Shäd-base

Frankie getting ready for her big date, with YOU.

When I mentioned earlier I wanted to revisit a previous project I wasnt kidding. Lets get this comic going.

Magfest is also coming up soon, so heads up that I will have to let someone fill in for me for a week, since I wont be able to draw for an entire week at the end of this month.

I also wanted to talk about a little game I finally had the chance to play for myself.

“Postal 2“

As you probably know by now I absolutely love videogames, and play quite a bunch.

I felt like mentioning this particular one even though its a really old game by now, but it has been banned in my old country and Ive been avoiding it because of hearing its apparently not worth playing from many different sources. However after seeing it on Steam Sale for really cheap here in America I finally bought it.

And now I wish to defend it, and say that it is in fact worth playing.

With flawed mechanics, graphics that are beyond aged, and gun play that feels floaty, it still manages to be a very memorable experience, and left a lasting impact on me.

On its surface it seams like it just wants to be offensive while being juvenile and violent just for the sake to appeal towards stupidity. However it very fast proves to be a product made with lots of love and clever ideas. The brilliant concept of doing a work-week, Monday to Friday ,while doing mundane tasks, such as getting milk or dropping of a book at the library in a smalltown-open world envoirment is really effective.

You immediately start to feel bored and annoyed from the lame tasks and the AI populations antics, so to keep yourself occupied you do what everybody probably started doing immediately, you start to murder, maim, burn and  slaughter everybody and everything you come across. You “go Postal” as the americans would say. But that’s not the goal of the game at all! You can go through the entire week without killing anybody but yourself in the end (spoilers, its a really old game who cares).

As you go through the game you will offend different groups of people who will try to kill you regardless wether youve been a violent person ingame or not, just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Which can be viewed metaphorically to society, where whatever your actions will be, you will end up making certain lots of enemies. Personally I can relate to that very much, its like the “Postal Dude” Protagonist says :”Well I guess I’m just not a peoples person.” Throughout my life I constantly offend and make enemies without even trying, just for being myself.

To those who like to kill in videogames, the game really becomes interesting, there are so many creatively sadistic ways to dispose of people its a blast to just walk trough town executing everything on sight, on your way to your uncles birthday party.

Electrocuting someone with a taser till they puke, slump over and start seizuring on the ground while soiling their pants, only to then cut them in half and piss on their maimed body while they try to crawl away with their entrails falling out, whimpering to please kill them and get it over with. Which you then do by soaking them with gasoline, lighting a match and watch them scream as they burn to a crisp. Then to finish it off you decapitate their charred head to then kick it down the street and end it all by smushing it with a sledgehammer. That may sound really, really psychotic on paper, but in Postal 2 its just part of the sandbox experience cause you get so bored of the every day tasks the game forces upon you, it turns anybody in to a mutilating pychopath. However in that virtual world, which is completely detached from reality, the killing becomes hilarious and perhabs most importantly, alot of fun. It parodies the fact that back then most of the media blamed videogames for a lot of the violence in the world. The protagonist jokingly says while on a killing spree: “I know what youre thinking, but the funny thing is, I dont even like videogames!“

Postal 2 is by no means a excellent flawless game. But it is very beautiful in its own way.

Nowadays that games have become so big, that story, context and political correctness is really important. Something as savage like Postal 2 will never be mainstreamly released again, its a product of its time, and its one of a kind. A simple small game by today’s standards, but a very memorable one.