it's a "bullet heaven" game, which is the sub-sub-genre that Vampire Survivors, Megabonk and games like that fit into, but the trailer makes it look more like the terrible N64 South Park game.
7
sawdustprophet @midwest.social - 1w
The Postal series is essentially the videogame equivalent of Uwe Boll's filmography*
Easily the best part of the entire article.
13
NephewAlphaBravo [he/him] - 1w
i'm a hog and i have standards
11
Anissem @lemmy.ml - 1w
Why anyone has been playing any of the postal sequels is beyond me
11
la_tasalana_intissari_mata [comrade/them] - 1w
running with scissors moment
10
Horse {they/them} - 1w
tangent, but in the uwe boll "movie" postal, he had a cameo where his character (himself) explicitly states that he's a pedophile and funds his movies with nazi gold
like the nazi stuff is pretty normal for like an edgy self-deprecating joke or w/e, but the pedo stuff is a wild choice
10
Keld [he/him, any] - 1w
There are a surprising amount of producers and directors who self inserts as pedophiles. And by surprising i mean that i know of it happening twice. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
5
huf [he/him] - 1w
It's his best movie too, or possibly second best (house of the dead is "good" too). Uwe boll, who made a career out of the German state's German media subsidy policy. What a man
2
SuperZutsuki [they/them] - 1w
I feel like Postal at this point is just an elaborate ARG.
7
Taster_Of_Treats [none/use name] - 1w
Not to expect too much from Postal of all things but having the only enemy be 100 of the same impossibly fat woman clearly indicates what type of person the devs hate.
thelastaxolotl in games
Remember Postal? In the last 48 hours publisher Running With Scissors has announced a new game, insulted fans, apologized, canceled the game, the studio making it denied wrongdoing & shut down anyway
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/remember-postal-in-the-last-48-hours-publisher-running-with-scissors-has-announced-a-new-game-insulted-fans-apologized-canceled-the-game-the-studio-making-it-denied-wrongdoing-shut-down-anyway-and-we-can-thank-the-magic-of-ai-for-all-of-it/How can you be a games "journalist" and not be aware that there is a large community of people who like Postal, especially Postal 2. Seriously strange article.
I'm not saying it's good or bad (I don't play any Postal games, so I wouldn't know), but just implying that all Postal games are a uniform pile of trash when Postal 3 was notoriously a huge flop of a sequel, and acting like no one actually plays them when you admit yourself in the article that a large number of people do, is very strange behavior for someone who is meant to be covering video game news.
I remember the original Postal being absolute shit (it's a janky isometric shooter that was just not very good or memorable), but I do remember Postal 2 being actually ok as a game for its time. It was absolutely edgy garbage in line with how the early 2000s were in general and it was in many respects emblematic of the sort of reactionary currents in the counter-culture that would later crystalize out of solution into pure malding fascism in the early '10s, but it did still have like an actual bit of artistic satire to it with how the goal was officially to get through a bunch of banal tasks peacefully in the face of frustrating gags.
I would genuinely say Postal 2 is less offensive than something like any Call of Duty game that's not one of the ones about fighting Nazis. Although I will also say that it's been well over a decade since I played it (pirated it, obviously) so if there's anything really gross and abhorrent that I've just forgotten about, that also wouldn't surprise me.
I have literally never heard anything good about any of the games after that, though. Like it's been more uniformly negative than what I've heard about the work of that Polish chud dev studio that made Agony and Succubus.
There's a part where you go into the basement of a convenience store that's full of stereotypical Muslim terrorist caricatures.
They probably meant for that to be some kind of "clever" commentary on post-9/11 Amerikkka which immediately fell on its face because both they and a lot of their audience actually are just racist.
it's a bunch of ossama bin ladens
At a glance, Postal 4 doesn't seem as bad as 3. It doesn't seem too good either though, lol.
Does this dude look like an artist or a manosphere influencer? You decide.
I love how CHUDs will hit this wall with AI, they want it everywhere and in everything, but not anything they actually consume, because they know that it actively enshittifies it. They want everyone else's media to be replaced with AI slop and only the finest human generated slop for them.
Also, what kind of dev upon being called out about using AI would just delete the whole project? Sounds like they had nothing planned and were just hoping "AI" could make a game for cheap that they could cash in on.
Did you watch the trailer? It looked really, really bad. The trailer cartoon bits were awful, and the actual gameplay literally looked like what you'd get if you stuffed
a buncha small handful of AI generated sprites and literally nothing else into a unity tutorial project. So they probably had literally that, which generously would represent like a week of work for one competent programmer and maybe a month or two for someone vibe coding it instead.They said it's a "bullet heaven" game, which is the sub-sub-genre that Vampire Survivors, Megabonk and games like that fit into, but the trailer makes it look more like the terrible N64 South Park game.
Easily the best part of the entire article.
i'm a hog and i have standards
Why anyone has been playing any of the postal sequels is beyond me
running with scissors moment
tangent, but in the uwe boll "movie" postal, he had a cameo where his character (himself) explicitly states that he's a pedophile and funds his movies with nazi gold
like the nazi stuff is pretty normal for like an edgy self-deprecating joke or w/e, but the pedo stuff is a wild choice
There are a surprising amount of producers and directors who self inserts as pedophiles. And by surprising i mean that i know of it happening twice. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
It's his best movie too, or possibly second best (house of the dead is "good" too). Uwe boll, who made a career out of the German state's German media subsidy policy. What a man
I feel like Postal at this point is just an elaborate ARG.
Not to expect too much from Postal of all things but having the only enemy be 100 of the same impossibly fat woman clearly indicates what type of person the devs hate.