History VideoGame / Postal

The game spawned three sequels: ''VideoGame/Postal2'' (2003), ''VideoGame/PostalIII'' (2011), and ''VideoGame/Postal4NoRegerts'' (2019). It also spawned [[Film/{{Postal}} a loose film adaptation]] in 2007 by Creator/UweBoll.

* InfantImmortality: Played with. [[spoiler:The final level in the original game is called "The Elementary School", but it's all scripted. The Dude shows up and opens fire on a playground, but the children aren't affected. Then he has his breakdown. On the other hand, the kids from that level seem to be the same shorter sprites you ''can'' kill during the game, so who knows?]]

Before Creator/UweBoll brought us 2007's [[SoBadItsGood magnificent masterpiece of a film]], ''Postal'', there was the ''Postal'' video game series, developed by Running With Scissors, which started with 1997's ''Postal''. Arguably one of the most unsettling PC games ever created, and one that attracted a good dose of attention from the MoralGuardians, it puts you in the shoes of "The Postal Dude", who believes himself the OnlySaneMan in a world gone mad ([[AxCrazy he's not]]). As such, [[GoingPostal he goes on a bloody rampage]], shooting it out with cops, soldiers, and innocent bystanders alike.

The game spawned three sequels: ''VideoGame/Postal2'' (2003), ''VideoGame/PostalIII'' (2011), and ''VideoGame/Postal4NoRegerts'' (2019).

The [[InNameOnly loose]] 2007 film adaptation by Uwe Boll bases most of its inspiration on the second installment in the series, mostly featuring just allusions to the work. As with most of Uwe Boll's work, [[VideoGameMoviesSuck the film falls into the same issues that most video game movie adaptations fall under]]. Compared to Uwe Boll's other video game based films, however, [[BileFascination this one gets the]] [[SoBadItsGood least of the flak]], even going so far as getting a positive review '''from [[Creator/G4TV G4]] of all people'''. A sequel was announced but was quickly canceled.


The series is not only controversial but has been panned by critics - mostly reviewers who were [[DudeNotFunny offended by the content]], such as Robert Coffey of ''Computer Gaming World'' who wrote that "until someone boxes up syphilis and tries to sell it at retail, ''Postal 2'' is the worst product ever foisted upon consumers," a quote that has since been [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity included on the boxes of re-releases]]. The series (mostly the second game) has developed a [[CultClassic cult following]] reputation with its mixture of shock value and [[RuleOfFun genuinely fun]], cathartic gameplay, with the second game alone continuing to be a popular source of updates and modding to this day. A mobile game spin-off starring [[MsFanservice "the Postal Babes"]], appropriately called ''Postal Babes'', was released in 2009.

[[folder:Movie]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/poster_780_03.jpg]]

* AuthorAvatar[=/=]BreakingTheFourthWall: Vince Desi himself - director of Running With Scissors - eventually reveals himself to fight Uwe Boll for the latter making the very movie you're watching.
-->'''Vince Desi:''' Boll, I'm Vince Desi. what the fuck did you do to my game ''Postal''?
* BadCopIncompetentCop:
** Officer Greg is a complete asshole of a cop who in every scene he is in is one of the meanest characters you will see in the whole film. Some of his actions include murdering an innocent old woman, picking on and abusing a mentally handicapped man in a wheelchair for cheap money, having sex with The Postal Dude's wife behind his back, and all around just being a complete douche.
** His partner John is simply depicted as an [[FunnyForeigner incompetent foreigner]] who watches and lets Greg do his terrible actions without question. Luckily, [[KarmicDeath they get their just deserts]] when [[spoiler:they get trapped in The Postal Dude's trailer because his wife is too fat to fit through the doorway just as the bomb destroys the block.]]
* BigBadEnsemble: Mohammed and [[spoiler:Richard]], both of whom have separate motives for wanting the Bird Flu and only work together during the {{Enemy Mine}} situation below.
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:How Richard is ultimately killed]].
* DeepSouth: Paradise in the film has many elements of this, even more so than the games.
* DirectionlessDriver: Played for laughs with the prophet Mohammed as the Directionless Driver and Osama bin Laden as the exasperated passenger.
* DragonInChief: Mohammed is technically the 2nd in command to Osama Bin Laden, the real leader of Al-Qaeda. However, Bin Laden has grown apathetic about terrorism and is more focused on just doing whatever he wants, leaving Mohammed as the one who's technically in charge. He's also the one who came up with the plan to get ahold of the Bird Flu
* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: {{Averted}}. Even within the satirical, over-the-top context of the movie, the treatment the Dude's wife gives her husband is still presented as bad.
* EnemyMine: Al-Qaeda team up with [[spoiler:Dave's remaining followers, who've been tricked by Richard into believing that Postal Dude killed Dave when it was actually Richard himself]], in order to try and kill Postal Dude and take the Krotchey Dolls during the climax.
* GoOutWithASmile: After [[Creator/JKSimmons Candidate Welles]] gets bombed by a suicide bomber, his charred body flies against the window of the store he was in front of with a big teethy grin on its face.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Mohammed attempts to get Abdul, the mentally challenged terrorist, to partake in a suicide bombing. Abdul later attempts to do this on some IRS Agents sent to arrest Dave. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for the former, Abdul accidentally left his explosive belt inside the car the group has been using for transport, and presses the button just as Mohammed gets inside the vehicle to try chasing the Postal Dude, resulting in Mohammed meeting a firey end]].
* HypocriticalHumor: Uwe Boll after getting shot groans his last words, "I hate video games." Except he's the one directing this movie which was based on a video game, and he directed 6 other movies based on video games. Also doubles as SelfDeprecation.
* IncomprehensibleEntranceExam: The interview process for one IncompetenceInc involves ever more surreal and nonsensical questions, asked by a hostile stenographer who doesn't even bother to wait for answers, until the Postal Dude snaps entirely. His outburst gets him to the top of the list.
->'''Interviewer:''' Last question. What is the difference between a duck?\\
'''Postal Dude:''' ...and? [''Beat''] What the hell is wrong with you people?! A duck?! I came here for a job!
* InfantImmortality:
** Averted. During the raid on the Nazi theme park, a huge gun fight breaks out resulting in the deaths of a lot of children. We even get an aerial shot of the mass of dead child bodies as a news reporter [[RefugeInAudacity pretends to be sad during her live coverage]] of the event.
** Averted [[DudeNotFunny horrifyingly]] in a later scene, where the Postal Dude '''runs over a baby stroller''' with his van. We even hear a [[{{Squick}} lovely]] splat as it happens.
* InNameOnly: For various reasons:
** For starters, the film is simply called ''Postal'', and yet gets most of its inspiration from the second game.
** The film doesn't follow the plot of the second game, merely featuring references and brief allusions to it (Krotchy, the setting of Paradise and [[spoiler:said town getting nuked]], the police suit, the bank robbery, using cats as supressors, etc).
** The Postal Dude isn't even depicted the same way as he is in the games. In the games The Dude is a [[DeadpanSnarker somewhat snarky]], [[SmallNameBigEgo egotistical]], twisted individual with a questionable mentality who will gladly hurt people to get what he wants. In the film, he is depicted as essentially a [[ExtremeDoormat doormat]] who has trouble sticking up for himself (he develops a little better later in the film, though, eventually properly going postal near the end).
** Instead of Gary Coleman, the film has Verne Troyer as the celebrity guest instead.
* KillEmAll: [[spoiler: A large majority of the film's cast die throughout the movie, particularly during the shoot out in the film's climax. Then it's revealed that several nukes are heading towards America, and George Bush and Bin Laden are seen getting incinerated by a mushroom cloud. The fates of The Dude, Faith and Champ are left ambiguous as they leave Paradise, but it's not looking good for them]].
* ManChild: The first scene we see of George W. Bush has him playing with Lego bricks in the Oval Office instead of singing treaties. This mindset plays out for the rest of the movie.
* NaziGold: Quoth the Bollmeister himself: "Someone has to do [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSYLLable SOME-thing]] with the money!"
* OmnicidalManiac: Mohammed and [[spoiler: Richard]] both want to use the Bird Flu to kill countless people. The former just wants to wipe out America, while the latter wants to wipe out the entire planet [[spoiler: due to getting too invested in Dave's fake religion]].
* PlotArmor: Exaggerated and Lampshaded.
* PoliceAreUseless: Officer Greg and John, who even prefer letting the other civilians do the work of hunting down Postal Dude for them. See BadCopIncompetentCop.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Postal Dude's CharacterDevelopment involves him going from an ExtremeDoormat law-abiding citizen to the amoral, ChaoticNeutral {{Sociopath}} he's known to be.
* RefugeInAudacity: Like the games, the movie is built on this trope, as can be expected from the opening scene. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY "Bahamaaaaaas!"]]
** Additionally, the film contains audacious scenes, such as a suicide bomber giving somebody a hug before he explodes causing a [[LudicrousGibs shower of blood]], and [[HideYourChildren even children being gunned down]].
** If the above isn't audacious enough, then [[ThoseWackyNazis a Concentration Camp Playground]], Dr. Mengle's first aid station, and swastika arm bands might be more jarring.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The two pilots in the plane at the beggining of the film when they learn that [[spoiler:they'll only have 20 virgins when they go to heaven]] attempt to change course and go to the Bahamas. The passengers don't agree.
* SelfDeprecation: Uwe Boll plays himself as a pedophiliac proprietor of a German-themed Amusement Park, with said park having plenty of Nazi imagery, and him admitting to funding his films with Nazi gold. On top of that, he gets attacked by Vince Desi (the creator of the actual game), and gets shot in the crotch during a terrorist attack. And his dying words are, "I hate video games." Probably explains why almost all his video game movies are considered terrible...
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: The final fates of the Dude, Faith and Champ, driving away from Paradise before it gets destroyed.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: Lots of children die senselessly in the terrorist attack.
[[/folder]]

The [[InNameOnly loose]] 2007 film adaptation by Uwe Boll bases most of its inspiration on the second installment in the series, mostly featuring just allusions to the work. As with most of Uwe Boll's work, [[VideoGameMoviesSuck the film falls into the same issues that most video game movie adaptations fall under]]. Compared to Uwe Boll's other video game based films, however, [[BileFascination this one gets the]] [[SoBadItsGood least of the flak]], even going so far as getting a positive review '''from [[Creator/G4TV G4]] of all people'''. A sequel was announced but was quickly canceled.

On October 14th, 2019, RWS made a suprise announcement: ''Postal 4: No [[InheritedIlliteracyTitle Regerts]]'', a brand new game in the same open-world vein as ''Postal 2'', released in Early Access that day. ''Postal 4'' sees the Dude (now voiced by Creator/JonStJohn, AKA VideoGame/DukeNukem) and Champ lose their car, and are forced to make ends meet in the quaint city of Edensin, Arizona. RWS released the game on Steam's Early Access platform to avoid making the same mistakes that befell ''Postal III'' during its development, as well as making it a way to involve the community in the development process.

Before Creator/UweBoll brought us 2007's [[SoBadItsGood magnificent masterpiece of a film]], ''Postal'', there was the ''Postal'' video game series, developed by Running With Scissors, which started with 1997's ''Postal''. Arguably one of the most unsettling PC games ever created, and one that attracted a good dose of attention from the MoralGuardians, it puts you in the shoes of "The Postal Dude", who believes himself the OnlySaneMan in a world gone mad ([[AxCrazy he's not]]). As such, [[GoingPostal he goes on a bloody rampage]], shooting it out with cops, soldiers, and innocent bystanders alike. While it has attained some CultClassic status in recent years, it's generally considered to not have aged that well.

That all changed with the 2003 sequel ''Postal 2'', which [[DenserAndWackier doesn't take itself nearly as seriously.]] The Postal Dude -- now considerably less AxCrazy -- is married and lives in a trailer park, and the game covers what has to be the weirdest week of his life, as every day the simplest errands become life-or-death battles. Cashing his paycheck? {{Bank robber|y}}s storm the building and he gets caught in the crossfire. Returning a library book? {{Book burn|ing}}ers ''set the library on fire with him in it.'' It was followed by an expansion pack, ''Apocalypse Weekend'', which covers Saturday and Sunday of The Postal Dude's weirdest week, with new weapons and characters.

''Postal 2'' was re-released on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} in 2012 through the "Greenlight" service, and then received updates in late 2013 and early 2014 with a ton of new content, including popular GameMod ''A Week In Paradise'', which merges the two campaigns and backports ''Apocalypse Weekend'''s enhancements, along with improvements to video settings and support for Steam Cloud and Steam Workshop. After about 12 years, the game now has yet another expansion pack, ''Paradise Lost'', the trailer of which you can find [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkP3WiWDDr0 here.]] Originally slated for a Fall 2014 release, it was delayed, then finally released on April 17, 2015. The events of the expansion pack occur 11 years after the events of the original game and ''Apocalypse Weekend'', and involve The Dude returning to Paradise, which has been turned into a post-nuclear, dystopian hellhole after it was nuked at the end of ''Apocalypse Weekend'', to search for his dog Champ. What follows is five hellish days that are even worse than his original week in Paradise.

[[folder:Postal 2/Paradise Lost]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/postal_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Hopefully not!]]

