Oh my! Here we are, so many years later, and with a third installment of the Postal series. Who'd have thought all these years later that we'd get this far with a series that is saturated with the most absurd, perverse, pants-down, non-PC humor and even have a motion picture based on the series to boot? Postal III continues the… legacy? of the Postal series, and it gives us plenty of bad jokes along the way.

This time, instead of running on the Unreal Engine, Postal III gives us the source engine to play on, and with improved graphics (well, the last Postal was eight years ago, so they should improve…) and new gameplay, Postal III already promises us a much better game than its predecessor. How much better? Well, not much, but before I get into the details of it all, let's talk story and execution.

Postal III takes place after the second Postal. The Postal Dude has destroyed the town of Paradise and moved on to a place called Catharsis where the gas in his car runs out. Now he must work a variety of missions to escape the town. In their quest to escape Catharsis, players can choose to work the "good" path or the "bad" path. Ironically, the first two Postal games seemed to be about causing as many horrible, abhorrent acts of violence and destruction as possible (granted, there was always the ability to act calmly and civil, but this is a Postal game after all), and in past times you always seemed to be pigeonholed into acting fairly terribly, so why bother with a having a good path at all in Postal III? Well, I suppose at least developer Running with Scissors are trying something different here, but let's be honest, the type of player playing a Postal game does not want to act like a knight in shining armor.

Even with the addition of a "good" path and a graphics and engine update, nothing much has changed at all in these last eight years between Postal games. You'll enter a world full of childish, boorish, and immature jokes attacking gays, making a mockery of AIDs, along with more sex jokes than you can wave a stick at, and of course, plenty of sexism. Hilariously, almost none of these gags come off as clever, and Postal III seems to be irrelevant in today's world. Why? Well, when Postal II came out in 2003, it's not like the world hadn't already experienced the likes of South Park or Family Guy on television, or the horrors of BMX XXX, but Postal II seemed to tip the scale of video gaming just a bit – it went just a bit too far, and at the end of the day, even though it was not that great of a game, it seemed like the developers wanted to say "Hey, look how hard it is to be civil in today's world. A world of nagging significant others, rude people, and long, long lines – aren't you surprised more people haven't gone 'Postal'?"

Gameplay wise, Postal III is even more disappointing. Not to say the engine it's running on is bad, but what is done with it is pretty dry. Level designs are repetitive and dull, and though there is an array of hilariously crazy weapons (probably the best part of the game – the badger saw in particular) most gamers are going to be bored to death with the common clichés of open sandbox worlds here. Don't worry, you'll get plenty of escort missions too, and plenty of mob attacks. Graphics aren't absolutely horrible, but nothing up to par with today's games. Add in plenty of repeated character models that will become as dull to the eye as the gameplay itself and things get pretty sour. Worse off, the further the game progresses, the more crashes seem to occur. Every crash that happened seemed to be another good time to stop playing and never pick the game back up again, but alas, I pressed on past the lame jokes and dozens of slow loading screens to bring you this review. On top of that, if you add a few jittery control elements, you'll see that Postal III is easily forgettable.

If finding meaning in Postal II for you is like trying to find a legit cinema experience in the movie Hostel (e-mail me sometime, and I'll argue this with you), you're out of luck. Postal III is like the Blair Witch Project 2; they should have never made another one. The gimmick was over and we had our fun -  time to move on. Besides, we have Saints Row: The Third, which has taken irrelevance, taboo, and absurdity into levels of perfection, both gameplay-wise and visually. Sorry, Postal III, you're not finding a place in our hearts this time around, even if you do include minor celebrities like Uwe Boll in the game.

Overall, Postal III tries to continue the legacy of the Postal series in a world that has already "been there and done that". Even those who crave this sort of humor will find it in a better place. I still respect Running With Scissors to go balls out on making a game with no regards to public lash back, political correctness, or even really thinking about an audience appeal in general, but if Postal III were a good game, it would have helped us swallow this bitter pill just a little better.

GameDynamo's Score for Postal III (PC)

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