This game contains content not approved for consumption by children, senators, religious leaders and/or other easily damaged psyches, those seeking to enhance or establish political careers and/or possessed of delusions of grandeur. If accidentally exposed, flush eyes with cold water and induce vomiting. If irritation persists, sit quietly and watch PBS. Not for internal use. This game and its related products/propaganda are GUARANTEED not to make you go blind, masturbate (and THEN go blind), become a social liability, induce you to act out atrocities that you would otherwise never indulge in, or burn eternally in hell. Running With Scissors accepts NO responsibility for any and all random acts of stupidity or violence committed by losers who may blame popular entertainment media and/or sugary snack foods for causing their inherent basic lack of control. You're on your own. Thank you and good night.

The original Postal was a controversy magnet for politicians, angry parents, conservative pundits and even the Postmaster General. Running around killing, flaming and generally having few redeeming factors whatsoever – except for being quite fun – got the old folks’ dander up quicker than suggested cuts to Social Security. Now Postal 2 takes the series into the FPS genre, with Epic’s Unreal tech powering the engine underneath. The story presents you as an average guy named Postal dude, looking to live your life in a seriously misnamed town called Paradise. The game is set over five days, with an average of three missions per day, ranging from picking up your laundry to getting Gary Coleman’s autograph to paying traffic citations.

The first thing you notice is how Whiptail and RWS have tried to create an atmosphere of a living, breathing town. There are tons of people walking around, minding their own business (for the most part), standing in lines, talking and interacting with each other. Walk into someone’s house uninvited, and they’ll tell you to get the hell out. Ignore them, and they might pull a gun on you, or run out the door and notify a cop, which will activate your wanted meter. The more shenanigans you get up to, the higher your meter climbs until it seems like every cop in America is crawling up your ass. If you’re walking around with a gun out, the cops will come after you. Walk around with your man-gun out, the cops will harass you. If they see you kicking someone, the cops will come after you. Other folks seem to walk around with their weapons out with impunity, however, which is a mild irritant.

Nobody’s forcing you to act violently, though. If you have enough cash and the sprinting power of a ‘roided up Ben Johnson, you can purchase/pay for what you need and escape from dicey situations. If you’re like most people – and come on, who buys a FPS to act out good citizen fantasies? – you’ll use every weapon available to achieve your objectives…and man, Postal 2 gives you all the weapons you could ever need, some more imaginative than others. Shovels, pistols, shotguns, grenades, rocket launchers, hunting rifles, all are present and accounted for, but how about throwing in some gasoline? Just pour a trail, toss a match and watch your fellow denizens burn to a crisp, howling in agony. Think that machine gun is attracting too much attention? Use a cat silencer – with the barrel shoved firmly up its rectum, you can blast away through most of a clip in blessed serenity before your furry friend explodes. If humiliation is more your bag, unzip your pants, pull out the ol’ beef sword and let the people know exactly what you think of them.

Rag-doll physics make kicking bodies around a treat and a half. There’s blood to spare, several missions, and the motion capture animation is giggle-rific – wait until you check out the scene at the Fire In The Hold gay bar. Voice samples and characters are varied, and the scenery itself – especially outdoors – is really quite nice. Your character, Postal Dude, and the other folks aren’t as detailed as other shooters on the market, but the town’s atmosphere is filled out nicely and the setting is the thing, as far as I’m concerned.

If you can’t stand political correctness, your game is here. Everyone takes it, from Muslims to politicians to special-interest groups to Catholic priests to homosexuals…the whole rainbow coalition. Are you squeamish? Don’t play this game. Can’t stand the sight of blood? Don’t buy this game. Curse words make your ears burn? Don’t buy this game. If you appreciate satire – albeit slathered on with a trowel as opposed to any sort of finesse – you’ll get a kick out of Postal 2’s take on life. Consider this the strongest warning about the game’s content I’m going to give.

The thing about Postal 2, though, is this – it gets monotonous around Wednesday or so. Sure, the first few missions were great fun, blasting away through RWS headquarters, collecting signatures for my petition, buying milk…but right around the Gary Coleman signing, I started questioning myself as to why I wasn’t enjoying myself as much as when I first started. It seems like the missions always boil down to 1) go here, 2) perform task which 3) triggers cut-scene which means 4) shoot your way out through waves of enemies to get away. The combination of 2003 graphics with 1995 mission design hurts Postal 2 in the long term.

Something else that absolutely kills the game is the insane amount of loading that goes on. Paradise is a big place with a lot of different areas to see, but when my HD is cranking away every couple of minutes when I’m just trying to get from my house to the mall, a minor irritant becomes a major headache quickly. After playing games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and The Getaway, which also provide large cities to play in with minimal loading times, the constant WHRNKKK WHRNKKK WHRNKKK and the wait that accompanies it is a pain in the ass. I’d probably enjoy the missions more if the loading times were balanced better, but that’s not the case – be prepared to do a fair amount of waiting around, watching the little bar at the bottom of your screen fill up.

I’m going to be absolutely straight: Postal 2 isn’t great. It’s fun in small doses, but the monotony of the missions will suck away the desire to play for extended periods of time, and that’s a shame. Still, if you’re comfortable with the subject matter and approach, there’s fun to be had here, and booting up a quick game just to wreak some havoc and pee on some dogs is hilarity itself. I just wish it had included a more varied gameplay experience.