Recent reviews by BOBBY BACALA [VEVO]

Hilariously frustrating, endlessly rewarding. Need I say more?

I thought the Build Engine was a relic of the past, games like Duke 3D and Blood already showing the pinnacle of gaming excitement with this fossil of an engine. However, upon beating this game, I can safely say this is still a relic of the past.

The game is very ambitious with the scale of the levels, combat allies, and even stealth mechanics. So much so, the performance is going to tank quite a few of its levels. It's still a keyhunt like the more traditional shooters, and in some cases it will be a LONG hunt; while a heavily detailed and realistic city level, searching for a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ key at 14 FPS is frustrating.

However, the game is made with so much love, I can overlook its minor flaws because it is overall an amazing addition to the Build Engine games. The cutscenes are great, the dynamic between the characters is decent, and it's FREE. Honestly, if they ever fix the performance issues in the game, I'll concede that its an amazing experience. As of right now, the game is certainly worth a playthrough, even for the simple fact alone it's free.

First thing's first, this game should have NEVER left early access when it did. I only got the game about a year after its full release, and in my playthrough there were quite a few bugs. However, the game only crashed twice for me, so I can't even complain on that front. It runs kinda janky though, I was running majority of the settings on medium and the population on normal, and I still only had 75-90 FPS. In comparison, Doom Eternal runs on high on my computer and I get around 100 FPS, and there is a lot more going on at once in comparison to this game.

One thing I fell in love with immediately is the art style. I'm a sucker for this cartoony cell-shaded style, and everything was nice to look at. The varying environments and citizens were a ton of fun to explore and kill (respectively). Edensin itself is very expansive, however constricting at the same time. I know they are still working on the detail of the paths less traveled, but it's still in need of some attention. There are a ton of places where collision refuses to let you into certain areas/corners where needed items like heath and ammo are, and invisible walls are still plentiful. My biggest wish is they include running along power lines just like in Postal 2; that made me feel like a ninja! I know RWS will get around to adding additional polish for the map, but right now it's still not the best. Even the restaurants and vendors aren't interactable. Sure, people can buy items off you, but I wanna buy a hotdog or chicken from some wage slave and then feed them a face full of buckshot!

With Edensin being a large map, they added vehicles to traverse through the city. In my opinion, the mobility scooters are the best option for traversing the map since their suspension and moderate speed will help you stay on course easier. That and it can climb stairs efficiently, which is a massive plus. The buggies are a lot of fun, but they can get uncontrollable around certain corners, plus they can get stuck if you don't watch yourself because of the low ride height and very stiff suspension. Overall, they are fun for drive-bys and simply getting your drift on.

I don't care what anyone says, John St. John's voice for The Postal Dude is great. His rendition is more on the comical cynic than psycho though, so I can understand why some people dislike his voice. Also, I love the fan service of including all voice actors of The Postal Dude, that alone creates a necessity for multiple playthroughs. But, how come there is no "And one for ____" for his voice? Absolutely criminal, and a shame. You can't just have Rick Hunter do that in 2 and then leave it missing! It's one of the many things that makes killing sprees even more fun to go on. That, and I hope there are more voice lines that are specific to each voice actor. I gotta say my favorite one is how John St. John says "What we have here - is a failure to communicate." That one gets me every time.

The story is pretty standard for a Postal game at this point, where its just absurd the whole time, but the missions are what make it for me. Each one was a ton of fun to play through, and a good challenge for me even on the Normal difficulty. Saving the Dam from "Cumtamination" had to be my favorite, just for the use of the word "Cumtamination". There is one thing that I find annoying though, which is the mall not being available until Friday. The mall was always my favorite hot spot for going postal, and you lock it out until the last day????? UNFORGIVABLE. PLEASE leave it unlocked all week and then have the mercenaries occupy it for the mission. The side missions also need quite a bit of polish, like the one where you have to mop up all the blood in that one dude's house. I was there looking for one last stain for a solid 25 minutes before I gave up and put a shovel to the back of his head. Also, I'd like more side missions too, it would greatly help Edensin feel like a bustling town compared to a setpiece of mass murder.

