After the original isometric POSTAL (which you can actually buy on the NA e-shop!), the series carved out a bit of a niche as a crude open world FPS. It was never really high on quality from a gameplay standpoint, but instead relied on its dumb humour and ultra-violence to win over its audience. As expected, this approach ended up being pretty divisive gaining a following of die-hard fans whilst being derided by others.
As someone that has always had a little bit of a soft spot for the series, but can also recognise that they usually have countless flaws, I’ve always wanted the series to evolve a bit more and become something genuinely great.
And now, with this spinoff entry, I can say that it absolutely has. And I couldn’t be happier.
Many thanks to the publisher for the review code.
ETERNALLY BRAIN DAMAGED
To say that POSTAL: Brain Damaged is light on story would be something of an understatement. Taking place in the warped psyche of the Postal Dude, you’re given very vague motivations to drive yourself forward. There is seemingly some kind of doppelganger that always seems to be one step ahead of you, but as he never really poses much of a threat, your quest for toilet paper, or whatever becomes the more pressing issue. An absolutely stupid premise for sure, but it matches the rest of the fever dream that is POSTAL: Brain Damaged.
As this is all going on inside his head, it’s interesting to see how he portrays the world around him. From the nightmarish imagery the game often has, especially during the sequences in the mental institution, to how he verbally demeans everything in his path (although thankfully you can adjust or turn off these once he starts repeating himself a little too often), it’s plain to see that life has really screwed him over. Between the crude humour and violence, there’s actually a degree of unexpected depth here, although it’s usually hidden by dick jokes.
Forgoing the aforementioned open-world gameplay of the main series, Brain Damaged opts for an episodic approach reminiscent of classic boomer shooters. Each of the three episodes have their own general themes, but in reality the five long levels within each are all vastly different to one another. The opening level, set in a nightmarish suburbia is a wide open space filled of colourful yet identical houses whilst the next is set in a claustrophobic prison with dank sewers that centres its action predominantly around a panoptic central area. It’s actually quite impressive as to how varied the stages are whilst still having some kind of cohesive connection between them.
Another thing that sets the game apart from the main series are the NPCs you will encounter. Being figments of his warped imagination, the harmless citizens are all literally faceless beings whilst the enemies are exaggerated abominations of things that he has seen. Guard dogs are vicious wolf-like hounds that are so big that their own dog-house is stuck to their body; whilst cosplayers literally embody the things that they dress up as. Interestingly, there are even quite a number of creatures that strongly resemble monsters from the modern DOOM games, such as a giant floating Cacodemon style creature, and what can only be described as a Mancubus in a skimpy nurses outfit. These are only a handful of creature types, however, and there are far more unique creations to help set the game apart.
These foes are mostly a lot of fun to fight as they have their own particular attack styles to be wary of. It’s not quite the level of strategy that something like DOOM Eternal offers, but there’s still a degree of prioritising threats and using your arsenal wisely.
Speaking of which, the weapons and power-ups really are the star of the show here. There’s Postal Dude’s iconic shovel, of course, which is motorised like a chainsaw; a Crysis 3 style crossbow that fires out dildos at high speed (seriously); a machine gun that fires a time-stopping bomb that freezes everything it touches for a limited time; and shotgun that is quite literally the Super Shotgun, to name but a few. Each of the weapons have a secondary function that you can take advantage of in combat, and the majority of them are pretty useful too. There are some that are more situational, such as the lock-on function of the chain-gun or the holy hand-grenades, but even those had their moments to shine.
Complementing the weapon roster, there are also a number of power-up that you can find dotted around the levels and these will prove essential in the fight through your own mind. Enemies really don’t fuck around in this game, and even on normal you’ll find yourself often overwhelmed; however, the items are what helps balance things and make the odds a little bit more in your favour. Health and ammo recovery are the obvious useful items that you’ll want to save when running low, but you’ll also want to keep on top of the quirky stuff too. Whether its the akimbo power-up that doubles your equipped weapon and grants you temporary unlimited ammunition or burning piss to set your foes alight, these can really give you the advantage – especially when pitted in an arena battle against numerous foes. Both weapons and power-ups reset between episodes too, so there should never really be any need to stockpile them until later.
It really is a satisfying setup that works so well due to how fluid the movement is in the game. Even though my initial impressions of the controls were pretty poor due to the lack of gyro aiming and the extremely sensitive look speed, I soon found that altering the sensitivity settings a little made the world of difference. You still move fast, especially when you take advantage of the sliding jump and bunny-hopping mechanics, but it feels far tighter and responsive than the default setup. The generous auto-aim too really helps make up for the lack of gyro, even though it can feel like a crutch at times. I was also pleasantly surprised that the framerate is also surprisingly smooth throughout, even though the visuals do have a dip in quality compared to other versions of the game. It’s most noticeable in the cutscenes, surprisingly enough, with the actual in-game stages looking quite pleasing for the most part.
Despite how fun the core gameplay is though, there are some issues that do dampen the overall experience slightly. Most notably, the level design can have the occasional dip in quality. The first level, for example, gives off a rather bad first impression as you’ll encounter the same houses again and again with many empty streets in-between. Whilst the scale of the neighbourhood is impressive, I found that most of my time was spent wandering aimlessly looking for where to go next. Sure, there are billboards dotted around that give you some indicators, but I still found myself going around in circles for far longer than I’d have liked.
Things do improve after that as almost all of the subsequent stages are far more structured by design, although admittedly there are still occasional moments where the route forward is not overly clear. It’s a little strange, as these moments are offset by moments of brilliance where obtaining the next key item and the place to use it flow together so well. Going from such great design to sections where you just feel like you’re winging it really can be jarring at times.
The other issue I had, and largely the biggest gripe, is with moments when an arena fight pops up. Whilst there’s not as big of an emphasis with them as there is with DOOM Eternal, there are still quite a number of areas where you’re pitted against a large number of foes in a sizeable area. The problem is that very few of them are particularly well designed, and feel slightly awkward to get around. When faced with such deadly opponents, it can make these encounters feel far harder than they should be as you’ll end up fighting the environment half the time. I think the main problem is that they don’t really make the most of the Postal Dude’s moveset and really could have allowed for greater use of his meathook (yes, he has the exact same shotgun as Doomguy!), slide, and even his kicking and pissing skills – the latter of which can be used to very momentarily distract enemies, but rarely feels like it has that much use in combat.
But these issues are only really a small blip in what is otherwise a really fun experience. I think the only reason I criticize such things is because the game is surprisingly well-made with some fantastic responsive movement and satisfying shooting that makes it stand toe to toe with the likes of Eternal, Severed Steel, Dusk, and all the other great modern boomer shooters, and I think the game could maybe even have surpassed most of them too had it not been for these slight issues.
VERDICT
The iconic Postal crudeness is certainly going to put off quite a large number of people before going in, but anyone who is willing to accept firing precision-based dildos at sexy nurse Mancubi will probably find themselves loving this fast-paced shooter.
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