Postal 4: No Regerts

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Postal 4: No Regerts "We're in a place called climax, and a time called now." — The Boss Protagonist(s): The Postal Dude Genre(s): First-person shooter Rating(s): ESRB: M Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Release: October 14, 2019 (Early Access) April 20, 2022 (full release) Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Developer(s): Running with Scissors Publisher(s): Running with Scissors Country: United States Series: Postal Predecessor: Postal Redux (by release date) Postal 2: Paradise Lost (chronologically) Successor: Postal: Brain Damaged

Postal 4: No Regerts is a first-person shooter game developed and published by Running with Scissors. The game was initially released on October 14, 2019, through the Steam early access program and fully released outside early access on April 20, 2022, as the direct chronological sequel to Postal 2.

Plot

After escaping from Paradise, Arizona, for one last time, before it finally gets nuked permanently, the Postal Dude and his loyal companion Champ stop by a gas station for a toilet break when someone breaks into his 1987 DaFaQue car and drives off with it and their mobile home. With nothing but his bathrobe and clothes on, the Dude and Champ walk to the nearest town, Edensin, to look for a job and possibly a permanent place to stay.

Gameplay

No Regerts returns to the free-roam, errand-based gameplay of its chronological predecessor, Postal 2. Each level divided is into days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) and new areas open up as the week progresses.