Lastly, the weapons are all great. Punchy, reliable, and modifiable thanks to the reflex sight item and weapon skins. The weapon/item wheels come in handy since the original weapon navigation menu is gone. I'm really happy they brought back the Dilbow from Brain Damaged. Still my favorite weapon in the game. I can tell a lot of love also went into the animations for the guns too, so thank you for doing that RWS. Also, thank you for making your basic shotgun AMAZING in comparison to Postal 2. I'm a sucker for good shotguns, and this one passes with flying colors.

There is one major thing that bugs me about this game though. Even though I had a lot of fun in my near 25 hours of my first playthrough and everything positive I mentioned above, I do not believe this game can stand on its own just yet. The bugs irk me more than they do make me smile or laugh and they are all mainly inconveniences. I can only recommend this game only after you play Postal 2 and Paradise Lost. I wouldn't mind saying that if the game functioned better than Postal 2, but even at this moment, a year post full release it still doesn't. And I know Postal 2 took years to become what it is now, and I'm happy this game still gets the attention and love it needs. This game will be GREAT sometime down the line, but it ain't right now. Definitely worth your money on sale though. I'm going to keep playing this game because I do enjoy it, but I will only recommend it once I believe it to be better than Postal 2.

Honestly a ton of fun, and only fun ten-fold if you got a buddy with you for the ride. Even though this game came out the same year as GTA IV, the game plays a lot more like an updated version of San Andreas. That's not saying it's not fun, but it plays so different. I love the ability to go out and do all these activities in a world that is so vast.

The story is essentially you are re-establishing the Saints after recovering from a coma. That means shooting everyone who gets in your way, which is multiple gangs and a big time corporation. Simple, but honestly it was good enough of a story to get me into it. Guns are great to shoot, cars are fun to drive and customize, the cribs are expansive, and the voice acting is very nice!

Worth every penny, even just for the character customization!

Music is pretty mid though.

This game is a ton of fun with a friend, and honestly the only way I can recommend getting the game is if you have someone to endure this experience with you. The AI can be stupid sometimes, but the guns, setpieces, the crazy story and the banter between Kane and Lynch is worth it.


It took me a few hours to figure out who was Kane and who was Lynch.

Very fun dungeon crawler and rogue-like. I've played the original version on Newgrounds so long ago, and this version took what the OG had and made it something even greater. This game itself might be the best remake of any game I've ever played. It runs smooth like butter! I like using keyboard for the flash game nostalgia, but I prefer using a controller mainly because I have this SNES controller with analog sticks called the SN30 Pro. Still, either way you play it, its a ton of fun. Still, I haven't even touched the available mods, but this community is seriously dedicated to keeping this game fresh.

If there is one mod I highly recommend for any first time player of this game, definitely get the powerup/item descriptions from the steam workshop. It helps a ton to understand the mechanics of each item in enough detail that you know what to avoid and what to take based on your current run. The link to the mod is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=836319872

Even then, keeping the game vanilla will guarantee you endless hours of fun with its simple, yet layered gameplay loop.

Also, whoever made those troll face bombs, I don't like you.

Honestly, this is the most playable and replayable April Fools joke of all time. I was honestly surprised this was even announced, or the fact that it runs pretty decently, but either way I am a happy boy for more Postal. Thank you C-team!

I decided to play this series of games when it went on sale, not knowing what the hell I was in for. As I started completing missions, the game feels very much like Fallout. However, the shooting reminded me of the old Tom Clancy games: pretty slow, heavy amounts of cover shooting (thanks to the lean mechanic), and very reliant on burst or single fire. Combining the two makes it pretty enjoyable. However, since this game doesn't do much in the way of explaining the plot and its mechanics, I pretty much ran around and explored these tiny towns and doing whatever quests I had access too.

Unfortunately, the quests have their issues too. When it comes to fetch quests, you have a limited time to find X and bring it back to your questgiver. The items do not drop often or can be tricky to find, so expect to fail the quest at least once, or get lucky and find what item you need prior to accepting the quest. There was one mission where you can bring back this weapon a soldier of the Duty faction left around, but if you were like me and completed a certain part of the story before accepting the mission, the waypoint leading to this mysterious weapon breaks. This is because the person currently using the weapon is now wandering around this massive map, which was frustrating at first, but then I accepted that I'm probably not going to find it.