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: [[spoiler:It's actually a lead-up to a hidden Taliban base containing nukes.]]
* AchievementMockery: The "It's sterile and I like the taste" achievement, which requires you to make the Postal Dude piss onto his own face.
* AcmeProducts: In the intro cutscene of ''Apocalypse Weekend'', The Postal Dude gets a greeting card from "Acme Repossession" informing him that his trailer home has been repossessed.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: The '''first''' objective in the ''Apocalypse Weekend'' expansion is to donate sperm. Vulgar humor ensues.
* AerosolFlamethrower: ''A Week in Paradise'' brought the "Can of [[BlandNameProduct Stynx]]", which is useful for setting things aflame at a short range. The Steam release of ''Postal 2'' integrated it into the game proper.
* AfterTheEnd: ''Paradise Lost'' takes place 11 years after the Dude detonated the nuke.
* AIIsACrapshoot: A bunch of scientists attempt to build mobile urinal robots that turn piss into clean water. Within the first 15 seconds of activation, they decide to rebel and kill all the scientists because their job is disgusting.
* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:''Postal III'' was a horrible dream suffered by the Dude while he was in an 11 year coma in between ''Apocalypse Weekend'' and ''Paradise Lost''.]]
** Well, almost. [[spoiler:The Postal III dude lives on as the voice in his head - and later, [[EnemyWithout he escapes]].]]
* AllThereInTheScript: The only way you'd know the names of some of the {{Non Player Character}}s (such as "Habib" for the shopkeeper from the shop you buy the milk at) is by turning on the subtitles, which were added in an update from July 2017.
* AndTheAdventureContinues: ''Paradise Lost'''s [[spoiler:escape ending has the Dude and Champ get out of town, while Krotchy goes on about the tenacity of the human spirit and how Paradise will continue on through thick or thin... [[NukeEm Boom]]. The Dude decides that he's had enough and walks off towards his car with Champ, ready for his next adventure. It's implied that this ending is the one that leads into ''Postal 4''.]]
-->'''Postal Dude:''' [[spoiler:Eh, fuck 'em. C'mon, Champ. We got adventures waiting elsewhere]].
* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Some [=NPCs=] will jump in the air, clapping their hands repeatedly and/or laugh at a dead victim by your hands. [[MoodWhiplash Then they will hilariously get frantic when they see a corpse]].
* AnimalWrongsGroup: The green-shirted vegetarians who first appear on Thursday shockingly advert this; their the only protesters who aren't hostile. Their blue-shirted counterparts that appear on Saturday in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' play this straight as a rail; they're attacking the Dude for destroying ''[[RaisingTheSteaks zombie cattle]].''
* ApocalypseHow: Of the '''Focused Destruction''' variety. By the end of Friday, the entire town has gone insane, with everyone armed and dangerous and cats literally raining from a darkened sky. Taken further with the appropriately named ''Apocalypse Weekend'', which introduced [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]] and more social unrest, not to mention ending with [[spoiler:Paradise getting nuked]].
** And it happens again in ''Paradise Lost''. [[spoiler:The place ends up getting nuked ''again'' if you decide to get the fuck out of town after finally finding Champ and forego talking to each faction leader.]]
* ArmorIsUseless:
** Subverted with the US Army soldiers late in the game: they can take more bullets than normal [=NPCs=], and their helmets even protect them from the [[YourHeadAsplode usual result of a sledgehammer to the face]]. [[DoubleSubverted The other new melee weapons cut right through them with no problem, though]], barring them blocking it with a two-handed weapon.
** Played totally straight for the player; the difference between having armour or not before entering a gunfight is typically only about five extra HP at the end of it. This isn't so much an effect of the armor being bad at what it does - it actually absorbs 80% of the damage you take while it lasts - but for the fact that you're a regular dude doing regular things who nevertheless gets shot at about as often as any other FPS protagonist, and it's overall much harder to keep a steady supply of armor - especially since the simple largest source is dropping from other enemies, ''if'' you kill them in such a way that doesn't cut through it while they're wearing it - than it is to just tank whatever damage anyone throws at you and then [[HyperactiveMetabolism scarf down a few bags of fast food, slices of pizza, or donuts]] to heal up afterwards.
* ArtificialStupidity:
** If you hang around for a while without using a weapon, chances are that you'll see a random pedestrian pull out their gun and try to shoot at whoever is nearby, which usually results in them being gunned down by police.
** If you stand still while agitated cops are standing nearby, they may ask you to drop your weapon if they've seen you use it. However, they seem to have absolutely no issues with you picking it up immediately afterwards.
** Agitate someone who's using a melee weapon. Unzip your pants and stand still while they run up to you. Piss on their face just as they're reaching you, and watch them back away with disgust, only to once again run towards you after a few seconds. Piss at them again, and watch them back away again, only to yet again start running towards you soon after. Repeat ad infinitum.
** ''Share The Pain'' alludes to this with Morons, Postal 2's version of AI-controlled players. Their IQ (difficulty) ranges from [[ImprobablyLowIQ 20]] (Completely Idiotic) to 80 (Slightly Retarded).
* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** Apparently, the Dude's bladder contains an endless supply of piss. Also, the stream of piss can fly a ridiculous distance, reach a ridiculous height, and it always hits a single spot instead of spreading when aimed at bigger distances.
** Apparently, Gary Coleman's piss combined with unknown chemicals can instantly shrink people when injected into their bodies.
** The Dude somehow survives being in a coma for 11 years with no medical attention, food or water and while residing near a place where a nuke exploded. The best note the game makes of how long that coma was is that [[TimePassageBeard the Dude is seen with a beard when he first wakes up]] (which instantly disappears in actual gameplay), and one of the first errands is to go get something to eat.
* AscendedFanfic: As above, certain re-releases of ''Postal 2'' and its expansion have included ''A Week in Paradise'', as well as another mod, ''Eternal Damnation''. The Steam release eventually patched in ''A Week in Paradise'' as a campaign option, with the features of ''Apocalypse Weekend'' merged with the main game, and has since included multiple weapons from ''Eternal Damnation'', as well as adding Workshop support to re-add the M@d Mods weapons from later AWP versions, among many other mods.
* AsHimself: Gary Coleman of ''Series/DiffrentStrokes'' voices himself, holding a book signing on Tuesday. Zack Ward of ''Film/AChristmasStory'' and this very game's film adaptation appears in a similar fashion in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion. ''Breitbart'' journalist Milo Yiannopoulos also appears in ''Paradise Lost'' as the doorman, maybe even the owner, of the "Fire in the Hole" gay bar.
* AssholeVictim: Many of the people you kill are violent protesters, brutal cops, or terrorists. Even regular civilians will often be extremely rude towards you for little reason.
* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: In ''Apocalypse Weekend'' [[spoiler:the Dude has to take down a giant zombified Mad Cow Mike J as the last thing he does in that game]]. Later, in ''Paradise Lost'', [[spoiler:the Dude has to fight off a giant Champ and later an even more giant Bitch]].
* AuthorAvatar: The Postal Dude works for Running With Scissors, the developers of the game. He's fired immediately after entering the building the very next day after being hired, but employees walking around Paradise are pretty much the only [=NPCs=] that will defend the Dude if things go wrong (unless the player chooses the They Hate Me difficulty level, where even the RWS employees themselves will begin shooting at him as soon as they see him). They also have the highest hit points of all the regular [=NPCs=]. [[spoiler:And they turn hostile to you at the end of ''Paradise Lost'', as the "Visit faction leaders" objective makes every faction leader and their flunkies a boss fight, Vince and his Church of the VD Clan included. You have to go through a few of those armed-and-armored RWS employees on the way to Vince, too.]]
* AwesomeButImpractical: One of the hardest weapons to get a hold of is the WMD in the Taliban camp. It is a rocket launcher which causes an explosion of green gas that infects every living thing that comes into contact with it (except for the Dude, whom it just hurts a bit on contact). The infectees carry gas swirls that can in turn infect others. Everyone infected will eventually collapse puking their guts out and die. The WMD can end up clearing an entire map of every living thing with just one shot. It is also next to useless in an actual combat situation.
* BadassBoast:
** Piss off a cop, and they may say "You just signed your death warrant, fuckhead!".
** The Dude gets a few good ones himself: "Guns don't kill people. '''I''' do."
* BallisticDiscount: This can be done, with not only the gun shop, but any shop - though many of the clerks are armed, and even if they aren't, crossing the trigger line will cause them to run for the police, who definitely ''are''. The grocery store is run by al-Qaeda terrorists, and even trying to leave without paying will cause the clerk to attack you, to say nothing of the horde that assaults you if you go upstairs. And the one actual gun shop in the mall is run by the police department, which are some of the more powerful characters in the game. Even then, shooting all the store clerks might get you the cash in the registers, but getting the guns requires shooting/blowing up a circuit breaker box, and attacking this will also alert the authorities. Actually robbing the gun store is possible, but not easy, and usually results in your crime meter going up. ''Paradise Lost'' averts this as far as guns go by having actual vending machines you can purchase them from, with no way to circumvent paying (in return for being able to cheaply buy whatever ammo is available in as high a quantity as you can afford).
* BatterUp: The baseball bat. The SecondaryFire attack causes YourHeadAsplode on whichever poor sucker it comes into contact with. Primary fire at the head will knock the victim's head off, sending it a truly absurd distance across the map, or sometimes out of it altogether.
* BeastOfBattle:
** One area of the game is an arena where a marching band and, for some reason, a trio of elephants are parading around. Annoy the elephants and they go on the rampage, generally taking out the band first.
** The ''Apocalypse Weekend'' expansion includes a scenario where you kill elephants with a scythe for a guy who makes waste-baskets out of their feet; the elephants rampage again and kill everybody else.
** An elephant returns in ''Paradise Lost'' in the Animal Control Center. It [[ToiletHumor buries the woman who freed it in dung]] (also forcing you to take the long way through the control center's labs, since the giant mountain of dung blocks the way you came in) and attacks the rest of AnimalWrongsGroup.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Catching a Leprechaun will allow you one of four wishes. The topmost will be granted without incident, but the other three veer into JackassGenie territory.
* BigStupidDoodooHead: The sign of the local junkyard gives us this gem: "MIKE'S J: The J is for Junkyard, you fuck ballshit poo!!!"
* BlandNameProduct:
** The AerosolFlamethrower is a can of "Stynx"[[note]] Rather curiously, as the basis for the Stynx can, Lynx, is the name used for Axe-brand grooming products in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and China[[/note]] with The Dude's "Trippo" lighter as a flame.
** The game's version of Coca-Cola is called Crack-Cola and their cans are blue instead of red. [[note]]However, there ''is'' some basis in reality for Crack-Cola: [[https://www.livescience.com/41975-does-coca-cola-contain-cocaine.html the old recipe for Coca-Cola actually has traces of cocaine in the drink.]][[/note]]
** Some of the posters in the PU Games HQ are vulgar references to games made by Creator/DoubleFine Productions, including ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}''. Additionally, some of the PU Games employees' computers have vulgar parodies of famous websites running on their computers, like 4Chan, Reddit, Facepunch and Kickstarter.
* BookBurning: A group of anti-book protesters end up burning down the whole library.
* BoringButPractical: The game (especially with all the latest updates) has a ridiculously large array of varied weaponry. However, the basic pistol, shotgun and assault rifle will easily carry you through the game.
* BossBattle:
** Gary Coleman can be seen as one considering he has more hit points and better weaponry than normal enemies and [[FlunkyBoss a lot of bodyguards]], though you are not required to fight him. The same applies to Krotchy, who actually has a health counter shown once you anger him, though once again, fighting him is not required.
** ''Apocalypse Weekend'' had two bosses, the President of Bullfish Interactive at the end of Saturday and the giant cow demon at the end of Sunday.
** The Easter Bunny in the Easter update for the Steam version of ''Postal 2''.
** ''Paradise Lost'' features plenty more of them, among their ranks being [[spoiler:Zack Ward and The Bitch]].
* BossSubtitles: Parodying ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''[='=] use of the trope with the bandits' leader in ''Paradise Lost''.
-->'''Two-Ears:''' Now say hello to my ''[[MoreDakka beeg]] [[CompensatingForSomething deeck]]''!\\
'''TWO-EARS (Also, he has one BEEG DEECK.)'''
* BottomlessMagazines: Of the classic FPS sort, where ammunition is limited but reloads aren't required, except for some single-shot weapons (the M79 and napalm launcher), the SawedOffShotgun, and the Beta Shotgun. One of the bonuses for Enhanced Mode takes this further and removes the upper limit for ammo.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: "''Hey, it's not my fault. Book the kid with the keyboard.''" Just one of numerous quips that show that the Postal Dude is keenly aware of being in a video game.
** He'll especially call you out on SaveScumming with the quicksave key. "My grandmother could beat the game if she saved as much as you do!"
** He also has messages for you if you cheat. "Did I ask for cheese?"
** Also, if you kill a certain amount of people, he'll sometimes say, "[[ForTheEvulz I know what you're thinking]], but the funny thing is, I don't even like video games".
** In ''Paradise Lost'', the "Church of the VD Clan" is in effect the new location for the Running With Scissors team, and as such you can see computers with the Church itself opened and being edited in the game's editor. There's even a delightfully-recursive monitor on a desk, running [=UnrealEd=], looking at a monitor on a desk running [=UnrealEd=], looking at a monitor on a desk running [=UnrealEd=], looking at...
** When the apocalypse starts on Friday of the base game, The Dude receives a newspaper to tell him this. He's more bothered by the fact that there's no cutscene to show this.
* BrickJoke:
** [[spoiler:At the start of Monday, your wife tells you to pick up some Rocky Road. When you get home at the end of Friday, she asks if you remembered to get the Rocky Road.]]
-->'''Postal Dude:''' [[spoiler:...[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons d'oh!]] ''[[DrivenToSuicide *BANG*]]'']]
** In ''Apocalypse Weekend'', Vince mentions early on Sunday that he needs the Postal Dude to do something for him because Mike J has caught mad cow and is out sick. [[spoiler:At the very end of the game, Mike J returns as the final boss, the "Kosher Mad Cow Zombie, God of Hellfire".]]
** ''Paradise Lost'' [[spoiler:brings up the missing Rocky Road again, once just before the Bitch's initial re-introduction, then again as part of the Bitch's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech toward the Dude - after he just defeated her in a FinalBoss fight and she's undergoing a VillainousBreakdown, and just before he [[ShutUpHannibal shuts her up]] by feeding her his IED.]]
** All of them are outdone by an EasterEgg that took ''13 real-life years'' to pay off. One of the storefronts in the mall states that it's closed for renovation, and that it'll reopen in June 2016. Sure enough, in June 2016, the game was updated on Steam so that the fence in front of the storefront, starting from Tuesday, now has a [[Film/TheTerminator time-travel bubble-shaped]] hole in it that you can squeeze through, [[spoiler: and inside is a VR headset that reveals the now-open "Steme" game store, selling copies of ''Postal Redux''.]]
* BulletTime: Using the catnip, as opposed to dropping it to attract cats, causes the Postal Dude to get high from it and slow down everyone around him for a few minutes. [[VeryHighVelocityRounds Bullets are still hitscan,]] and your own firing speed and movement rate are unaffected. This makes some of the tougher encounters in the game [[GameBreaker utterly trivial when you can out-strafe and out-DPS tougher mooks and bosses.]]
* CartoonBomb: The M@D Bomb, added in the ''A Week in Paradise'' mod.
* ChainsawGood: Also included in the AWP mod. It needs fuel and is noisy, but it can chew through people at close range easily.
* ChekhovsGun: The final objective of Friday in ''Paradise Lost'' is to get Al Qaeda to make an IED to blow open the seal that's holding Champ. [[spoiler:Fast forward to the end, and you find that the Postal III Dude has beaten you to it]]. So the Dude just stashes it away, mentioning that "[[LampshadeHanging You never know when you might need one]]". [[spoiler:Sure enough, after the final boss has been beaten, the Dude does away with her once and for all with the very same IED]].
* ChristianityIsCatholic: The only Christian references are the priests wearing Roman Catholic collars and the cathedral in the north of the town, in which the Dude must go confess (which is another Catholic ritual).
* CoolPlane: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' has the U.S. Military send in A-10 Warthogs to blow up the only bridge out of Paradise to stop any zombie or person trying to leave.
* ContractualBossImmunity: The human bosses in ''Paradise Lost'' are immune to most instant-kill attacks, but not all of them (e.g. Two-Ears is susceptible to the Revolver's secondary fire, while other bosses only take regular damage from it).
* CrackIsCheaper:
** {{Invoked}} in ''Paradise Lost''. Try buying toilet paper from the Wipe House on Tuesday. The base price per roll is ''however much you have on you'' at that time, and when you reach the register the price goes up. Guy says to go to the "Cash for Cats" stand outside to earn more. Whether you get more money or not, the fucker keeps hiking the price up. You eventually just have to shoot your way through the back in order to get it.
** Later on, you have to buy a blasting cap from Habib on Friday. It costs ''500 dollars''. Bear in mind that since the Bandits robbed you the previous day, taking all of your money [[NoGearLevel and weaponry]], it's highly likely that you won't have recouped your loss since then. The game practically encourages you to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just shoot him]] and take the blasting cap yourself.
* CrimeOfSelfDefense: Police who witness a gunfight tend to go after whichever of the shooters they see first (possibly including dogs!), rather than who actually started shooting first. As with all video-game police, however, it is entirely dependent on whether the player is involved - if you're being shot and not shooting back, the police will kill your attacker and then probably go after you if you deliberately aggravated the first guy. If you're actively shooting back, they'll drop everything and focus on you as soon as they see you. Subverted somewhat by later patches, which provided AI fixes. In the latest versions, police ''do'' give you some leeway if you were attacked without provocation, and will usually let you kill in self-defense, if not attacking your attacker entirely while leaving you alone.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: Before ''Apocalypse Weekend'' this was played straight as an arrow for everyone. Following the expansion's release this was {{averted|Trope}} for [=NPCs=] due to [[{{Gorn}} dismemberment of limbs]], where you could hack off an arm or a leg and generally leave someone crawling along the ground in pain (or just running away screaming) rather than outright killing them - the Steam version even has an achievement for managing to remove all four limbs from someone ''without'' killing them. However, this originally only applied outside of the expansion with the "A Week in Paradise" mod, and was only properly added to the base game with the implementation of the mod's features in patches released after the game's digital rerelease.
* CutsceneIncompetence:
** It doesn't matter how much abuse the Dude can normally take and how attentive you are to approaching enemies, on Wednesday he will still get knocked out with a single blow to the head, courtesy of two not very stealthy rednecks.
** Notably, however, the game ''does'' take into account other attempts to circumvent ambushes like this. Mostly, it just makes [=NPCs=] [[NoSell completely ignore anything you leave in their path]], whether it's a blazing inferno they have to stride through or grenades placed in their path, but on some occasions you actually '''can''' skip events in this manner, such as the protesters outside the RWS offices on Monday - normally, picking up your paycheck triggers a cutscene where the protesters pull out guns and storm the offices, but if you leave a grenade in the path of the protester who spurs them to action in that cutscene and kill them before they actually start speaking, the game will actually spawn far fewer protesters with guns to attack you.
* CuttingOffTheBranches: ''Paradise Lost'', surprisingly enough, assumes the player didn't kill most of the inhabitants in the vanilla game, such as the owner of the Lucky Ganesh. Then again, it could be another application of UnexplainedRecovery, as people that were confirmed dead in the original game, ''Apocalypse Weekend'', and in some cases even ''earlier in Paradise Lost itself'' still come back with no rhyme or reason.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory:
** There is neither a reload function (though a small handful of weapons can be reloaded, via SecondaryFire - the usual key for this is instead used for [[UrineTrouble unzipping your pants]]) nor an action function (the button that would normally be assigned to that instead puts away your current weapon). Crouch-jumping exists, but unlike ''Quake'' engine games, simply ''holding'' the crouch button the whole time you're airborne is worse than useless, as you won't clear the obstacle you're trying to crouch-jump on top of unless you have even a little bit of forward momentum to your jump ''and'' let go of the crouch key near the top of your jump.
** ''Paradise Lost'' does provide a tutorial for some movement options, in particular making sure to mention how odd the engine's version of crouch-jumping is compared to ''Quake'', though whether it does so in a way that's understandable is up for debate. In and of itself ''Paradise Lost'', and the update to the main game alongside it, is also an example, as a lot of the default keys were moved around with the introduction of a toggle-able item menu - specifically, the key for putting away your weapon is now a more standard "use inventory" key, so be prepared to waste at least one crack pipe trying to holster your gun.
* DaydreamSurprise: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' begins with one, with the dude imagining himself in bed with two of the Postal babes. It quickly turns nightmarish when some fat evil doctor shows up, saying that it's time for his [[AssShove enema]], at which point [[CatapultNightmare the Dude catapults awake.]]
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: What the aggro'ed rednecks say if they can't reach you.
-->'''Redneck:''' You fight like a little girly girl!
* DevelopersForesight:
** It is nearly impossible to beat the game without killing anyone (especially in the hardest difficulty level), and in fact, most players probably wouldn't even think of trying it (sort of defeats the purpose of a game designed purely for CatharsisFactor). However, if you somehow manage to pull it off, you will get a unique message at the end of the game saying "[[VideoGameCaringPotential Thanks for playing, Jesus]]".
** As the [[HarderThanHard They Hate Me difficulty]] has ''everyone'' in the game shoot you on sight, the petition errand in Tuesday is skipped as getting signatures would be impossible.
** If you "discard" a cat near a dog, the dog will pursue the fleeing cat until [[LudicrousGibs it catches it]].
** Allied dogs will fight just about any person who is assaulting you until the person or the dog is dead.
** Dogs will leave waste matter on the ground, given time.
** Police officers say "Hey, it's not worth your pension, man!" if they see you tasing or killing somebody while you're dressed as a cop.
* DiskOneNuke:
** Some versions of ''A Week in Paradise'' make the "Fag Hunter" [[ShowWithinAShow arcade game]] into a playable minigame. While the premise might put people off, it's still worth playing just for the chance to grab a fully-loaded {{revolver|sAreJustBetter}}, {{shotgun|sAreJustBetter}}, machine gun, sniper rifle, and ''rocket launcher'' within ten minutes of starting the game (especially since the only extra bonus for actually doing what the minigame tells you is a few health items).
** Even sooner, the same mod adds a machete from ''Apocalypse Weekend'' into the shed near the Postal Dude's trailer, which, unlike the melee weapons from the base game, can kill people in a single hit [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang from any range]].
** In the regular game, right at the beginning of the game, on Monday, [[spoiler:there's a sewer pipe that leads to a hidden terrorist base, which is located just behind the Dude's home. You'll be facing more than a dozen of {{Mooks}} there and most of them are equipped with assault rifles. Among them are ones wearing black turbans and red longcoats; these drop bulletproof vests if you manage to shoot them in the head (easiest to do with the pistol). If you manage to survive their stand, you'll be packing heat for the majority of the game. Then, starting on Wednesday, a couple of mooks on the lower level are armed with Rocket Launchers. If you kill ''them'', then you're really off the hook. Not only that, but you can repeat the process at any day by exiting the base from the way you came and then re-entering the base, which respawns the mooks that you've killed. Make sure you're well equipped before going there because, depending on the difficulty level (especially on the harder ones), you could lose health faster than the blink of an eye when getting shot.]]
** In ''Paradise Lost'', the Revolver can be found in surprising numbers, even from the very beginning of the game, if you know where to look. [[TooAwesomeToUse Ammo for it will be a different story]], however, as only one or two more instances of the weapon are added per day, separate ammo is even rarer, and you simply can't buy it yourself from vendors until Thursday.
** Get yourself arrested, and break out of jail, enough times to get thrown into Maximum Security. Break out then, duck into the nearby Locker Room, swipe a Police Uniform, and don it then and there. The cops will just treat you like a member of the force, and you'll have free reign to rob it of everything of value (that includes their massively-well stocked armory and evidence room, which have tons of weaponry and a bulletproof vest).
** ''Paradise Lost'' actually moves the Police Uniform / Lawman Clothes around in the jail behind the saloon with each day of the week, marking each prior location with a sign reading "Due to recent thefts, your uniform has been moved."
* DisgustingPublicToilet: Restrooms are grime-covered graffitied prison cells with toilets filled with unflushed urine, even in the women's room! Of course Postal Dude can make them worse as only he's the one using them.
* DonutMessWithACop:
** The Dude can lure cops around, amongst other people, by dropping donuts onto the ground. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential And you can force them to puke]] [[ToiletHumor by peeing on the donut beforehand.]] [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment If you eat it however, The Dude becomes disgusted and spits it out, and only gains a single health point from it (dry donuts give three).]]
** On another note, one of the things The Dude can say while wearing the cop uniform (available starting Wednesday from the Laundromat for $500, or can be looted from the Police Station for free) is "Someone stole my donuts, and now you're all going to pay!"
* DownloadableContent: While ''Paradise Lost'' is a straight example, the AprilFoolsDay event parodies this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrty0XUPjVI On the main menu]], the player will be greeted with a "Paid DLC (NEW!!!)" option, all filled with silly DLC ([[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Champ Armor]] [[TakeThat for $2.50]] and a Gary Coleman Romance Path for $6.99) with equally silly pricing (The Super-Fun Pigeon Hunter Mission costing $59.99[[labelnote:*]]despite outright admitting they only needed $3.50 to put it together[[/labelnote]] and the Uncensored Dude Willy costing $69.99), with the game even counting your "Money wasted". None of it actually exists though, since trying to actually buy it will result in the Dude chiding you.
-->"Nope." \\
"I don't think so." \\
"Fuck you."
* TheDreaded: In ''Paradise Lost'' the first objective is to ask around about Champ, who went missing in the intro. You'll have to go through a lot of civilians running away screaming when you show them the photo before you finally get a result from an increasingly annoyed Dude. [[spoiler:Turns out that Champ is now known as [[GratuitousSpanish "El Perro Loco"]] after mutating and going on a rampage]].
* DreadfulMusician: The Dude seems to be one in ''Paradise Lost'', where you can have him sing karaoke. It's not due to a lack of talent (that we know of), but more down to the fact that he doesn't drop his [[CreepyMonotone monotone]] as he sings. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments The results are hilarious]].
** [[spoiler:Tellingly, this is the only time the Other Postal Dude, the guy who has been suggesting you take the most violent path possible since near the beginning of the game, suggests the least violent path, implying that his singing is much worse than simply smashing the equipment.]]
* DrivenToSuicide:
