History VideoGame / Postal2

** ''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 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 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.

* 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).

* BlessedWithSuck: The gimp suit, which will attract humilitiating remarks and snickers from the populace, will also cover your face from hate group members (expect rednecks who put you in it in the first place) even on "They Hate Me" difficulty and higher.

* 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.
** In ''Paradise Lost'', the Lever-Action shotgun is very simple but precise, has a solid damage output and is also pretty fast for a shotgun.

** 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.

** ''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.

* 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.

** [[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.]]

** 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).

* 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.

** When you're off to get the Krotchy doll, [[BossInMookClothing Krotchy]] himself decides to fight you if you're on your way back from the back of the store. And he has a rocket launcher with him. Of course it's easy to defeat him prior to fetching the doll, and [[GoodBadBugs spamming the gas can and setting him on fire literally breaks his ability to use the rocket launcher for a while.]] Of course, you can trade him a signed Gary Coleman book for a Krotchy doll to skip the entire sequence. Or just buy it off of him (any amount of cash seems to do, but he'll take all the money you're carrying). (Though you may have to fight him in the Steam version of the game whether you like it or not).
** The "Michonne ain't got nothin' on me" achievement. All it says is "resurrect a zombie for your own nefarious purposes" but there's nothing in game that tells you how, let alone that it's even possible. To do this you have to bisect a zombie with the scythe at the waist then smash its head off with the bat or hammer. Now piss on the corpse to resurrect it as a floating torso.

''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.

* 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]].

* DropTheHammer: ''Apocalypse Weekend'' gives the dude a sledgehammer with which to [[YourHeadAsplode bust heads.]]

** A recent patch would go above and beyond by adding Ludicrous, which actually gives you a warning before choosing it, revealing such nice gameplay restrictions like enemies never dropping their weapons (but do drop ammo [[LuckBasedMission if you're lucky]]), [[LimitedInventory restricting your weapon inventory and halfing your ammo]] and making you venerable to the [[OneHitKill special kill moves]] you can do everyone else, among other fun additions. The only reason why this isn't completely impossible is because [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTLeoXmPvU one Youtuber actually did complete it.]]

* 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 up a notch 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 they added Impossible difficulty which makes it even harder with changes such as bystanders now using heavy weapons.

** 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.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: 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. Likewise, the "Ask for Champ" errand at the beginning of ''Paradise Lost'' is skipped.

* 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.]]

* 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]].

* ADateWithRosiePalms: The '''first''' objective in the ''Apocalypse Weekend'' expansion is to donate sperm. Vulgar humor ensues.

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.

** The voting ballot you use on Wednesday is modeled after the [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Butterfly_Ballot%2C_Florida_2000_%28large%29.jpg butterfly ballot]] that was used in Palm Beach County, Florida in the 2000 US presidential election which was widely criticised for its confusing layout that led to many voters to vote for the wrong candidate and said to have cost UsefulNotes/AlGore the presidency.

** 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.]]

* SchmuckBait: [[UrineTrouble Urine-soaked]] 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

''Postal 2'' is the DenserAndWackier 2003 sequel to the 1997 video game ''VideoGame/{{Postal}}''. 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. The game was infamously and almost universally panned by critics at the time of release, most notably the Computer Gaming World review in which their most CausticCritic gave it [[BrokeTheRatingScale the magazine's first ever zero-star review]], writing 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 was [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity proudly included on the boxes of re-releases]].

''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.