Why It Regerts Nothing

1. The Postal Dude is back after a three-year hiatus and is determined to find and take back his mobile home, no matter what obstacles get in his way.
2. Just like its chronological predecessor, it is open-world.
3. The game is just as equally violent and bloody, if not even more, with tons of blood and gore and awesome ways to kill people using the new weapons.
4. The fire system returns and spreads better and faster than its chronological predecessor thanks to Unreal Engine 4.
5. Heavily improved hitbox scans for the Dude and the NPCs, as they now react properly to being shot at or hit with melee weapons.
   • Every male NPC reacts to getting kicked, whacked, or shot in the balls, including the Dude.
   • The Dude now can get his penis damaged if he is shot there, making him piss blood as a result until he gets healed.
   • From Update 1.0.8 onwards, every NPC that has a sledgehammer or rubber mallet shoved up their anuses will automatically go prone and be unable to fight or move until the Dude yanks it out.
6. The gore, piss and graphics are now heavily improved and more detailed thanks to Unreal Engine 4, with better intestinal models when dismembered, brain matter flying out of skulls when heads are caved in with the sledgehammer, and terrifying naked burnt models when set on fire.
7. Cat silencers make a return to the game and you can now finally silence pistols (just like in the film adaptation of Postal) and revolvers.
   • Heck, you can even "silence" live grenades by shoving them up a cat's anus before letting them go, turning them into suicide bombers in the process.
   • Additionally, the rockets for the rocket launcher can be "silenced", automatically turning them into a homing cat missile that you can freely control to hit faraway targets (provided the rocket doesn't run out of fuel before reaching the said targets).
8. There are lots of new weapons available that can be used by the Dude.
   • The Pigeon Mine lets you attack up to three people at one time once you break the wooden cage holding the pigeons.
     • You can also kill any surviving pigeons to get an achievement referencing the infamous "Pigeon Mission" cutscene from Apocalypse Weekend.
   • The Spurt'N'Squirt 9000 is a deformed Super Soaker that lets you spray people with its water tank, ignite people on fire with its gasoline tank (after a few modifications), and make people puke with its piss (previously puke) tank.
   • The Fournicator acts as an even more powerful counterpart to the sawed-off shotgun from Postal 2, using 4 barrels to deliver the same damage at the expense of it being harder to find than the latter.
   • You can now pick up limbs and use them as temporary weapons before needing to dispose of them due to damage. You can even use heads as volleyballs to annoy NPCs and play fetch with dogs.
9. The game now has drivable vehicles in the form of rental mobility scooters that you can rent or steal to get to any location a lot faster than walking on foot.
   • In fact, one of the features that will be added to the game in a future update is the ability to modify a mobility scooter to have an M60 LMG mounted onto its dashboard!
   • Update 1.0.8 allows you to pay for a nitro upgrade for your scooter to ride around at sports car speeds, provided you don't run out of nitro.
10. You can now interact with toilets and most electronic items.
11. You can change your gun's ammo type to deal more damage to enemies.
12. There are numerous new items that you can purchase and obtain to enhance your gameplay.
    • Vitamin X, a powerup multivitamin, lets you knock people down with your piss and one kick, break windows with your piss, dismember people with one swing of your machete without needing to charge it, swing melee weapons faster, move faster, and perform the secret doughnut technique using the Rattler's clubbed end.
    • You can now buy permits to openly carry weapons and walk around with your pants unzipped without getting into trouble with the police.
    • You can buy regular backpacks to increase your carry limit until you have enough cash to buy the Black Hole backpack, which allows you to destroy the carry limit permanently.
13. Speaking of the police, their AI is heavily improved from Postal 2 and they are legitimately challenging to escape and hide from due to them hiding and falling back at appropriate times when outgunned by the Dude while also entering any building he is hiding in to hunt him down a la Red Dead Redemption 2. There are also 3 different types of police officers.
    • The regular blue cops act like the cops from Postal 2 and only travel by foot and police cars (only in cutscenes for the latter).
    • The white cops travel on their mobility scooters that the Dude can steal upon killing them and they make use of their guns, stun batons, and hit-and-run tactics to take down the Dude.
    • The SWAT officers now travel to the Dude's current location when he is on maximum wanted level via helicopter, which the Dude can shoot down, before rappelling down to the general area he is in. Additionally, they have the highest health and possess armor and high-level weapons like assault rifles.
14. David Eddings, a.k.a Claptrap's voice actor for Borderlands series, and also Pisstrap for Postal 2: Paradise Lost, did a good job replicating the voice of the government official from POSTAL 2: Apocalypse Weekend in his voice for job agent Joseph Bellows.
    • Due to his association with Gearbox Software, he can recommend Duke Nukem and Big the Cat's voice actor Jon St. John to Running With Scissors to be the new voice for the Postal Dude.
15. The new in-game radio station, Edensin Radio, allows you to listen to music from your in-game smartphone while doing your errands, just like in later Fallout games.
16. The original voice actor for the Postal Dude, Rick Hunter, and the infamous Postal III Dude, Corey Cruise, came back to voicing Postal Dude as optional voices in the New Game menu. Zack Ward (who portrayed Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story and its 2022 sequel, Alex in Don't Blink, Nicholai Ginovaef in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Desmond Packard in Beyond The Law (2019), Mickey in Survive The Game, and the fictionalized version of himself in Paradise Lost) later joined the cast as part of Update 1.0.7.
    • As a stealth cross-promotion for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Running With Scissors made a parody of the Spider-Man meme to promote the film using all 3 Dudes together to promote the new voice options.
    • In fact, you can finish the game using all 3 Dudes (now 4 Dudes) in separate playthroughs to get an achievement parodying the same movie and meme too. (Note: You have to finish a game as one voice for it to count.)
17. Smoking catnip grants the Dude new and hilariously unique "tacticool" reload animations like shoving a handful of shotgun shells into the shotgun (referencing POSTAL 2's Beta Shotgun reload), disposing of his Ingram before pulling a new fully-loaded one out of thin air (referencing a reload animation from Borderlands 2) and telekinetically making 4 shotgun shells seat themselves into the Fournicator (possibly a reference to how Guido Mista uses his Stand, the Sex Pistols, to near-instantly reload his revolver in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo/Golden Wind).
    • Additionally, you can control and curve bullets into faraway targets (or yourself) while high on catnip and using the sniper rifle just like in Singularity and Bulletstorm.
18. You can run errands for bystanders and earn cash, ammo, weapons, health pipes, catnip, and food upon completing them.
19. There are unique optional rampage missions called "Going Postal" that grant you extra cash upon successfully killing x targets or unique abominations like an anthropomorphic toilet paper, a parody of the Ballas gang from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and cyborg dogs, or even do things such as burning (or pissing on) copies of Postal III littered near a junkyard to earn unique items.
20. Unlike POSTAL 2 where the day automatically ends upon completing all of the errands and then entering a loading zone, you can now only end the day via your Scrotorola smartphone, allowing you to explore Edensin and find weapons, ammo, and powerups to hoard for yourself freely and optional bystander errands and "Going Postal" missions to complete for extra cash and supplies.
21. Just like Super Mario Odyssey, the game rewards you for exploration by giving more money to secret out-of-reach locations that can be accessed via no clip or grappling loops with the Rattler's sickle end and allowing you to gain late-game weapons much earlier than normal to use.
22. The game keeps track of all the major NPCs in the game by automatically omitting them from the Boss' "Pay All Employers A "Visit" mission if you have killed either one of the 3 major NPCs (Mayor Mike J, Don Vince Desi, and El Plago) before the said mission.
    • Additionally, the same mission can be skipped completely if you do a pacifist run all the way.
23. You can ride on all of the rides in Kunny Island Amusement Park.
24. For the first time in the POSTAL franchise, you can gain a secret ending by finishing it as a pacifist (meaning kill no one).
    • Speaking of the secret ending, it manages to connect modern Postal games with the very first one, as the G-Man lookalike that appeared in every end-of-day cutscenes made a sound that was the Postal menu selection sound before flapping his wings, and the loading screen image for the final mission of POSTAL (The Elementary School/The End) appeared as the Dude drives off and static fills up the screen.
25. You can now customize the Dude by buying different outfits in the clothes shop (or wear the classic outfit and the Postal III outfit; these can be unlocked by doing the "Going Postal" challenges or using cheats) and wearing them for as long as you want.
26. There are some nice and funny emotes that the Dude can do for fun, like twerking and doing the robot.
27. The normal ending allows you to play as Civvie 11, who runs a drug store and blows up Edensin after buying a nuke from a vending machine.
28. Update 1.0.8 gives the Dude the ability to shove sledgehammers and rubber mallets up human and cow anuses to stun them until they are yanked out.
    • Additionally, the sledgehammer and rubber mallet's handles will be coated in poop and dirty the Dude's hands when used until he goes for a swim to clean up.