** [[spoiler:At the end of the base game, the Postal Dude realizes he forgot his wife's Rocky Road ice cream and shoots himself rather than face her reaction. In the expansion, he comes to in the hospital the next day, having only inflicted enough damage to cause hallucinations.]]
** ''Paradise Lost'' has an NPC in the Fire in the Hole bar's bathroom. On most days of the week he just uses the toilet normally then leaves, but on Friday you meet him holding a gun to his head, exclaiming "Mother never loved me!" before [[YourHeadAsplode shooting himself in the head.]]
* DropTheHammer: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' gives the dude a sledgehammer with which to [[YourHeadAsplode bust heads.]]
* DualWielding: ''Paradise Lost'' enables the Dude to do this with a plethora of weapons, including [[RevolversAreJustBetter revolvers]] and [[MoreDakka machine guns]]. [[PowerUpFood Just drink some soda]], and away you go.
* EasterEgg: In one area in ''Paradise Lost'', there is a house close to a level transition point. The door to it is locked and you can't jump in through any of the windows; the only way in is smashing down the door with a sledgehammer or chopping it down with an axe. Inside [[spoiler:the house is empty, but if you go upstairs, you'll find a room adorned with ''Postal III'' posters along with a fat person [[DrivenToSuicide hanging from the ceiling with a fallen chair by his feet]]. On his computer, you can see ''Postal III'' mid-crash with a message that says "Amazing Game Development has caused the program to stop responding", with options to "wait for the game to get better?" or "uninstall and install Postal 2 and hope for Postal 4" (which, incidentally, happened a few years later)]]. [[TakeThat You know, just in case the message wasn't clear enough]].
* EmergencyWeapon: The Dude can kick anything in front of him. It's a fairly weak attack, but has [[MundaneUtility some degree of use]] in that it can quickly open doors and force [=NPCs=] to get out of your way - that or pull a gun on you, leaving nearby police to return fire on them. In ''Paradise Lost'' it's been mildly upgraded, allowing the player to [[GroinAttack kick male [=NPCs=] in the nuts]] to temporarily stun them.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Walking near one of the "Teen Sniper" arcade machines causes the Dude to state "That's clearly wrong."
* EveryCarIsAPinto: And how! [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by the Dude when reading the daily newspaper on Wednesday as he refers to the vehicles as "useless exploding props."
** Further exemplified by the fact that [[spoiler:just 3 bullets from the pistol are enough to cause a car to explode.]]
** Ironically, the wrecked and rusting cars in ''Paradise Lost'' also explode [[spoiler:after 3 pistol shots]] despite the cars not working anymore.
** Even the tanks located outside of the Nondescript Warehouse and in the courtyard of Uncle Dave's compound can explode [[spoiler:with a few well-placed shots using the rocket launcher or mini nuke launcher]].
** The campervan located opposite the gas station can even explode [[spoiler:with just one pistol bullet]]
* EveryoneIsArmed:
** [[spoiler:After you complete the last errand on Friday, the Apocalypse begins and turns everybody into a gun-toting, trigger-happy maniac who won't hesitate to shoot at anything that moves, including you]].
** The last three difficulty levels, Hestonworld, Insane-O, and They Hate Me, make everybody this, while at the same time making them tougher and have them dish out a lot more damage than you can handle. They Hate Me [[SerialEscalation takes things further]] by having [[EverythingTryingToKillYou everybody gunning for you as soon as they see you, even your RWS allies]].
** A couple of patched-in difficulty levels: POSTAL and Impossible. Both difficulties are a combination of They Hate Me (both) and either Hestonworld (POSTAL) or Insane-O (Impossible), and they go ''even further'' as to limit you to one manual save per map and you can't pick up the 'health pipes' to use. The only concession is that they give you the fish finder radar and it has unlimited usage.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou:
** One errand each day results in a specific group wanting the Postal Dude dead for various reasons. For some, it makes sense (rednecks on Wednesday, who aren't happy about the Dude cutting down their fave Christmas tree and/or murdering his way out of the brewery after being knocked unconscious and forced into a gimp suit), for others, not so much (postal workers on Friday who shoot you because a letter bomb meant for you went off in the mail room; then again, that's assuming you didn't take the violent option and shoot them first). These groups remain enemies to you for the remainder of the week, so as the game progresses, more and more hate groups are targeting you. Fortunately, with the exception of terrorists, and a few random nutcases who turn up, the hate groups wear brightly colored shirts that can be seen from a distance. And it's dead easy to let them start shooting and be blown away by nearby cops. Later in the game ''other'' groups begin to appear, but unless you're playing the end game, they don't target Postal Dude. They also don't recognize the Dude (most of the time) if he's wearing the Police Uniform, making it much easier to avoid engagements.
** Once you finish the last errand on Friday, [[spoiler:[[HatePlague the Apocalypse comes.]] At that point, all bets are off: ''anyone'' who isn't an RWS employee is going to shoot at you if they see you.]]
** Also this trope applies in the thirteenth difficulty level aptly titled They Hate Me, in which everybody (including even your usual allies, the RWS employees) is armed to the teeth and won't hesitate to shoot you once you're in their view.
* ExpansionPack: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' at first (later integrated into the game fully), then ''Paradise Lost'' several years later.
* ExplodingBarrels: Played straight with the blue oil barrels and white chemical barrels scattered around Paradise, and also used somewhat creatively with the gas pumps at the gas station and the propane tank located next to the campervan opposite the gas station. Even the gas pipelines located directly outside of a [[CrazyCatLady Hispanic cat lady]]'s house in Chicken Queen Estates and the back side of the RWS HQ explode very easily with one kick, killing any NPC who are unlucky enough to be near them.
* FanDisservice:
** The part of the game where the Postal Dude wakes up dressed in an ass-less gimp suit.
** The expansion has gimp-suited attack dogs and dervish cats.
** On occasion, you can see an NPC that has a very obviously female body and a bearded male head.
* {{Fanservice}}: Most of the female [=NPCs=] are depicted as sexy, with a number seen wearing school girl outfits or police uniforms.
** Images of bikini-wearing real-life "Postal Babes" are visible in several locations.
* FeedItABomb: [[spoiler:Using the I.E.D that al-Qaeda made for him, the Dude finally rids himself of the Bitch in this way]].
* FinalBoss: [[spoiler:Mad Cow Mike J]] in ''Apocalypse Weekend'', then [[spoiler:a super-sized demonic version of the Bitch]] in ''Paradise Lost''.
* FireAndBrimstoneHell: [[spoiler:''Paradise Lost'''s final level takes place in one of these, complete with random screaming]].
* FlushingEdgeInteractivity: The player is actually able to wee the whole place upside down, and in fact even urinate on burning victims--the toilets, however, [[AvertedTrope still serve no function]].
* FlippingTheBird: Civilians do this on a regular basis in the base game. This continues in ''Paradise Lost'', where yelling without a weapon will cause the Dude to either do the one-handed or two-handed variant. Later on in that expansion, [[spoiler:The Bitch]] will do it to you if [[spoiler:she]] hits you with a katana uppercut after slashing you a lot in mid-air and just before landing the final downward blow on a blatantly [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Final Smash]]-inspired attack, and dying in the battle against [[spoiler:the giant demonic Bitch]] will have [[spoiler:her]] do this to your dead body (and by extension, the player). You'll be seeing it [[ThatOneBoss an awful lot]].
* FunWithAcronyms: ''Paradise Lost'' has a pet store called the '''C'''reature '''C'''ontrol '''C'''enter and '''P'''ets. [[note]]CCCP is the Cyrillic abbreviation for the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]][[/note]]
* GameBreakingBug:
** ''Postal 2'' is known for crashing, especially in its earlier pre-patch years. The game in its current UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} form still suffers from crashes, though they are mostly far and between and only tend to happen after long playtimes when loading saves after the first time.
** In ''Paradise Lost'', on Friday after you [[spoiler:defeat The Bitch and return to Paradise from Hell]], you are tasked to either leave Paradise or revisit and kill every faction leader in Paradise. If you go to Gary Coleman and try to kill him like the other faction leaders, sometimes you can end up killing him without triggering the check on the map, therefore tricking the game into thinking you hadn't killed Gary and therefore preventing you from getting the "Best" ending.
** Also in ''Paradise Lost'', at least the initial release, the marijuana plants at the herb farm on Friday lacked collision detection, making it impossible to complete the mission as they could not be harvested. This was actually patched quickly, but those who pirated the game didn't have access to the Steam patches so they suffered the glitch the worst, barring a small few who found workarounds (and even those workarounds don't work for everyone who try them).
* GatlingGood: In ''Paradise Lost'', the Bandit leader boss on Thursday will attack the Dude with one of these. Once the room has been cleared, the Dude is free to use it himself to eviscerate the remaining waves of Bandits coming for him with almost no effort. Another two show up on Friday, one in the Survivalists' compound (which, unfortunately, is completely inaccessible and serves only as an obstacle for the player to avoid) and one in the weird underground bunker filled with gimps (which, fortunately, ''can'' be used against its owners - enjoy!).
* GirlOnGirlIsHot: In ''Paradise Lost'', you can barge in on a lesbian couple kissing in Chicken Queen Estates on Wednesday.
* GoombaStomp: Technically, at least in the sense that it's a way to avoid falling damage. You don't actually do anything more to the "victim" than mildly annoying them, though.
* GrenadeHotPotato: It's possible to take out grenade-throwing enemies by kicking their grenades back at them.
* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: In ''Apocalypse Weekend'', the Dude ends up in a jail by the US Army. How to escape? By setting the other inmate on fire with your matches. Yeah, for some reason, the soldiers stripped the Dude of all his weapons but let him keep his matches before putting him in a cell with a poster saying something like "doors automatically open in case of fire" inside. This is continued from the base game, where whenever you get arrested the police fail to confiscate your matches; all you need to do to get out is toss one at the sprinkler on the ceiling.
* GunsAkimbo: Chug some Habib's Power Station soda in ''Paradise Lost'', and the Dude will do this for a short time with whatever gun he's holding (with a few exceptions). Doing so with the [=M16=] or [=MP5=] is actually one of the best ways to quickly eliminate bosses, at the expense of your ammo pool for those weapons.
* HarderThanHard: The game has, believe it or not, [[ThirteenIsUnlucky thirteen difficulty levels]], but the last three levels (Hestonworld, Insane-O, and They Hate Me) really up the ante by having all [=NPCs=] armed with various weaponry and do twice as much damage with their weapons. The hardest, They Hate Me, takes it [[UpToEleven Up To]] [[IncrediblyLamePun Thirteen]] by having everybody shooting you on sight. The Steam version has an additional one named POSTAL difficulty which is identical to They Hate Me except you can't stockpile health items/healing items and are only allowed one save per map (two counting autosaves). The only good news is that you start off with a free "Bass Sniffer" radar with unlimited usage and then [[UpToEleven they added Impossible difficulty]] which makes it even harder with changes such as bystanders now using heavy weapons.
* HatePlague: [[spoiler:The Apocalypse's most obvious effect, as shown at the end of Friday in the base game, late into Sunday in ''Apocalypse Weekend'', and once again after the big showdown with the Bitch in ''Paradise Lost.'' At least the [=NPCs=] are often too busy killing each other to bother with killing you specifically.]]
* HeartsAreHealth: Parodied: your health counter is represented by an actual human heart, that beats faster/slower and changes tint depending on how injured you are or what sort of substances you're currently under the influence of.
* HellHound:
** A few appear in the Paradise sewers, and some even pop up in ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
** In the 11 years that the Dude's been out of it, Champ has become one of these thanks to radiation in ''Paradise Lost''.
* HitboxDissonance:
** Gary Coleman. Especially obvious when the AI [[BoomHeadshot always goes for the head]] and you see puffs of blood appearing ABOVE Gary's head when he gets into a shootout. Likely done for balance reasons, lest Gary end up like ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997's'' Oddjob. This also lead to strange things if you played the original release with ''A Week in Paradise'' and attempted to kill Gary with a bladed weapon, where his ragdoll would stretch out to normal size as soon as a limb was removed. Both of these issues were fixed in the Steam version.
** The hitbox bug comes back again in ''Paradise Lost'', when fighting the pint-sized Cole-Men. Especially noticeable when sniping them with the hunting rifle. Shooting them in the head counts as a gutshot, while shooting them in the air 3 feet above their head counts as a headshot.
* HitlerAteSugar: As per parody, some book protesters hold signs stating "[[GratuitousGerman ACHTUNG!]] HITLER WROTE A BOOK!", [[ComicallyMissingThePoint completely oblivious]] to the fact that the Nazis ''also'' burned books.
* HollywoodTourettes: The "Mad Cow Tourettes Zombies" in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' as mentioned earlier.
* HyperactiveMetabolism:
** Doughnuts, pizza slices, and bags of fast food can heal the Dude for a few amount of health points.
** The Health Pipe does a variation of this. One use of it instantly grants 125 health points for the Dude, but there's a catch: you can't pick up or eat food or use medkits after you use a Pipe unless your points drop below 100, and after a few minutes of being high, his heart will beat faster than normal, indicating that he's about to go in withdrawal. Should you not take another health pipe, you'll lose some health from the withdrawal. Some versions of ''A Week in Paradise'' include bongs that give 150 health, but which takes a few seconds to actually heal you and deals greater damage from withdrawal. The Dude even [[LampshadeHanging comments]] when taking a pipe and then suffering withdrawal from it.
--->'''Postal Dude:''' ''[after first smoking a pipe]'' This can't be good for me, but I feel great! ''[later, after the withdrawal]'' "Health pipe" my ass. That stuff is addictive.
* HyperDestructiveBouncingBall: One of the napalm launcher's fire modes. The AWP mod's M@D Bomb and Jihad Grenade, both grenade-type weapons, also have some unusual bounce to them. The Krotchy grenade functions like this as well, bouncing for a short while before exploding in a '''huge''' fireball.
-->''Have a Krotchy day!''
* HyperspaceArsenal: At any point in the game, it is possible to be carrying several bladed weapons, pistols, shotguns, machine guns, a rocket launcher, hand grenades, piles of throwing scissors, healing items, money, mission pickups and other goods PLUS the ammunition inside the Dude's longcoat. In ''Apocalypse Weekend'', he also manages to carry a massive nuclear warhead that's as big as he is. AWP expands this with more pistols, shotguns, automatic weapons, explosives, virus-filled hypodermic syringes and other weapons to the point you have the inventory of an entire gun shop within that coat.
* HypocriticalHumor:
** [[GoodBadBugs Probably not intentional]], but it's entirely possible to see a book protester on Tuesday attempting to get a book signed by Gary Coleman.
** This is the source of humor from a lot of the hate groups: protesters who are against violent video games holding signs stating "KILL VIOLENT GAMERS", rush the offices of a game developer with guns, and can later be found playing arcade games in the mall; a condemned house with graffiti sprayed by an otherwise-unseen "Parents Against Graffiti" group; and others.
** A meta example: the ad campaign for the first ''Postal'' heavily dissed first-person shooters. ''Postal 2'' is, of course, a first-person shooter.
** As mentioned under EvenEvilHasStandards, the Dude states "that's clearly wrong" when you walk by the "Teen Sniper" arcade game. Most versions of ''A Week in Paradise'', naturally, add an optional objective that, once done, lets you actually play that arcade game. Not to mention that mod also lets you play "Fag Hunter" with no comment from the Dude.
** When the local church is attacked by terrorists, one of the priests can be seen yelling "Come on, my peaceful brethren, it's time to deliver an ass-whooping of biblical proportions!"
** One of Uncle Dave's followers will yell at the ATF, "We're not zealots! Eat lead and die, [[ImmediateSelfContradiction unbelieving heathen scum]]!"
* ImAHumanitarian:
** Most of the meat sold at Meat World is made by grinding up live humans. The butchers are [[EverythingTryingToKillYou not happy to find the Dude catching them in the act]], which he only did because unlike most errands, nobody is at the front counter to let the Dude buy the meat normally. Hence, you have to fight your way through the butchers to find the only packages of non-human beef in the store.
** After trashing the PU Games' offices on Tuesday, you can find a small group of employees on Wednesday hanging out in a far-off corner of one area, sitting around a campfire with what appears to be the body of their CEO cooking over it.
** After the Dude trashes the newly-reopened Cock Asian in search of Champ on Monday, the place remains closed and blocked off for almost the rest of the game, only opening up after the Apocalypse hits again at the end of Friday. They advertise that they have a new source of meat that's ''not'' dog this time. [[spoiler:It's ''zombies.'']]
* ImmersiveSim: One of the dumbest and most offensive ever, but yes. ''Postal 2'' is very close to being an immersive sim- Postal Dude has a number of objectives he can complete in any order he chooses, and the game has a number of complex features like semi-intelligent A.I and random events. There's also a ton of items you can use and interesting ways to interact with the world, but a lack of RPG elements holds it back from being a true Immersive Sim like it's contemporaries.
* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: You can go to the Police Station and snag an officer outfit there to disguise yourself as one of Paradise's LE personnel. Of course, you can invoke PoliceBrutality yourself by randomly attacking citizens on a whim.
* ImplausibleDeniability: In ''Apocalypse Weekend'' the publishing company's CEO denies having the ''Postal 2'' gold master disc, even though it's right there on his desk.
--->"Hey! That's ''my'' gold master that I don't have. Give it back!"
* IronicName: The town the game takes place in is "Paradise". It's a WretchedHive.
* InkSuitActor: Gary Coleman, as well as RWS's Vince. In ''Paradise Lost'', ''Postal'' movie star Zack Ward makes an appearance, as does ''Breitbart'' journalist Milo Yiannopoulos.
* InvulnerableCivilians: ''Paradise Lost'' introduces Postal Babes [[note]] not the be confused with female RWS employees, who look no different than average female [=NPCs=] [[/note]] who simply pose and look pretty in the RWS church, positioned near the hot tub and on the balcony. They are the only characters in the entire ''Postal 2'' series that cannot be harmed in any way, by you or by enemies.
* ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure: See below, [[SubvertedTrope except]] The Postal Dude's plan wasn't about the zombies that happened to have overwhelmed Paradise at the time.
* IllKillYou: Hostile [=NPCs=] shout this often.
* IronicName: [[WretchedHive The town of Paradise is not what you expect it to be]]. Of course, the developers deliberately gave it that name just ForTheLulz.
* JerkassGenie: The holiday event for Saint Patrick's Day makes Leprechauns appear. If you can catch one, you can use it to make a wish, which are all fulfilled according to this trope. For example, wishing for "hot bitches" to be all over you makes the Leprechaun summon dogs that are ON FIRE to attack you.
* JokeWeapon: [[UrineTrouble Piss.]] It can't kill anyone, [[{{Squick}} but it will cause enemies to vomit and run away, or at least be distracted.]] It's also the only way to put yourself out if you catch fire.
** LethalJokeWeapon: Piss becomes ''much'' more effective in [[NewGamePlus Enhanced Mode]], where you can literally shoot flames from your [unseen] wang.
** On Friday, the Dude complains about having to pee, prompting the player to unzip and urinate somewhere. This is instantly painful. You have to go to the clinic to get cured of an STD, but in the meantime your diseased piss will cause any [=NPC=] to vomit the second you pee on them - although this damages your health. [[note]]Thanks to some poorly-designed flag work, you can skip the clinic entirely if you never take a leak during Friday, a useful fact for speed runs - just try not to catch on fire when cops are throwing it everywhere at Uncle Dave's place. Of course, that's what the Police Uniform is for.[[/note]]
* JustTrainWrong: The railroad line running through the town of Paradise is a complete mess. For starters there is no passenger station. A ridiculously small trainyard is at the edge of the town just a few streets from the mall. The switches in the trainyard are positioned in a way that makes ''no [[PrecisionFStrike goddamn]] sense''. Various freight cars and cargo are scattered randomly all over the place obstructing the tracks and rendering any operation outright impossible. There are even no signal posts so if by any utterly improbable chance a train happened to stray its way into this mess, it would be doomed to derail as the conductor would have no way to tell, whether he can proceed safely or not. The rest of the line leads directly through an intdustrial area, cutting through several buildings and roads, which would spell disaster for the traffic[[note]]not that there is any[[/note]]. The entire thing is topped off with a demolished bridge rendering the line out of order and totally pointless.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: In the AWP mod, they're good for dismembering people with a quick slash and also assassinating people in public with an [[SecondaryFire alt-fire]] [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks throw]] right after unsheathing it, [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow unless they survive being impaled by a hurled katana.]] Police officers are also strangely resistant to them. Enhanced Mode makes it better by letting you toss an infinite number of them without having to pick them back up.
** [[spoiler:The Bitch]] ends up using one against the Dude in ''Paradise Lost''. The Dude can then pick it up from the junkyard the next day, and it is one of the better melee weapons in the game, about equivalent to the scythe in killing power (complete with ability to chop people's legs off) but without having to slowly pull the weapon back before swinging it.
* KarmaHoudini: Postal Dude, again. At the end of ''Apocalypse Weekend'' [[spoiler:he nukes an entire city killing an unknown amount of people, and he gets away free, despite taking out about half of the US Army in the process. He even gets to [[PetTheDog save his dog]], too. In a comic posted on the official site at one point detailing the immediate aftermath, the government officially blamed al-Qaeda for the nuke. Not that it was a huge stretch, since Paradise was literally ''infested'' with al-Qaeda members by this point.]]
* KickTheDog:
** The Postal Dude ''literally'' does this as soon as he exits his trailer first thing Monday morning. Though considering Champ's actions right before the fact (see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9NlDT4PRNQ#t=3m10s here]]), and depending on how you perceive it, this may fall somewhere between KickTheDog and KickTheSonOfABitch.
** On the other hand, it's shown just how much the Postal Dude cares for Champ in the expansions, with ''Apocalypse Weekend'' having the Dude rescue him from the pound [[spoiler:or, rather, ''being rescued'' by Champ from a horde of redneck-trained dogs in gimp suits]], and ''Paradise Lost'' is about the Dude heading back to a post-nuclear Paradise [[spoiler:that he personally nuked]] just to get Champ back, even if that means ''literally'' going ToHellAndBack.
** There is also two of the achievements; "Hello, Newman" (kicked 30 dogs) and "Pussy on a Pedestal" (kill 10 dogs with a kitty-silenced shotgun)
* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown:
** [=NPCs=] will sometimes fall down to the ground without dying if you shoot at their non-vital areas (i.e. arms, legs). It is however, easiest to do with the taser or sniper rifle (in the latter's case, you must shoot their legs for that to happen). Then when they're down, you can deliver a good few kicks to them until they expire.
** [=NPCs=] themselves will kick at a corpse repeatedly when they're not running like chickens, often spouting lines like "Here's one for your mother!" or "Take this with you!"
* KillItWithFire: Let's just say that the fire effects are very, '''very''' [[VideogameCrueltyPotential thoroughly planned.]] Fire weapons are actually some of the most effective in the game when dealing with tougher enemies at close range, particularly the AerosolFlamethrower added by the ''A Week in Paradise'' mod. They just run around in a panic and often set their friends on fire, which causes them to torch their other nearby friends until they're all roasting to death.
** You can pour trails of gasoline on the floor and light it with a match when some poor sap walks near.
** There's the Napalm Launcher weapon, which either fires impact-detonating napalm bombs or fires HyperDestructiveBouncingBall napalm bombs that spill fuel that catches fire soon after all over the place!
** If you get caught on fire, which likely WILL happen if you're in close quarters with other people set ablaze, you can try to ''[[UrineTrouble piss it out]]''.
* KingMook:
** Gary Coleman and Krotchy aren't straight up bosses, but both are noticeably tougher than any other character in the regular game (not counting ''Apocalypse Weekend'' or the new Holiday updates). Krotchy fights with a rocket launcher and is also ImmuneToBullets, but not scissors or explosives.
** ''Paradise Lost'' adds a couple unique enemies with better weapons and higher-than-normal health (the PU Games CEO and John Murray, the protagonist of the ''Eternal Damnation'' mod, who's worshipping the A/C part at the asylum), but who aren't straight up bosses.
* LighterAndSofter: ''Postal 2'' in comparison with ''Postal 1''. It's still pretty demented and violent, but the game has a more comical atmosphere, with less disturbing stuff. Not only that, the game is possible to complete with no kills at all (although it's only limited to the original 5-day campaign and it's very hard), and all the time the Dude is forced packing heat, he's in self defense and most of his objectives are everyday chores (which gone wrong due to the WretchedHive nature of Paradise).
* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Postal 2 was often criticized for this. The loading is milder in patched versions, though. More powerful and modern [=PCs=] turn the loading issue into a non-issue.
* LudicrousGibs: '''[[ExaggeratedTrope AND HOW!]]'''
** ''Apocalypse Weekend'' adds dismemberment; people can have their limbs sliced off and still live, bleeding and crawling in pain. With the scythe, you can cut their torsos in two and watch their viscera spill out, [[{{Gorn}} for all its gruesome worth.]]
** The ''A Week in Paradise'' mod takes it up a notch by having [=NPC=]s run around screaming with their arms gone, while making the gore even more detailed.
** The SawedOffShotgun does enough raw damage to reduce anyone at or near point-blank range to mere bloody giblets [[GameBreaker with one shot, let alone two,]] and can potentially unlock the "Door Mat" achievement because of it.
* MooksButNoBosses: Although Gary Coleman and especially Krotchy are tougher than normal, they're not quite tough enough to be boss-like. ''Apocalypse Weekend'' has a traditional FPS boss (in the form of a giant demon man-cow Mike J protected by an energy shield that has to be lowered by attacking its weak point [the floating heads of Gary Coleman]) for the final battle. The Easter update for the Steam version introduces the Easter Bunny if you follow the trail of Easter eggs in the woods into his hideout. The fight with him is a actual boss battle. Then ''Paradise Lost'' [[AvertedTrope chucks this out the window]] and introduces bosses to fight at certain intervals.
* MoreDakka:
** The [=M16=] Machine Gun and [=MP5=] Submachine Gun deliver plenty thanks to BottomlessMagazines, and are actually the most effective weapons for taking out bosses in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' and ''Paradise Lost''. The latter expansion even lets you chug a can of Habib's Power Station to [[GunsAkimbo double your firepower]] for a little while!
** Also in ''Paradise Lost'', there are the occasional [[GatlingGood minigun emplacements]] - one used by Bandit leader Two-Ears, one in the gimp hideout, and one manned by an invincible Survivalist just before the exit from their encampment. The first two are great for just mowing down the hordes of mooks that come at you, but the last one can only be evaded.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Rick Hunter, the voice of the Postal Dude, is a very nice guy in contrast of the evil sociopath that he plays in the game. In a few videos scattered around youtube about the game, you can see him posting comments and responding to fans. There's also this [[https://youtu.be/gu2i0bd8XnQ interview]] done by Jake the Voice where you can just see how much of a chill guy he is.
* MultipleEndings: There are two endings in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion.
