Postal 4: No Regerts is not good. I know it’s kind of a meme game, so saying that might mean that I don’t fully get it, but it’s just kind of broken. Killing people isn’t overly fun, there are plenty of technical issues, and the humor wears old very quickly. You might be able to squeeze some fun out of it if you can look past all these problems, but it isn’t likely.
Postal 4: No Regerts
Developer: Running With Scissors
Price: $40
Platform: PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review
I first saw Postal 4 at PAX East right before COVID made a mess of everything. I thought it looked fun because a game that lets you pee on stuff and shoot everything seems inherently enjoyable. Unfortunately, the game is a bit too rough to be much fun at all, and even as the guy on MonsterVine who could be described as “edgy” in my sense of humor, the jokes in Postal 4 didn’t do much for me.
In Postal 4, you play as the Postal Dude. Your trailer has been stolen, so you and your dog need to start over again in the seedy town of Edensin. The Postal Dude has to do all sorts of dead-end jobs in order to get by, and ideally, find his trailer and car. It’s a suitably simple story for the game, and it’s in line with the rest of the series.
As someone who loves stupid and sometimes shocking humor, Postal 4 is never that funny. The crude humor could potentially work under different circumstances, but it doesn’t feel like the writing has the intelligence to make its jokes more than poop jokes and the like. That might work for some, but I found it to be disappointing and more gross just for the sake of being gross. That can work in doses, but when it’s the entire game’s appeal, it wears thin quickly.
Gameplay is essentially your typical first-person shooter in a somewhat open world, though less smooth. You can shoot whatever you want, or hit it with a mop, or a baton, or a crate full of crazed pigeons. The weapon variety is certainly here, it’s just that it’s not very satisfying to hit other NPCs most of the time.
Roaming around and causing mayhem is supposed to be one of the most fun parts of this kind of game, but it’s just kind of clunky. There’s little impact to hits and shots, making combat feel like more of a slog than anything.
I found a lot of technical issues during my time with Postal 4, with frequent framerate stutters being the worst of them. There’d also be lengthy freezes from time to time, leading to Postal 4 having an overall rough feeling. This litany of problems made playing a hassle, as it felt like I was constantly battling drops as much as I was battling random denizens of Edensin.
Visually, Postal 4 isn’t especially fun to look at. The models look kind of stumpy, though I guess that helps convey the grime and nastiness of the characters and environments better. I do like that there are options for the different Postal Dude voices, that’s quite a nice touch for longtime series followers.
The Final Word
Postal 4 isn’t a very good game. It’s clunky, technically rough, and not especially funny. Fans of the series may be able to look past the issues and find some laughs in the jokes, but to me, Postal 4 just isn’t worth playing.
MonsterVine Review Score: 1.5 out of 5 – Terrible