Bad Qualities

1. The game now has to carry limits, something that its chronological predecessor doesn't have. Thankfully, the latter problem can be mitigated by purchasing the Black Hole backpack.
2. The game suffers from horrible optimization and crashes on lower-end PCs or higher, even on Buttsauce graphics. Thankfully, Running With Scissors is working on fixing this issue, and now they bring all those nightmare fuel levels of poor optimization and crashes (hopefully) out with a bang on the future updates.
3. Some of the locations are inaccessible without using cheats and/or grappling metal loops using the Rattler's sickle end.
4. The sewer worker job on Monday is the most boring main quest in the game as it consists of nothing but changing lightbulbs, unclogging sewer pipes, and repairing sewage pumps.
5. Krotchy, one of the major NPCs in POSTAL 2, only appears facially as graffiti and keychains hanging on grenade pins (a clear reference to Battlefield: Bad Company) and as a tutor and hint giver in hint boxes and a tutorial app in the Scrotorola smartphone.
6. The game has some plot holes that were left unexplained.
   • How did Vince and Mike J survive and escape Post-Apocalyptic Paradise after it blew up again for the 2nd time without any lifelong radiation sickness?
   • How did the vending machine even dispense the nuke needed to blow up Edensin if it's several times bigger than the machine itself?
   • How did the G-Man lookalike find the Dude's trailer home and track him down in the ending?
   • If the Dude had made peace with the mercenary leader (who is also the Bitch's younger sister/the Dude's sister-in-law) through sex, why did he not invite her to escape from Edensin after she rescued him from falling to his death in the ending cutscene for the Boss' fight?
7. The game tends to overuse toilet humor and penis jokes at times, especially with Mike J.'s toilet-themed mansion (inspired by Haewoojae, an actual mansion in South Korea, by the way) and errands and the many penis statues you can take selfies with dotted around Edensin.

Reception and Controversy

POSTAL 4: No Regerts received praise from players for its craziness, humor, and story. Critics, on the other hand, criticized the game for its jankiness and plot.

On Metacritic, the game received a critical rating of 31/100 ("Generally unfavorable reviews") and an audience score of 4.6/10 ("Generally unfavorable reviews").

IGN gave the game a 2/10, criticizing the game's over-the-top edginess, disjointed attempt to match South Park's humor and "awful" story, gunplay and world.

GameSpot gave it a 1/10, criticizing the game's AI, gunplay, humor, technical issues, and errands while praising its voice acting.

These reviews generated controversy among fans over the game's nature as a result due to both IGN and GameSpot hypocritically giving Battlefield 2042 a 7/10 when it runs and plays even worse than POSTAL 4 to this day.

Angry Joe on the other hand is listing incorrect into the Worst Game of 2022. He's criticism bugs and glitches, cringe dialogue, terrible graphics, etc.

Trivia

• The cover art and the Dude's main outfit in the game are an homage to The Big Lebowski.
• According to the FAQ on Running with Scissors' website, the game was originally going to be a remake of Postal 2.

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