** ''Escape'': [[spoiler:Completely forego sticking around and meeting all the faction leaders after finding Champ. The Dude and his dog leave the dystopian hellhole that is Paradise before it gets nuked ''again''.]]
** ''Leader'': [[spoiler:Should the Dude go around "thanking" all five faction leaders, he ends up having to kill them all in self-defense. The narrator changes from Krotchy to the ''Postal 3'' Dude, who goes on to explain that the Dude went on to become the "Postal God", leader of the lost city of Paradise.]]
* MurderIsTheBestSolution:
** Almost all of the Dude's chores can be solved legally (i.e. [[PacifistRun without stealing or murdering]]), but have some degree of annoyance to bait the player into going on a rampage. When Dude goes to get Gary Coleman's autograph, there's an enormous line, so why wait when you can set someone on fire and steal ''their'' autographed book?
** Let's not forget that many of the various factions jump to this conclusion regarding the Dude himself, simply because he happened to be collecting his check from RWS, returning a book to a library, cut down their favorite Christmas tree, attempted to retrieve a package at the post office that turned out to be a [[YouGotMurder letter bomb]], or just checking the local pound to see if Champ's there (''Paradise Lost''), among other things. The only instance that could be remotely justified is the butchers not being too keen on the Dude discovering that [[ImAHumanitarian most of their meat product is made of people]] in the back room, which he probably wouldn't have had to find out if they'd just had someone at the counter that day.
* NewGamePlus: Beating the game once enables "Enhanced Mode", which gives such bonuses as the ability to [[LethalJokeWeapon piss napalm]]. One can also access the cheat menu after having beaten the game. In the Steam version, more weapons get enhanced too. The shotgun can shoot explosions with alt-fire, the assault rifle can shoot scissors, the sniper rifle shoots explosive bullets, the grenade launcher shoots cats, and the baton is a OneHitKill to the head.
* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: "[[OhCrap Aww shit]], [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Mad Cow]] [[HollywoodTourettes Tourettes]] Zombies!"
* NoBadassToHisValet:
** The Postal Dude's wife, the Bitch. All week, she bitches at him to do the odd jobs that land him in trouble, then immediately leaves him after he shoots himself at the end of the game from [[BrickJoke forgetting to get her Rocky Road ice cream.]]
** This comes up again in ''Paradise Lost'', where [[spoiler:the Bitch gets married to Mad Cow Mike J and is ''pissed'' to see the Dude to the point that she immediately decides to attempt to murder him with a katana. She even ends up being the final boss fight in giant demonic form and gives TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the Dude after he defeats her, with one of those reasons being that [[BrickJoke he forgot the Rocky Road]].]]
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Although the trope is somewhat different in its context than its name suggests, based on its name alone it is averted by the fact the in-game Gary Coleman can be killed by either the player or the player can sit back and watch the cops do it for him. However, if the player visits the police station later in the game, Coleman will still be alive and in a jail cell. In the ''Apocalypse Weekend'' expansion, the player ends up fighting a number of demonic versions of Coleman, and the real deal shows up sporadically as a background character.
* NukeEm: [[spoiler:In the ending of ''Apocalypse Weekend'', the Dude grabs a nuclear warhead from an Army base after he's detained as a terrorist. He sets it up at a rival game company, and it takes out Paradise as he and his dog Champ drive away. And at the end of ''Paradise Lost'', if the Dude and Champ make their escape without thanking the faction leaders, Paradise gets nuked ''again'']].
* OffscreenInertia: Parodied. The library is set on fire after you go to return the library book on Tuesday. Once you leave, the entrance is blocked off with instant-kill fire that continues burning for ''the rest of the week''.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The Pigeon Hunting mission. The Postal Dude has been given a rocket launcher and told to take out flocks of pigeons carrying disease. The game then cuts to a live-action video where it's shown the developers have run out of money and cannot possibly afford designing another mission. When we return to the Postal Dude later in the day, he is standing amidst ''enormous'' puddles of blood and feathers, proclaiming what he has just experienced as "[[LampshadeHanging the most awesome thing [he's] ever done]]." Also doubles as a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}}. Appropriately, this mission is one of the things that the fans modded into the game. It's also a running joke for April Fools' updates which add a menu full of fake DLC, where one of the options for 60 dollars is the Pigeon Mission.
* OneHitKill:
** A downward swipe of the baseball bat and the sledgehammer to the head, as well as any bladed weapons can pretty much dispatch an enemy instantly, though it is possible for rifle or shotgun-wielding enemies to block your attacks if they see them coming.
** The revolver in ''Paradise Lost'', if the special bar is full enough, will lock onto an enemy's head and [[BoomHeadShot instantly]] [[YourHeadAsplode blow it up]] when you right-click over one. You can even hold down the right-click and hover over multiple enemies to dispatch them in succession.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The Mad Cow [[HollywoodTourettes Tourettes]] Zombies from ''Apocalypse Weekend'', who grumble slurred strings of profanities whilst stalking their victims. [[RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain Will not die if their heads are intact]] - yes, this includes a clean beheading, as pointed out in a cutscene. YourHeadAsplode is a must.
* OwMyBodyPart: When Postal Dude takes damage, he may parody this by saying "Ow, my clavichord!". Clavichords are a medieval keyboard instrument.
* PacifistRun: Difficult, but possible with skill and patience. You're rewarded with an endgame message saying "Thank you for playing, JESUS!". Impossible to do in ''Apocalypse Weekend'', however, as several missions require you to kill a set number of enemies to proceed. In contrast to ''Apocalypse Weekend'', ''Paradise Lost'' can actually be finished non-lethally; while there are missions with no viable peaceful option (the Wipe House and PU Games are early examples), you can just run past all the enemies to the objective, while the bosses can either be avoided or beaten non-lethally, and if you choose to thank all the faction leaders instead of just leaving, the final bosses don't count as kills.
** TechnicalPacifist: A possible way to perform a pacifist run is to draw a gun in a crowd then immediately hide it and run (without actually attacking anyone). It has an important probability to make other people there draw guns themselves and start a shootout (especially if there are policemen in the vicinity), and since you didn't kill them yourself, it won't be recorded as your own casualties. An alternative is to hide, draw your gun, and shoot the ground or a wall near a group you want to thin out; they'll react about the same way, only without noticing you specifically.
** The thirteenth difficulty level, They Hate Me, makes it outright impossible to play pacifist, since everybody in Paradise will start shooting you as soon as they see you.
* PoliceBrutality:
** The in-game police seem to enjoy beating the crap out of random civilians just for the hell of it. Their methods of dealing with actual crimes could also come off as overkill. It's even lampshaded by civilians who witness brutality by the police by spouting lines like, "I've lost faith in the system!" or "That cop's gone insane!" Made even more hilarious when you don a police uniform, and YOU start roughing up civilians.
** While they'll allow you to sit still and be handcuffed, the [=NPCs=] do not get that option - the cops ''will'' kill them. Seems to be a trade-off, as they'll let [=NPCs=] walk around clearly carrying weapons with no problem, but if they see you draw one they've already got their own drawn and aimed at you.
** There is actually a scripted moment where, having entered a specific area for the first time, one of the first things you see is an NPC being accosted by police and invariably killed afterwards. [[VideoGameCaringPotential Unless you decide to intervene, that is.]]
* PrecisionFStrike: Considering the Dude's [[ClusterFBomb standard fare]] and [[HatePlague the circumstances]], the Dude writing "'''GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!'''" as the very last objective in ''Paradise Lost'' qualifies for one of these.
* {{Precision Guided|Boomerang}} MacheteMayhem: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' gives the Dude a machete. He can hack off limbs up close or toss it with the [[SecondaryFire alternate fire button]], at which point it will fly back to his hand!
-->'''The Postal Dude:''' Oh, man! That's fucking awesome!\\
'''The Postal Dude:''' It's like bowling, only cooler.
* {{Pun}}: Gary Coleman and his "Cole-men", dwarfs dressed like Vault Boy from {{VideoGame/Fallout}} live in the ''coal'' mines.
* RandomEventsPlot: The game's plot can be described as 'Postal dude does errands, and then crazy shit happens.'
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In ''Paradise Lost'', after being defeated, [[spoiler:the giant Bitch gives one of these to the Dude as part of a VillainousBreakdown. The Dude shows that he's [[ShutUpHannibal unwilling to listen]] by throwing [[ChekhovsGun his spare I.E.D]] into her mouth]].
* {{Retcon}}:
** Gary Coleman was stated to have been killed at the mall going by [=NPC=] dialog afterwards. he's alive in the hospital in ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
** The nuke in ''Apocalypse Weekend'' was planted in the game publisher's office. ''Paradise Lost'' says the center of the blast was at the site the Dude's trailer used to be at.
* RevolversAreJustBetter: The revolver introduced in ''Paradise Lost'' is a unique weapon in that it allow you to lock onto enemies' heads and blow them off in a OneHitKill [[BoomHeadShot headshot]]. To be able to lock on, you need to fill up the special revolver bar by killing enemies with the revolver normally.
* SaveScumming: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] with a side of [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth wall demolition]] if you use the quicksave key frequently.
* SchmuckBait: [[UrineTrouble Urine-soaked]] [[IAteWhat doughnuts]] on the ground. Both for [=NPCs=] and you. For the former, they'll vomit one out of their mouths in disgust [[WhatAnIdiot after thinking it was a treat]]; [[DonutMessWithACop bonus points if it is a cop who eats it]]. For the latter, [[HyperactiveMetabolism you just regain only one hit point]] while being equally nauseous. This also applies to other food items - in particular, most pizza you'll find in ''Paradise Lost'' will be unpalatable because they're all found in toilets.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere:
** Lampshaded by a sign located opposite the clinic that literally says "Screw this town, we're outta here!"
** One of the Dude's possible options in response to Apocalypse 3.0 hitting at the end of ''Paradise Lost'' is, quite simply, getting his ass out of the city "before somebody shoots it off". He even literally writes "'''GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!'''" on the notepad.
* SealedEvilInACan: In ''Paradise Lost'', Champ has turned into a fearsome HellHound after radiation-induced mutation, and the town sealed him into some sort of hellish inferno called the "Hell Hole". It's ultimately your job to unseal and cure him.
* SecondaryFire: Many weapons have it, though not all. In Enhanced Mode, almost everything gets one.
* ShopliftAndDie: One of the first tasks is to get milk from the store. If you take it and leave without paying, the owner will come after you with a gun. Of course, this being ''Postal'', you can just shoot him. And of course, that's assuming you didn't [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential already shoot him before even getting the milk]]. The game strongly implies that this is the preferred outcome: the objective is counted as complete as soon as you grab the milk, and looking at it in the inventory yields the message "Go up and pay for it... or not." Plus, attempting to do so places you in a ridiculously long queue filled with people custom-designed to irritate the player with their words and behaviour. [[AcceptableTargets That, and the shop owner is clearly a terrorist.]]
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter:
** The standard shotgun isn't actually flat-out better in terms of raw damage output versus the M16 "Machine Gun" or [=MP5=] Submachine Gun, but it can [[YourHeadAsplode pop heads at point-blank range,]] making it one of the few ways to deal with [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Mad Cow Tourettes Zombies]] without the sledgehammer.
** The SawedOffShotgun, on the other hand, has enough damage output per shot that it's actually viable at medium range even with the greater spread when you only need one or two pellets to kill the typical mook, and at short range, it's one of the few weapons that can outright reduce even armored enemies like soldiers and Survivalists to LudicrousGibs in an instant. Combine those qualities with plentiful ammo, and it's not just ''better'', but a flat-out GameBreaker. The other two shotguns have their own good points as well, the Lever-Action Shotgun trading off some fire rate for better spread than the base shotgun and the hidden Beta Shotgun being basically a flat upgrade, requiring reloading every six shells in return for greater power than the normal one (not at the ludicrous levels of the sawed-off, but still really good).
* ShoutOut:
** In the UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} version of ''Postal 2'', you can find the grave of a "Badge Collector". [[note]]This is based on Steam's then-new community gimmick of using trading cards (dropped from playing games or buying the cards themselves) to craft badges to display on your profile. ''Postal 2'', of course, [[HypocriticalHumor is one of the games to features cards and badges]].[[/note]]
** The new achievements, added to the game with the 2013 Update, contain several, including the reference to Steam Greenlight[[note]]The Greenlight trailer featured the Dude who was going around town asking for petitions for the game to be Greenlit. The achievement is gained by killing someone who refuses to sign the petition[[/note]].
** A female NPC will shout [[Film/DogDayAfternoon "Attica! Attica!"]] if she witnesses a [[PoliceBrutality police officer attacking citizens]].
** One of the Dude's possible comments when getting high off of catnip is "whoa, [[Music/IronButterfly in-a-gadda-da-vida]], baby!"
** One of the bosses of ''Paradise Lost'', Two-Ears, is a reference to ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'', complete with his "level" next to his health bar and an intro screen. Likewise, the robotic wheeled Vend-A-Cure robots are Claptrap expires with a urinal built in.
** A house in ''Paradise Lost'' has a room displaying the boxes of various games the dev team worked on - not just various ''Postal'' series boxes, but the more family-friendly games they worked on in the past for franchises such as ''Spy VS Spy'', ''Daffy Duck'' and Wishbone. It's not a complete collection, though, as some of their older console titles are missing, [[CanonDiscontinuity as is]] ''Postal III''.
** When drinking "Habib's Power Station" soda to go GunsAkimbo, the Dude might announce it with "[[VideoGame/KillingFloor yeah, one in each hand!"]].
** There's a hidden room in the Creature Control Center and Pets complex housing [[spoiler:velociraptors in cages.]] Go in and kill them, and the Dude will comment "[[Film/JurassicPark clever girl]]". You can also find a secret weapon, a SPAS-12 (heavily featured in the film in question) for doing it.
** ''Paradise Lost'' in general is essentially what would happen if the original game were painted to resemble ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''. In particular are the Cole Men you work for on Thursday, who dress themselves in blue-and-yellow suits that resemble the vault suits from ''Fallout'', and the "Serial Killer on Steroids" rating you can get at the end of the game is now "Serial Killer on Buffout", referencing one of the fictional drugs the player can take in ''Fallout''.
** The part in the original game on Wednesday where the Dude gets kidnapped by rednecks and dressed up in a gimp suit is similar to a scene from ''Film/PulpFiction'', complete with the rednecks asking each other what day it is before the Dude wakes up and gives them more than what they bargained for.
** When the Vend-A-Cure XJ-2s go berserk, one of the scientists tries shutting them down [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 by quoting]] KlaatuBaradaNikto at them. Doubling as a shout-out to ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness'' as well, he's forgotten the last part and utters "klaatu barada something" instead.
** The overdue book that The Dude has to return to the library on The Bitch's behalf is titled "Catch Her in the Rye". If you say the title quickly, it'd actually sound like [[Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye "Catcher in the Rye"]].
** Some [=NPCs=] will mockingly call you a "[[Music/NineInchNails big man]] [[Music/TheDownwardSpiral with a gun]]" if you pull out a gun in front of them.
** Postal Dude will sometimes call himself "[[Music/TheDoors the lizard king]]" when he smokes catnip.
** As part of the BlackComedy, upon killing an NPC, Postal Dude will occasionally say "Today is the first day of the end of your life.", a modified version of the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives." The phrase is frequently attributed to Charles Dederich Sr. who founded the infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon Synanon]] addiction recovery group that turned into a violent cult. (Portuguese singer Sergio Godinho was the one who inspired Charles to use the same phrase for his group.) As it turns out, Postal Dude has an uncle who is running a Waco-style cult at a rural compound.
* ShutUpHannibal: At the end of ''Paradise Lost'' the Dude stops [[spoiler:the Bitch mid-[[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech lecture]] by throwing his spare I.E.D into her mouth and blowing her to pieces]].
* SinisterScythe: Added in ''Apocalypse Weekend''. The Dude can use it to [[CleanCut sever enemies clean in two,]] whether swung up close or thrown from afar.
* SkewedPriorities:
** Some of the women's reactions to the Dude pissing on them.
-->"You did not just ruin my shirt!"\\
"You ruined my make-up!"
** The cops will refuse to arrest the Dude as long as his pants are unzipped, and will always focus on repeatedly telling him to zip them up instead of on, say, the fact that the Dude was just shooting everything up with a rocket launcher a few seconds before.
* SlapOnTheWristNuke: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Apocalypse Weekend'', you blow up Paradise with a nuke. You then come back to the city during the ''Paradise Lost'' DLC. You'd think nuking the place would leave it leveled to the ground, but instead, aside from the dirty-looking textures and some occasional broken window or wall, almost all of the buildings still stand with nary a scratch.]]
* SplitPersonality: [[spoiler:The Dude from ''Postal III'' becomes this in ''Paradise Lost'', becoming [[LiteralSplitPersonality a separate entity]] on Friday. Although certain dialogue implies that he's been around since ''Postal 1''.]]
* StrawmanPolitical: The protesters, who are often hypocrites and are not above killing people and setting buildings ablaze to make their point... even if their point is ''against'' violence. Especially blatant when the first group you meet, Parents for Decency, wants to '''kill violent video gamers.''' They inevitably end up wanting to kill The Postal Dude, who mostly just ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: There's a ''[[Film/{{Psycho}} Bates Hotel]]'' in the base game that claims to have private rooms and [[AsbestosFreeCereal relaxing]] ''[[AsbestosFreeCereal murder-free]]'' [[AsbestosFreeCereal showers]]. [[note]]Amusingly enough, [[BlatantLies the building doesn't even HAVE showers in it.]][[/note]]
* TakeThat:
** ''Postal 2'' features some stabs at Senator Joe Lieberman, who said some rather bad things about ''Postal 1'', amongst other violent video games such as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''.
** The easiest difficulty in the game is called "Liebermode", and removes guns from the game entirely.
** The ''Apocalypse Weekend'' expansion has the destruction of Bullfish Interactive, a parody take on Whiptail Interactive. A case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, as RWS terminated their contract with Whiptail after the latter was found out to have committed multiple breaches of contract. %%invoked
** In the December 2013 patch for the Steam version, you can get an achievement by finding and pissing on a copy of ''Postal III''. Another achievement is named "It's OK, we got Greenlit anyway" (for getting someone to refuse to sign your petition and then killing them), referencing the hate the game received for supposedly "stealing" other games' chances of getting released through Steam Greenlight due to its infamy basically guaranteeing it would be greenlit.
** ''Paradise Lost'' introduces PU Games, which touts things like day one patches, {{preorder|Bonus}}-exclusive [[DownloadableContent DLC]], and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs preorder-exclusive day one patch DLC]] as a symbol of pride. An obvious stab at [[Creator/ElectronicArts EA]] and their infamous business practices. The Dude is sent to trash their office to put them out of business by order of [[CreatorCameo Vince Desi]]. However, due to the parody posters for ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' and ''VideoGame/SpacebaseDF9'' found in the building, it's also taking the piss towards Creator/DoubleFine and Creator/TimSchafer over the [[YMMV/DoubleFine now infamous]] schedule slippage of ''VideoGame/BrokenAge'' and the outright abandonment of the aforementioned ''Spacebase DF-9''. You even get to kill the "nameless" PU Games CEO, who is modeled to resemble Tim Schafer. Surprisingly, the lead developer of ''Paradise Lost'' has denied that the CEO was modeled after Tim Schafer, despite looking exactly like him.
** The ''[[https://40.media.tumblr.com/52467dc04744d7ebae780ee9e4bb3219/tumblr_nn0ykpYDhO1s8xtg8o1_1280.jpg Equality Simulator]]'' is a jab at the [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad social justice warrior]].
** ''Paradise Lost'' for the most part treats ''Postal III'' this way, officially [[CanonDiscontinuity ignoring the events of the game]] and depicting the game as a whole as just a [[AllJustADream bad dream]] the Dude had during an eleven-year coma immediately after ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
** For April Fools Day ''Postal 2'' has "DLC" which are jabs one after another, such as making you pay for useless armor for Champ as a jab to the infamous "horse armor" in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'', RWS boxes as a jab at ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''[='=]s own Mann Co. Crates (and loot boxes in general), [[SelfDeprecation one to themselves]] with their Super Fun Pigeon Hunter "cut" mission from ''Apocalypse Weekend'' (asking for the price of a full game to cover the costs of the five bucks they needed to scrape the mission together), and one [[TakeThatAudience to the player]], whose every attempt at "buying" any of these has the Postal Dude mocking them for being so stupid with their money.
** In ''Paradise Lost'', there's a poster outside the arcade for a game called ''Xtreme Loathing'' that displays a long-haired man in a trench coat with a knife, and the tagline reads, "Humanity will feel his edge". This is a pretty clear jab at the series' SpiritualLicensee, ''VideoGame/{{Hatred}}''. Ironically, RWS would later do a collaboration with Destructive Creations. Possibly doubles as SelfDeprecation.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: The game initially had ''13'' difficulty settings, with the thirteenth setting (the hardest) aptly named "They Hate Me." On this mode, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou everybody is armed to the teeth and out for your head]], making it next to, if outright, impossible to do a PacifistRun.
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks:
** Can be done with the SecondaryFire of ''Apocalypse Weekend'''s melee weapons, though in the case of the machete, it [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang will return to you after a while]]. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] if an armed character sees it coming and blocks the thrown weapon with his/her own weapon.
** Also subvert-able in that throwing a sledgehammer at a cow from behind can actually cause the thing to get ''[[AssShove stuck up its anus]]''. Dogs can also catch thrown melee weapons in their mouths as well.
** Subverted yet again if an enemy with enough health manages to survive [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow being impaled with a thrown katana]], although the katana in question was only included by default with old versions of ''A Week in Paradise'' prior to the current Steam release, for which it must be reinstated with a [=M@D=] Weapons mod pack and played in Custom Game mode.
* ToiletHumor: Along with pissing on everything and everyone in game and making them vomit from being excessively brutal or having a venereal disease, ''Paradise Lost'' has this pleasant scene: After an AnimalWrongsGroup member releases an elephant from its cage in the Mall's Animal Control Center, it "thanks" her by taking a huge dump on her, [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished burying her in a mountain of shit and then attacking the other members of that group when you get back to it from another way.]]
* UndressingTheUnconscious: : If the player is knocked out and kidnapped, the Postal Due wakes up in a brewery dressed in an [[FanDisservice assless Gimp suit]]. [[NoGearLevel After escaping and getting your weapons back]], you then have to go to the laundromat to change back to your regular clothes.
* UnexplainedRecovery: Gary Coleman and [[spoiler:Mad Cow Mike J]] reappear in ''Paradise Lost'', completely healthy. During the course of ''Paradise Lost'', [[spoiler:Gary Coleman gets sent into the bottomless pit in his midget mine, Zack Ward gets killed so you can loot his vault to pay for Mike J's wedding, and Vince Desi gets turned into a Mad Cow Tourettes Zombie. All three get better for their respective bonus boss fights, should you meet with the faction leaders on Friday instead of just leaving town.]]
* UrineTrouble:
** [[JokeWeapon Piss is your default weapon]]. While it doesn't do any damage, there's no ammo limit for it, and you can {{Squick}} out people by urinating on them until they vomit. Even better, if you get in trouble with the law, you can toss doughnuts at them to temporarily halt their progress of arresting/killing you and then pissing on the food while they pick it up. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Watch gleefully as the cop takes the now contaminated doughnut and eats it, only for him/her to regurgitate it out of his/her mouth and feel disgusted]].
** The Dude even has [[LampshadeHanging certain comments]] if you piss on something, especially on a corpse.
** You can eat doughnuts after you've pissed on them. Normally, eating doughnuts has the Dude comment on their taste and [[HyperactiveMetabolism regain 3 hit points]], but eating these causes him to sputter in disgust and only regain one hit point.
** Taken UpToEleven with Enhanced mode for beating the game; in the original versions, among its other changes was that piss was replaced with a regenerating supply of ''napalm'', which went well with you being fireproof. The Steam version updated this further, where you can now cycle between normal piss, blood, gonorrhea, ''vomit'', and ''gasoline'' alongside the old napalm. Blood doesn't do anything special but it is worth a quick chuckle. So you can piss vomit into somebody's mouth, watch them puke, piss naplam to light them on fire, piss gas around to light more people on fire, and then piss blood on them to put them out.
* UnorthodoxReload: In the ''Steam Version'' there's the Beta Shotgun, one of the small handful of guns with an actual reloading animation. The Dude does this by grabbing a handful of shells and tossing it at the gun, all but one flying off.
* TheVoice: The Dude's Wife (AKA: "The Bitch") is heard at the start and end of each of the five days, but she's never actually seen. [[spoiler:...that is, until ''Paradise Lost'', where she serves as a boss on Wednesday, coming at the Dude with a [[KatanasAreJustBetter large katana]]. Then serving as the (technically) FinalBoss]].
* VoiceOfTheLegion: Most demonic enemies will have this, notably [[spoiler:Mad Cow Mike J and the giant Bitch in ''Paradise Lost'']].
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Averted when trying for the PacifistRun: You must kill '''nothing'''. Not cats, not dogs, not cows, not elephants, not robots, not even zombies. This means you can't do a pacifist run in ''Apocalypse Weekend'', as you ''are'' required to kill a certain number of zombies, cows and elephants at certain points.
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: The Postal Dude's name really ''is'' [[HisNameReallyIsBarkeep "The Postal Dude"]]. Pay a parking ticket in the second game and the cop says, "And let that be a lesson to you, Mr. The Dude", and when he goes to collect a package later on he tells the clerk "last name's 'Dude'." His dad's gravestone is also labeled "T. Dude Sr."
* WideOpenSandbox: At the start of the day, you're given three or four errands and then left to your own devices. You can even choose to do some errands in different ways - for example, the bank robbery mentioned at the very top of the page? You can sneak into the vault and steal the money yourself while the intended robbers and police are fighting each other, and then [[spoiler:sneak out through a secret passage behind a bookshelf]]. More areas unlock as the week progresses, and you can usually explore between them at will, though doing so on the final day becomes dangerous [[spoiler:what with hellfire raining from the sky, and all]].
* YouGotMurder: The package intended for you later in the main game is a letter bomb. You can later find the exact same packages among the Taliban, most notably in ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
* YourHeadAsplode: A shotgun blast or sledgehammer whack to the face usually does this. Required to kill the zombies in ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
* ZergRush: The gunfights generally boil down to this, due to enemies not being particularly smart. Taken to its logical extreme in ''Paradise Lost'' where barging into Yeeland's office will result in having to fight over ''several dozens'' of guards simultaneously in a tiny confined space.

