Postal: Brain Damaged succeeds by using the series‘ scattershot satire as a basis to build great levels.
Like most sensible people, I long ago wrote off the Postal series as an idea that started terribly, enjoyed some fleeting glory in the same wave of cultural disaffection that brought us Limp Bizkit and the Attitude Era, and has spent the decades since thrashing around in search of relevance. Yet several times over the last few years, I’ve heard furtive whispers from various corners of the internet that there is one Postal game which is actually, genuinely good.
No, I’m not referring to Postal 2, which despite inexplicably having the same Steam rating as Half-Life 2, is a pretty shoddy game. Its open world may have been ahead of the curve back in 2003, but even when I first played it as a socially awkward 15-year-old (the primary audience for Postal games) I could see through the fountains of blood and voluminous arcs of urine that it wasn’t a good shooter.
Rather, I’m referring to Postal: Brain Damaged, a spinoff FPS released in 2022 that, crucially, is not developed by series creators Running with Scissors. Instead, it’s made by Hyperstrange—a team of Polish indie designers that specialise in shooters. Hyperstrange’s other projects include the sword-and-sorcery hack ’n‘ slash Elderborn and the grimdark cowboy blaster Blood West, both enjoyable retro shooters that are infused with modern ideas. But is it really possible to take the crusty tube-sock that is Postal and make something worthwhile out of it?
A couple of things immediately separate Brain Damaged from Running With Scissors‘ games. The first is that it actually has an art style—and a pretty good one too. Brain Damaged’s world is drawn in vivid colours, kooky expressionist angles, and pixels the size of postage stamps, a world away from the flat, uninspired visuals of the mainline series.
The second is that the whole game takes place inside the Postal Dude’s depraved, deranged mind, which Hyperstrange uses as permission to build levels that are surrealist dreamscapes. Admittedly, Postal has never needed much persuading to detach itself from reality, but here there is a concerted effort to build geometrically interesting spaces, rather than whatever allows the designers to make a crude joke.
The first level, for example, takes place in a vision of suburbia that is at once insufferably saccharine and deeply cursed, with picturesque, pastel-coloured houses lining streets that gnarl and twist into shapes that resemble razor wire—clearly inspired by Psychonauts‘ much-loved Milkman Conspiracy level These houses are populated by Postal’s obligatory NPCs that you can slaughter if you choose, such as realtors wearing crimson jackets. But there are also shotgun-toting grandpas accompanied by ludicrously-hench dogs, and spherical men who pelt you with burgers as they float through the sky beneath their propeller hats.
It’s instantly more imaginatively ambitious than the mainline series, and this is underpinned by thoughtfully-designed combat. The Postal’s Dude’s abilities include the power to deflect any projectile with a well-timed kick, and a propulsive slide-jump that lets you bound hop across levels at high-speed like a weaponised frog. In addition, once you grab the shotgun, which comes with a Doom Eternal style meathook, you can also use enemies to launch yourself into the air and, depending on the combat scenario, remain airborne for extended periods.
Yet while the fundamentals are promising, it takes a while for Brain Damaged to cohere as a shooter. While the opening level looks great, and has a couple of decent combat encounters, it’s also too long and too dispersed, resulting in too much downtime and largely shapeless fights. The second level, which takes place in a detention centre/sewer network, is better paced, but visually far less interesting.
From here on out, though, Postal: Brain Damaged’s levels become more focused, while the weapon and enemy roster becomes both wider and weirder. Your arsenal expands to include a lightning gun that shoots literal brainstorms, a ferocious minigun that can autotarget specific enemies, and a nailgun that can launch an enemy-freezing time bubble. Ingeniously, this bubble also freezes any projectile you shoot into it, which means you can circle strafe a time-stopped enemy blasting into the bubble with aplomb, so when the bubble collapses your bullets all converge on the unfortunate meat-bag in the centre.
The sharper focus also yields some novel level concepts. The third level sees you emerge from the detention centre into Mexico, and assault a vast border wall, dodging artillery shells and sniper rifle-wielding moustaches who ramble incoherently about „liberals“. While the satire is hardly sophisticated, the look and flow of the level is thoughtfully designed. I also like the follow-up level, which takes place inside the wall and is a mazey, rust-brown tribute to Quake.
The highlights, though, are probably the opening pair of levels that kick off Episode 2, which see the Postal Dude running through, and then around, a carnivalesque sanitorium. The way these levels play with perspective, feeding rollercoasters and even a Ferris wheel into the level geometry, is genuinely impressive, and both levels feature several arena fights that give your trigger finger a proper workout.
It all comes together to form a shooter that demonstrates both imagination and craft. That said, your enjoyment of Brain Damage will still hinge somewhat on your tolerance for Postal’s schtick. Hyperstrange’s shooter remains couched in the same scattershot satire and puerile humour as Running with Scissors‘ games. It’s still a game about pissing and penises, farts and fannies. There are bounce pads in the shape of balls, a bow-and-arrow weapon that fires enormous, brightly coloured dildos, and a moaning dominatrix enemy tied up so she crawls along the ground like a worm.
Among the torrent of toilet humour and periphrastic parody were a few gags that made me laugh, such as the nasal nerd mages clad in Ku Klux Klan-ish white robes who yell „My kakatana…I mean, katana!“ when you smear them across a wall. Mainly, though, I was left either unfazed or slightly worn out by it all. The Postal Dude in particular is a net loss for the experience. While the animated cutscenes between episodes deploy him reasonably well, 90% of his in-game quips are simply not funny, be that because they’re poorly written, poorly delivered, or not really jokes at all.
That said, it would be unfair to say that Postal: Brain Damaged succeeds in spite of being a Postal game. The recalcitrant DNA of the series runs through it like a raw chicken smoothie. But Hyperstrange finds a focus for Postal’s indiscriminate mockery and relentless cynicism through the level design, couching the experience in gunplay that is fundamentally strong. Unlike Running with Scissors, Hyperstrange’s primary goal is to make a good shooter, and they channel Postal’s anarchic energy in a way that achieves this.
