Can you believe that we’re now actually able to play Postal on a console? A game so controversial that has collected more international bans than Kojima has received awards from Geoff Keighley. Not only that, but a Nintendo console? Having a Postal Redux icon sitting right next to Kirby and Mario Kart is hella disturbing, but I can’t help but feel slightly amazed with this prospect. I wanted to tackle Postal Redux on the Switch, if nothing else, purely out of novelty. So, is this game worth buying?

C’mon folks, you know the answer to this question. The Postal games aren’t known for the sheer quality of their entries. They are known for being maypoles of controversy and that’s it. The thing is, the world has changed a lot since 1997, the year of the original Postal game’s release. What was once considered worthy of a ban and tons of discussions, such as blood, gore, and nudity, is commonplace in mainstream gaming. GTA V, Agony, Saints Row IV, Mortal Kombat 11, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and many other games have since pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable in mainstream gaming. These last four games are also available on the Switch, mind you.

As a result, all we have here is a bad game that does very little in terms of shocking players, as well as doing very little when it comes to entertaining them. A very dated game, even though this is a full-fledged remake of the 1997 “classic”. This is a clunky twin-stick shooter that tasks you with killing everyone in sight in order to move to the next level. It doesn’t matter if they’re helpless civilians or armed guards, just aim at them and blow their brains out. Or at least that’s what I think that my character is doing. Sorry, I can’t tell, the sprites just look way too minuscule onscreen.

Postal Redux‘s gameplay is pretty simple. You’re thrown into a small map, and your objective is to kill everyone in sight. You can kill both police enforcers (labeled as “hostiles”) and harmless civilians, but in order to progress to the next level, you only need to kill 90% of all hostiles in the map. Whether that’s some distorted karma meter to tell conservatives that you don’t actually need to harm civilians, and that the actions you’ve caused were intentional, remains unknown. It’s just so hard to figure out what’s happening onscreen, due to how small everyone is, that I just ended up shooting everyone in sight. You can barely even distinguish your main character from NPCs, especially if you use retro screen filters or the one meant to resemble 2015’s Hatred.

As to expected, the game gets boring quickly. The controls themselves aren’t that great either, given how Postal Redux was originally developed for computers, with a mouse and keyboard setting in mind. Sure, it works, but never feels particularly accurate. Aiming and shooting feels awkward. Nothing in here feels particularly good, since the visuals are muddy, the controls are wonky, and being rewarded with abysmal one liners that make Duke Nukem sound like a sensible human being, isn’t particularly motivating.

As a result, the only reason to actually own Postal Redux on the Switch is because of novelty. Having a game like this on a Nintendo platform is enough to give Howard Lincoln and Tipper Gore a coronary, but don’t expect it to be an actually good game. It’s ugly, its gameplay is underwhelming, and its sound design makes me thankful for the invention of a mute button. It goes to show that Postal is only remembered for its controversy, not its quality, or lack thereof. If you really want a twin-stick shooter on the Switch, go grab Hotline Miami instead.

 

Graphics: 3.5 The visuals might have been remade from the ground up, but the game still looks ugly and dated. You can barely discern a civilian from a cop. Some screen filters render the game completely unplayable as well.	Gameplay: 5.5 It’s a very simple isometric twin-stick shooter control scheme. It sure works, but it was clearly developed with a mouse and keyboard in mind, meaning that you’ll never actually feel like you’re aiming and shooting accurately.
Sound: 2.5 For starters, the horror-influenced soundtrack is nothing short of terrible. There is a lot of voice acting in here, ranging from terrible (and tasteless) one-liners to civilians crying about them not being able to feel their legs. Lovely.	Fun Factor: 3.0 It’s not funny, it’s not particularly controversial as it once was, and it’s not even an actually good twin-stick shooter. The only reason someone would want to buy it is the novelty of owning Postal for a Nintendo console.
Final Verdict: 3.5

Postal Redux is available now on PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Postal Redux was provided by the publisher.