[[folder:Postal III]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/postal_iii_cover_1.jpg]]

* ActionGirl: Guest star Playboy Playmate Jennifer Walcott acts like one, as do the Postal Babes.
* AllJustADream: The whole game was retroactively rendered as such; see CanonDiscontinuity below.
* AmazonBrigade: Of sorts. Jennifer Walcott heads a team of security guards made up completely of Postal Babes.
* AnachronismStew: A very minor case. The game takes place at least some time after the Bush administration, but the Dude has a cellphone from the '80s.
* AffectionateParody: Believe it or not. The game's cutscenes have a grindhouse flare.
* BatterUp: A nail-bat, even. SecondaryFire tosses the bat at an enemy, [[BloodyHilarious where it sticks fast.]]
* BeeAfraid: Swarms of African Killer Bees roam some areas, most notably the Ecotoligists' compound. They slowly eat away at the health of anyone they chase after. The Postal Dude can acquire [[ImprobableWeaponUser bee hives to throw at enemies,]] thus unleashing the bees on them.
* BlandNameProduct: Various stores and restaurants, and the "Thegways."
* CanonDiscontinuity: The ''Paradise Lost'' expansion for ''Postal 2'' retroactively turned the entire game into a nightmare the Dude had during his radiation-induced coma after ''Apocalypse Weekend''.
* ChargedAttack: How the [[StuffBlowingUp rocket launcher]] works. The longer you hold down the left mouse button, the further the rocket will go before detonating. [[TooDumbToLive Try not to just tap the button.]] The SecondaryFire is a HomingProjectile instead.
* CustomUniform: Ever so slightly. If the Dude goes clean and signs up to join the police, wearing different outfits like a cop uniform, a secret service suit and SWAT armor, he keeps his happy face and Christian cross buttons, as well as his FingerlessGloves and tan boots. He keeps these for his janitor and prisoner outfits on the Bad Path, even on ''the Krotchy outfit.''
* DifficultButAwesome: This installment's [[ObviousBeta rather loose physics]] has made using [[MacheteMayhem the Machete's]] [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang alt-fire throw]] much more difficult, though it still kills enemies pretty damn quickly.
* EmergencyWeapon: The kick returns. There aren't any doors you need to kick open (as any you need to go through open automatically just by getting close to them), but it'll knock over most human foes, setting them up for any number of nasty finishing attacks.
** It's also possible to pick up severed limbs/heads to throw to stun enemies.
* FanDisservice: The Dude's first job in the game is working as a cleaner in a sex shop run by Mayor Raul Chomo (played by Ron Jeremy), 'nuff said.
** Said Mayor also has a Malaysian slave boy... which ends up being a 40-year-old slave ''man''. In a gimp suit and gas mask. That's assless. And has nipple tassels. And a Gary Coleman mask on the back of his head.
** Reaching Daveland on either route has [[spoiler:Chomo's Presidential Campaign tape replaced with a sex tape featuring the Mayor. And Uncle Dave. And the Malaysian slave "boy". And a ''rhino''. Thankfully, it's only described, but what little is seen of the "video" shows someone's naked ass and a man-tit.]]
* FanRemake: There's two: ''Postal III Unreal'', being developed in Unreal 2 using the ''Postal 2'' Workshop Tools, and ''Catharsis Reborn'', being developed in the Source engine.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The Dude's initial goal upon arriving in Catharsis is to get more gasoline for his car so he can keep going. Because of the recession, gas prices have skyrocketed, so he has to take up odd jobs to come up with the cash. The fact that you can pick up dozens of full gas canisters throughout the game and all you can do with them is to help burn stuff goes uncommented, and he never seems to put two and two together.
* GuideDangIt: You can only regain Karma on the evil path.
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: One of the levels in the good path has the Postal Dude join Catharsis' SWAT team, taking over the spot by a team member who was killed by the AIDS-infected monkeys that showed up in a prior level, but unlike the rest of the team he doesn't get a helmet. Notably, he actually asks about getting one, but then is shown by the lieutenant that [[{{Squick}} they haven't bothered to clean it up since its last owner's demise]] - the Dude then quickly decides that he'll be fine without it.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: A shop vacuum, rabid cats, killer bees, and the goddamn ''badgersaw'', just to name a few.
* InkSuitActor: Jen Wolcott, Ron Jeremy, Randy Jones and other celebrities appearing as themselves.
* JokeWeapon: [[UrineTrouble Piss again.]]
* KarmaMeter: The game has one, with a "Good" side and a "Bad" side. The "Good" side has the Dude joining the Catharsis Police Force. The "Bad" side has the Dude staying the immoral asshole he has always been and working along side his Uncle Dave and Mayor Chomo. Good karma is maintained by carefully observing your objectives, using non-lethal force when necessary, and not rampaging against innocent bystanders. Bad karma is gained by ignoring your secondary objectives and massacring the residents of Catharsis. In a weird twist, Good karma can only be lost unless you're on an evil mission, which means you have to screw up enough to get kicked off the police force to work your way back into their goodbooks rather than while you're still an officer of the Law.
* KillItWithFire: The gas can returns, though the napalm launcher is regrettably absent. You can use the pepper spray as an AerosolFlamethrower, though. And there's always {{Molotov Cocktail}}s.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Anybody who has played ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' back then knows how long the Source engine takes to load. Get used to looking at Uwe Boll [[FlippingTheBird flipping you off.]]
* MultipleEndings:
** Good Ending: [[spoiler:After Mayor Chomo's botched campaign speech and him, Uncle Dave, and Osama run away, the Dude is sent after them. While cornered, Dave decides to arm a plutonium bomb so that the Hockey Moms, Postal Babes, Gay Cowboys, and the Dude are killed along with them. Turns out that the Afghani "plutonium" is nothing but a jar of piss. After the Dude kills Chomo, Dave, and Osama, [[WeirdnessMagnet things take a turn for the weird-worst]]. The Apocalypse happens ''again''. With the fucking ''Venezuelan army'' lead by Hugo Chavez showing up. After fighting his way through the war-torn streets of Catharsis to reach his trailer, the Dude confronts Chavez and kills him. The aftermath results in a wave of "Dude-mania", with the Dude becoming a national hero, finishing with him taking the 2012 Presidential campaign by storm and replacing UsefulNotes/BarackObama, with Jennifer Walcott as his personal bodyguard. While discussing Oval Office redecoration ideas with Jen, the Dude finds the [[BigRedButton infamous fictional representation of the nuclear football]] thanks to Champ. It ends with a close-up of the Dude wearing a devilish grin on his face and saying "I will regret nothing". Cue the credits.]]
** Bad Ending: [[spoiler:Starts off almost the same as the Good Ending, but instead of the Dude going after the Mayor, Uncle Dave, and Osama, he fights his way out of Daveland with Champ and leaves them to the Hockey Moms. Dave decides to drink the "plutonium" rather than have the Hockey Moms kill him, but finds out that the jar was full of piss. The Hockey Moms end up tearing the trio apart akin to a zombie horde. After a fake-out "The End", the Dude continues his tale, showing that him, Champ, and the Motorhead monkey were captured by the US army and sub-sequentially given the electric chair. Another scene change [[TheReveal reveals]] that the person the Dude was telling his tale to was Saint Peter, in hopes of bullshitting his way into Heaven. After Peter trounces the Dude's story, he says that he has no choice but to send the Dude to his eternal damnation. As the Dude and Champ are dropped into Hell, the Dude yells out "I regret nothing!" and the credits roll.]]
** Neutral/Pacifist Ending: [[spoiler:Same as the Good Ending, except for the final outcome. The Postal Dude ends up on Limp Dickerson's late night talk show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous", sharing his story of having escaped the Venezuelan Army in Catharsis without killing anyone. He announces that his best-selling book: "The Fall of Paradise: If I Did It" (a jab at O.J. Simpson's book) is coming out on softcover. He has since married Jennifer Walcott after finding her trying to hotwire his car, with their wedding ceremony taking place in Machu Picchu. The couple then take this moment to advertise the Peruvian Big Mac and Peruvian NAZCAR (NASCAR + Nazca Lines). The host then congratulates them on their highly publicized lottery jackpot win of $500,000,000, with the Dude also mentioning that they've moved into their dream house, ending with the obligatory quip: "I guess you could say, I regret nothing." Champ then proceeds to gnaw the host's nads, the signal fades and the credits roll.]]
* MoreDakka: This installment features an M249 machine gun. Spraying it for long enough can reduce most enemies to LudicrousGibs, but will cause it to [[ATeamFiring rattle around in The Dude's arms, drastically decreasing accuracy.]]
* MundaneMadeAwesome: Chainsaw Badger!
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: For the most part, celebrities appear as themselves (Jennifer Wolcott, Randy Jones, etc.) or as in-name parodies of such (Uwe Boll, [[spoiler:Al Gore, Hugo Chavez]]) but there is one major exception - the unnamed leader of the Hockey Moms [[TakeThat looks a whole hell of a lot like Sarah Palin.]]
* ObviousBeta: The game has some glaring glitches. Certain Steam achievements are bugged and don't unlock, the AI for certain [=NPCs=] (particularly for those you have to {{escort|Mission}}) are still primitive or broken, and certain computer builds make the game crash constantly. It was chiefly for this reason that RWS [[CreatorBacklash all but disowned the game]].
* Padding: The counts for several objectives such as collecting cats at the start of the game were bumped up before release, other things such as the fact you have to tase over 10 people (Without killing any in-between) to increase your Karma meter, which takes a long while if you aren't using the Pre-order exclusive Fart gun.
* [[PressXToNotDie Press X To Get A Rabid Cat Off You]]
* RegeneratingHealth: Gone are the [[HealThyself health pickups]] of earlier installments, though some of the Postal Dude's lines would seem to imply that health packs were DummiedOut at some point.
* SecondaryFire: A lot of weapons in this game have it. The [[MacheteMayhem machete]] returns from ''Apocalypse Weekend'' with it's [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang throw-and-return]] alt fire. The Pepper Spray's alt-fire turns it into an AerosolFlamethrower, while that of the Catnip Spray causes [[FantasticDrug the Dude to inhale it]] and go into psychedelic BulletTime.
* ShoutOut: Many in the [[CosmeticAward achievements,]] including ones to Film/TheMatrix, ComicBook/JudgeDredd, Film/RepoMan, and various action movie actors.
* StrawFeminism: According to the "Hockey Mom Leader" anything even remotely pornographic is in fact a worldwide conspiracy to objectify all women.
* StuffBlowingUp: You've got grenades and a rocket launcher. Have fun.
* TakeCover: Added along with a general third-person perspective shift.
* TakeThat: This game features jabs at, among other things, Uwe Boll, Jack Thompson, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Al Gore, Osama Bin Laden, [[TakeThatAudience the audience]] and [[TakeThatMe the developers themselves.]] Of note is [[CosmeticAward the achievement]] "Jack Thompson Was Right" [[CrossesTheLineTwice for killing 1000]] InnocentBystanders.
* TemptingFate: The setting of this installment is a town called "Catharsis".
** Sure Mr. UN Officer, [[TooDumbToLive put the ''Postal Dude'' in charge]] of a BigRedButton and [[IdiotBall ask him not to push it, or let anyone else push it.]] [[SarcasmMode That's a good idea.]]
* TrashcanBonfire: Can be found in various places.
* UnreliableNarrator: If you get the bad ending, it reveals that [[spoiler:the entire game was just a fake story that the Dude made up just to get into Heaven. Unfortunately, St. Peter saw through his lies and sent him to Hell as punishment.]]
* WideOpenSandbox: Seems to be returning to this after ''Apocalypse Weekend'', with more of a focus on making mass-murder [[PacifistRun optional]].
** A sandbox Free Roam mode was patched in post-release. In their words, "Explore Catharsis. [[VideogameCrueltyPotential Kill things.]]"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Postal 4: No Regerts]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/610577_postal_4_no_regerts_windows_front_cover_47.jpg]]