Speaking of the map, I ADORE it. Every place has NPCs that are neutral towards you, enemies rocking white stripes on black sweats yelling "CHEEKY BREEKY IV DAMKE", and mutated wildlife that really fits with the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of Ukraine. The environmental storytelling is plentiful, the faction bases feel lived in, and the weapons are punchy.

I ended up getting the "greedy" ending, which according to the wiki is very common to get for first time players. I honestly didn't even know that this was the final mission and was playing through it like a gauntlet, where you have enemies wielding very powerful weapons like the gauss rifle (they WILL one shot you), rocket launchers (YOU WILL DIE A LOT, QUICKSAVE), and silenced rifles (THEY WILL NOT APPEAR ON YOUR MINIMAP, STAY VIGILANT). After quicksaving and quickloading a lot, it was a great time. This game will punish you for not being patient, and then will further punish you if you are too patient. For a game with combat that is pretty slow paced, it sure knows how to put you into a frenzy.

All in all, I'm kind of unsatisfied with the ending I've gotten, but now I have acquired the knowledge I need to get better endings. I will be doing another playthrough in the near future, but in the 26 hours it has taken me to beat this game, there were no dull moments (except wandering back to turn in quests because no fast travel, but its a feature!). If you are looking for something set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape with factions to deal with and have already played more well known games like Fallout, I highly recommend you give this game a shot, definitely worth your cash.

This game is a fever dream. It's crazy how in the vast sea of games trying to be as realistic as possible with their graphics that a game that harasses your eyes is a breath of fresh air. The game itself plays out nicely, where you're a man with no name trying to make some cash. Each mission is a very fun murder puzzle, along with their maps being fun to explore. The best part are the guns and body parts you can purchase to better suit your playstyle.

Above all else, this game is a stock simulator, and damn good one at that. I wish my actual portfolio looked like mine in this game.

Let me preface this right now, this is no New Vegas 2. However, what Obsidian did manage to create in the absence of the Fallout universe is something special. So far away from home, you come to a place completely engulfed by a few large corporations as the normal person in this colony is a borderline wage slave. Talking to the people that slave away for the greed of a few elites also has you wonder what they put in the tap water. In my opinion, this is where the charm comes in; YOU are one amongst the very few that sees the injustice that happens in the world and you have the power to make it come to an end.

Seems very straight forward, no? Free these workers from their wage chains and have them understand that life is so much more than basic physical labor and spreadsheets? Seems like a no brainer. However, some people in this colony are so set in their ways that no matter how much persuasion, they are stuck in their ways, so the only way to your goal is through them. Even if you feel what you are doing is righteous, people WILL get hurt, or even killed. However, you have a world to save, so you must take whatever baggage you got and keep going.

The gameplay compared to other western RPGs is very smoothed out and fast. Replacing VATS is now TTD, or Tactical Time Dilation. Thanks to you being in hibernation in a pod for so long, you experience time differently. Now the past 2 sentences I just typed is a world salad for Slo-Mo, and god it's good for literally any build. Leading your companions in battle is now more than just ordering them to attack, and with the correct build you don't even have to raise a finger half of the time!

The companions in this game are interesting, however I do have a problem with them. When you first meet 2 of them (Ellie and Nyoka), you get this stereotypical girl-boss that's experienced and stubborn. It's a shame too, because both of them use that same facade to hide behind some sad or borderline traumatizing event they went through. In both of their side quests, you get to set their pasts straight and then they turn into some misunderstood individual who just needs a place to belong. I just wish their introductions were a lot more. Same thing with Felix, but instead of a boss he's just some masculine meat-head/dummy. Take this opinion with a grain of salt, since I only met Parvati, Ellie, Nyoka, Felix and SAM as of me making this review.

Overall, this RPG is hard to only be a goodie-two-shoes. You will meet some people that are so annoying you will want to blow their heads off. And then there are those that you feel bad for and would want to protect. However, no matter how you play, you will get your money's worth.