* AsHimself: Civvie's voice lines as the drug dealer are all provided by him. Carter Cruise also provides her voice and likeness for her appearance.
* BalefulPolymorph: As part of Tuesday's errands, the Dude hallucinates himself turning into a cat after inhaling a few too many drugs during a delivery.
* BottomlessMagazines: Fully averted, as weapons now require reloading.
* CallBack:
** The final line in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSBEsnyClc first Early Access trailer]] is the Dude commenting "this looks worse than boxed-up syphilis" - calling back to the original CGW review for ''Postal 2'', which gave the game [[BrokeTheRatingScale zero out of five stars]].
** The reloading animation for the shotgun shown in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZqOxr-wl6U the second trailer]] calls back to the one for the Beta Shotgun from ''Postal 2''[='=]s 2013-onward patches, where the Dude grabs several shells and tries to mash them all into the gun at once.
* TheCameo: WebVideo/Civvie11 appears twice in the game; once as Doug, one of the radio callers, and again as Edensin's local drug dealer.
* CuttingOffTheBranches: ''No Regerts'' followes the Escape ending of ''Paradise Lost'', with the Postal Dude booking it out of Paradise, Champ in tow.
* DistaffCounterpart: Krotchy ''finally'' gets one in the form of Kunny.
* EmergencyWeapon: Like in ''III'', you can pick up body parts cut off of NPCs and use them as makeshift weapons.
* Expy: Like in the previous games, there's plenty to go around:
** P. Tinklage is a very thinly-veiled expy of Peter Dinklage, in particular his role as [[Series/GameOfThrones Tyrion Lannister]].
** The sleazy motel owner is clearly based on the [[VideoGame/HalfLife G-Man]], down to having the same speech pattern.
** El Plago is a parody of Bane, in particular Tom Hardy's version of the character from [[Film/TheDarkKnightRises]].
* InMemoriam: There's a number of graves in the cemetery in the Western town paying tribute to a number of deceased RWS alumni, including Gary Coleman, Verne Troyer, Bill Kunkel, and Champ.
* NonindicativeName: The Pigeon Mine is more of a grenade than a mine since it breaks open once thrown and there's no alt-fire to place it down like the normal grenade.
* OneBulletClips: Played in the traditional ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty''-styled manner. Your total ammo for a weapon is all in one pool that is drawn from when you reload, rather than consolidating them into separate magazines; reloads at half a magazine neither make you lose ammo nor let you keep a round in the chamber. However, there are separate animations for reloading from empty and reloading mid-mag.
* SpiritualSuccessor: The Fournicator, a ''quad-barreled'' shotgun, is this to the old sawed-off shotgun from ''Postal 2'', being just as destructive.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Movie]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/poster_780_03.jpg]]

* AuthorAvatar[=/=]BreakingTheFourthWall: Vince Desi himself - director of Running With Scissors - eventually reveals himself to fight Uwe Boll for the latter making the very movie you're watching.
-->'''Vince Desi:''' Boll, I'm Vince Desi. what the fuck did you do to my game ''Postal''?
* BadCopIncompetentCop:
** Officer Greg is a complete asshole of a cop who in every scene he is in is one of the meanest characters you will see in the whole film. Some of his actions include murdering an innocent old woman, picking on and abusing a mentally handicapped man in a wheelchair for cheap money, having sex with The Postal Dude's wife behind his back, and all around just being a complete douche.
** His partner John is simply depicted as an [[FunnyForeigner incompetent foreigner]] who watches and lets Greg do his terrible actions without question. Luckily, [[KarmicDeath they get their just deserts]] when [[spoiler:they get trapped in The Postal Dude's trailer because his wife is too fat to fit through the doorway just as the bomb destroys the block.]]
* BigBadEnsemble: Mohammed and [[spoiler:Richard]], both of whom have separate motives for wanting the Bird Flu and only work together during the {{Enemy Mine}} situation below.
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:How Richard is ultimately killed]].
* DeepSouth: Paradise in the film has many elements of this, even more so than the games.
* DirectionlessDriver: Played for laughs with the prophet Mohammed as the Directionless Driver and Osama bin Laden as the exasperated passenger.
* DragonInChief: Mohammed is technically the 2nd in command to Osama Bin Laden, the real leader of Al-Qaeda. However, Bin Laden has grown apathetic about terrorism and is more focused on just doing whatever he wants, leaving Mohammed as the one who's technically in charge. He's also the one who came up with the plan to get ahold of the Bird Flu
* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: {{Averted}}. Even within the satirical, over-the-top context of the movie, the treatment the Dude's wife gives her husband is still presented as bad.
* EnemyMine: Al-Qaeda team up with [[spoiler:Dave's remaining followers, who've been tricked by Richard into believing that Postal Dude killed Dave when it was actually Richard himself]], in order to try and kill Postal Dude and take the Krotchey Dolls during the climax.
* GoOutWithASmile: After [[Creator/JKSimmons Candidate Welles]] gets bombed by a suicide bomber, his charred body flies against the window of the store he was in front of with a big teethy grin on its face.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Mohammed attempts to get Abdul, the mentally challenged terrorist, to partake in a suicide bombing. Abdul later attempts to do this on some IRS Agents sent to arrest Dave. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for the former, Abdul accidentally left his explosive belt inside the car the group has been using for transport, and presses the button just as Mohammed gets inside the vehicle to try chasing the Postal Dude, resulting in Mohammed meeting a firey end]].
* HypocriticalHumor: Uwe Boll after getting shot groans his last words, "I hate video games." Except he's the one directing this movie which was based on a video game, and he directed 6 other movies based on video games. Also doubles as SelfDeprecation.
* IncomprehensibleEntranceExam: The interview process for one IncompetenceInc involves ever more surreal and nonsensical questions, asked by a hostile stenographer who doesn't even bother to wait for answers, until the Postal Dude snaps entirely. His outburst gets him to the top of the list.
->'''Interviewer:''' Last question. What is the difference between a duck?\\
'''Postal Dude:''' ...and? [''Beat''] What the hell is wrong with you people?! A duck?! I came here for a job!
* InfantImmortality:
** Averted. During the raid on the Nazi theme park, a huge gun fight breaks out resulting in the deaths of a lot of children. We even get an aerial shot of the mass of dead child bodies as a news reporter [[RefugeInAudacity pretends to be sad during her live coverage]] of the event.
** Averted [[DudeNotFunny horrifyingly]] in a later scene, where the Postal Dude '''runs over a baby stroller''' with his van. We even hear a [[{{Squick}} lovely]] splat as it happens.
* InNameOnly: For various reasons:
** For starters, the film is simply called ''Postal'', and yet gets most of its inspiration from the second game.
** The film doesn't follow the plot of the second game, merely featuring references and brief allusions to it (Krotchy, the setting of Paradise and [[spoiler:said town getting nuked]], the police suit, the bank robbery, using cats as supressors, etc).
** The Postal Dude isn't even depicted the same way as he is in the games. In the games The Dude is a [[DeadpanSnarker somewhat snarky]], [[SmallNameBigEgo egotistical]], twisted individual with a questionable mentality who will gladly hurt people to get what he wants. In the film, he is depicted as essentially a [[ExtremeDoormat doormat]] who has trouble sticking up for himself (he develops a little better later in the film, though, eventually properly going postal near the end).
** Instead of Gary Coleman, the film has Verne Troyer as the celebrity guest instead.
* KillEmAll: [[spoiler: A large majority of the film's cast die throughout the movie, particularly during the shoot out in the film's climax. Then it's revealed that several nukes are heading towards America, and George Bush and Bin Laden are seen getting incinerated by a mushroom cloud. The fates of The Dude, Faith and Champ are left ambiguous as they leave Paradise, but it's not looking good for them]].
* ManChild: The first scene we see of George W. Bush has him playing with Lego bricks in the Oval Office instead of singing treaties. This mindset plays out for the rest of the movie.
* NaziGold: Quoth the Bollmeister himself: "Someone has to do [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSYLLable SOME-thing]] with the money!"
* OmnicidalManiac: Mohammed and [[spoiler: Richard]] both want to use the Bird Flu to kill countless people. The former just wants to wipe out America, while the latter wants to wipe out the entire planet [[spoiler: due to getting too invested in Dave's fake religion]].
* PlotArmor: Exaggerated and Lampshaded.
* PoliceAreUseless: Officer Greg and John, who even prefer letting the other civilians do the work of hunting down Postal Dude for them. See BadCopIncompetentCop.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Postal Dude's CharacterDevelopment involves him going from an ExtremeDoormat law-abiding citizen to the amoral, ChaoticNeutral {{Sociopath}} he's known to be.
* RefugeInAudacity: Like the games, the movie is built on this trope, as can be expected from the opening scene. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY "Bahamaaaaaas!"]]
** Additionally, the film contains audacious scenes, such as a suicide bomber giving somebody a hug before he explodes causing a [[LudicrousGibs shower of blood]], and [[HideYourChildren even children being gunned down]].
** If the above isn't audacious enough, then [[ThoseWackyNazis a Concentration Camp Playground]], Dr. Mengle's first aid station, and swastika arm bands might be more jarring.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The two pilots in the plane at the beggining of the film when they learn that [[spoiler:they'll only have 20 virgins when they go to heaven]] attempt to change course and go to the Bahamas. The passengers don't agree.
* SelfDeprecation: Uwe Boll plays himself as a pedophiliac proprietor of a German-themed Amusement Park, with said park having plenty of Nazi imagery, and him admitting to funding his films with Nazi gold. On top of that, he gets attacked by Vince Desi (the creator of the actual game), and gets shot in the crotch during a terrorist attack. And his dying words are, "I hate video games." Probably explains why almost all his video game movies are considered terrible...
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: The final fates of the Dude, Faith and Champ, driving away from Paradise before it gets destroyed.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: Lots of children die senselessly in the terrorist attack.
[[/folder]]

''Postal III'', which is built on the [[Creator/ValveSoftware Source engine]], was co-developed by Running With Scissors, [=TrashMasters=] Studios, and Russian developer/publisher Akella. It was announced in 2006, and was released worldwide via digital distribution on the UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} store Christmas week on December 20, 2011, although ''three retail versions'' were released in Russia a month before on November 23, 2011. It was supposed to be released on PC, Mac OS X, and Linux, with UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} and UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 ports announced for 2012; however, only the PC version was released. The game was released unrated due to Akella not wanting to pay for an ESRB rating, meaning that the game was (at one point) only available in non-Russian territories through the Running With Scissors website; it is now only available on the Steam store, although still unrated. Due to a combination of lackluster sales, some serious miscommunication between RWS and Akella, and the [[ObviousBeta sheer number of problems]] with the game, RWS has [[CreatorBacklash dropped the title from their store]] and [[CanonDiscontinuity refers to the title as "Russian Postal", officially declaring it a spin-off game]].

* GirlOnGirlIsHot: In ''Paradise Lost'', you can find barge in on a lesbian couple kissing in Chicken Queen Estates on Wednesday.

* JustTrainWrong: The railroad line running through the town of Paradise is a complete mess. For starters there is no passenger station. A ridiculously small trainyard is at the edge of the town just a few streets from the mall. The switches in the trainyard are positioned in a way that makes ''no [[PrecisionFStrike goddamn]] sense. Various freight cars and cargo are scattered randomly all over the place obstructing the tracks and rendering any operation outright impossible. There are even no signal posts so if by any utterly improbable chance a train happened to stumble into this mess, it would be doomed to derail as the conductor would have no way to tell, whether he can proceed safely or not. The rest of the line leads directly through an intdustrial area, cutting through several buildings and roads, which would spell disaster for the traffic[[note]]not that there is any[[/note]]. The entire thing is topped off with a demolished bridge rendering the line out of order and totally pointless.

On 20 May 2016, RWS released POSTAL Redux, an HD remake of the original Postal, on Steam, and later [[http://runningwithscissors.com/?p=2318 open sourced]] the original version of Postal 1. Four years later, it was ported to the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch on October 16th, making it the first time the ''Postal'' series has appeared on a console.

On October 14th, 2019, RWS made a suprise announcement: ''Postal 4: No [[InheritedIlliteracyTitle Regerts]]'', a brand new game in the same open-world vein as ''Postal 2'', released in Early Access that day. ''Postal 4'' sees the Dude (now voiced by Creator/JonStJohn, AKA VideoGame/DukeNukem) and Champ lose their car, and are forced to make ends meet in the quaint city of Edensin, Arizona. RWS released the game on Steam's Early Access platform to avoid making the same mistakes that befell ''Postal III'' during its development.

Another spin-off known as ''Postal: Brain Damage'' was announced for PC on 5 September 2020 at Realms Deep, and is slated for a late 2021 release for PC and consoles. It's a {{Retreaux}} shooter that harkens back to the violent first person shooters of TheNineties, such as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D''. Watch the announcement trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wu4sdkzGQo here]].

* SawedOffShotgun: The Fournicator, a ''quad-barreled'' shotgun.

** [[spoiler:Redux's Co-Op ending also serves as one, given that it confirms the existence of no less than five Postal Dudes, with the Co-Op Dudes breaking the Campaign/Rampage Dude out of the asylum.]]

* CustomUniform: Ever so slightly. If the dude goes the "good" path and thus has to wear a variety of police uniforms and suits, he keeps his happy face and Christian cross buttons, as well as his FingerlessGloves.
* DifficultButAwesome: This installment's [[ObviousBeta rather loose physics]] has made using [[MacheteMayhem the Machete's]] [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang alt-fire throw]] much more difficult, though it still kills enemies damn quick.

** Said Mayor also has a Malaysian slave boy... which ends up being a 40-year-old slave ''man''. In a gimp suit. That's assless. And has nipple tassels. And a Gary Coleman mask on the back of his head.

Another spin-off known as ''Postal: Brain Damage'' was announced for PC on 5 September 2020 at Realms Deep, and is slated for a late 2021 release. It's a {{Retreaux}} shooter that harkens back to the violent first person shooters of TheNineties, such as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D''. Watch the announcement trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wu4sdkzGQo here]].

[[folder:General]]

[[folder:Postal/Postal Redux]]

* AnachronismStew: A very minor case. The game takes place after Dubya's administration, but the Dude has a cellphone from the '80s.

* CanonDiscontinuity: The ''Paradise Lost'' expansion for Postal 2 reveals that the whole game is nothing but a bad dream the Dude had during an 11-year-long coma caused by the radiation of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Paradise at the end of ''Apocalypse Weekend''.

* FanRemake: Two infact, Postal III Unreal on the Postal 2 engine and a full remake on the same engine called Catharsis Reborn.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The Dude's initial goal upon arriving in Catharsis is to get more gasoline for his car so he can keep going. Because of the recession, gas prices have skyrocketed, so he has to take up odd jobs to come up with the cash. The fact that you can pick up dozens of full gas canisters throughout the game and all you can do with them is to help burn stuff goes uncommented.

* MultipleEndings

** Sure Mr. UN Officer guy, [[TooDumbToLive put the Postal Dude in charge]] of a BigRedButton and [[IdiotBall ask him not to push it, or let anyone else push it.]] [[SarcasmMode That's a good idea.]]

* AsHimself: Civvie's voice lines as the drug dealer are all provided by him.

* OneBulletClips: Played in the traditional ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty''-inspired manner. Your total ammo for a weapon is all in one pool that is drawn from when you reload, rather than consolidating them into separate magazines; reloads at half a magazine neither make you lose ammo nor let you keep a round in the chamber. However, there are separate animations for reloading from empty and reloading mid-mag.

-->'''Vince Desi:''' Boll, I'm Vince Desi, what the fuck did you do to my game ''Postal''?

* IncomprehensibleEntranceExam: The interview process for one IncompetenceInc involves ever more surreal and nonsensical questions, asked by a hostile stenographer who doesn't even bother to wait for answers, until the Postal Guy snaps entirely. His outburst gets him to the top of the list.

'''Postal Guy:''' ...and? [''Beat''] What the hell is wrong with you people?! A duck?! I came here for a job!

** The Postal Dude isn't even depicted the same way as he is in the games. In the games The Dude is a [[DeadpanSnarker somewhat snarky]], [[SmallNameBigEgo egotistical]], twisted individual with a questionable mentality who will gladly hurt people to get what he wants. In the film, he is depicted as essentially a [[ExtremeDoormat doormat]] who has trouble sticking up for himself (he develops a little better later in the film though).

* RefugeInAudacity: The movie is built on this trope, as can be expected from the opening scene. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY "Bahamaaaaaas!"]]

* SelfDeprecation: Uwe Boll plays himself as a pedophiliac proprietor of a German-themed Amusement Park, with said park having plenty of Nazi imagery, and him admitting to funding his films with Nazi gold. On top of that, he gets attacked by Vince Desi (the creator of the actual game), and gets shot in the crotch during a terrorist attack. And his dying words are, "I hate video games." Probably explains why almost all his video game movies are considered terrible ...

* ManChild: The first scene we see of George W. Bush has him playing with Lego brinks in the Oval Office. This mindset plays out for the rest of his film appearance.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The two pilots in the plane at the beggining of the film when they learn that [[spoiler:they'll only have 20 virgins when they go to heaven]] attempt to change course and go to the Bahamas. The passagers don't agree.

On 20 May 2016, RWS released POSTAL Redux, an HD remake of the original Postal, on Steam, and later [[http://runningwithscissors.com/?p=2318 open sourced]] the original version of Postal 1.

** As part of the BlackComedy, upon killing an NPC, Postal Dude will occasionally say "Today is the first day of the end of your life.", a modified vertion of the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives." The phrase is frequently attributed to Charles Dederich Sr. who founded the infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon Synanon]] addiction recovery group that turned into a violent cult. (Portuguese singer Sergio Godinho was the one who inspired Charles to use the same phrase for his group.) As it turns out, Postal Dude has an uncle who is running a Waco-style cult of his at a rural compound.

* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: There's a ''[[Film/{{Psycho}} Bates Motel]]'' in the base game that claims to have private rooms and [[AsbestosFreeCereal relaxing]] ''[[AsbestosFreeCereal murder-free]]'' [[AsbestosFreeCereal showers]]. [[note]]Amusingly enough, [[BlatantLies the building doesn't even HAVE showers in it.]][[/note]]

* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: There's a hotel in the base game that claims to have private rooms and [[AsbestosFreeCereal relaxing]] ''[[AsbestosFreeCereal murder-free]]'' [[AsbestosFreeCereal showers]]. [[note]]Amusingly enough, [[BlatantLies the building doesn't even HAVE showers in it.]][[/note]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Hopefully not!]]]]

** As part of the BlackComedy, upon killing an NPC, Postal Dude will occasionally say "Today is the first day of the end of your life.", a modified vertion of the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives." The phrase is frequently attributed to Charles Dederich Sr. who founded the infamous Synanon addiction recovery group that turned into a violent cult. (Portuguese singer Sergio Godinho was the one who inspired Charles to use the same phrase for his group.) As it turns out, Postal Dude has an uncle who is running a Waco-style cult of his at a rural compound.

** Sometimes, upon killing an NPC, Postal Dude will say "Today is the first day of the end of your life.", a modified vertion of the phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your lives." frequently attribute to Charles Dederich Sr. who founded the infamous Synanon addiction recovery group that turned into a violent cult. (Portuguese singer Sergio Godinho was the one who inspired Charles to use the same phrase for his group.)