Postal III

24

This game has received a Metascore® of 24 from Metacritic.

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Postal III (2011) follow the Postal Dude's failed 1-day career in video game development (Postal 2) and the ensuing "accidental" nuclear destruction of Paradise AZ (Apocalypse Weekend). We rejoin the Postal Dude and his psychotic pitbull Champas they emigrate to the ironically named town of Catharsis. Unfortunately, due to the Global Economic Meltdown, psychotic left-wing "Green" extremism and hypocritical right-wing Government corruption, life in Catharsis isn't much better.

In November 2022, this game has been delisted on Steam, due to unknown reasons but, according to developers and fans, this is possibly related to the DRM issues that existed more than 9 years ago which was broken by Windows 8.1, aswell the recent shutdown of the DRM website (ActControl), and the quality of the game.

Development

The development of Postal III was started back in 2006 when RWS (Running With Scissors) makes a deal with Akella to develop Postal III which would begin in 2007, initially built on the beta version of Source 2007 engine. This was went initially well but later in 2008, the Great Recession occurs in most countries, including Russia (where Akella was founded). This has led to Postal III Beta team (known as A-Team) being fired which ultimately making the game development being transferred to Trashmasters (a subsidiary of Akella), working under as B-Team, they later upgrading the game engine to Source 2009 and years later, the team was fired with the development of the game being frozen until 2010 that C-Team picked it up and continued development, then later fired aswell, and finally, the development was picked up again for the last time by D-Team, polishing the title before releases, which they soon are also responsible for creating post-release patches.

Due to this reasons, Postal III have been shifted both in style and design from what was originally envisioned by RWS. The free roaming element of missions were still in development around late 2008, before the decision was made to make the game linear outside Free Roam mode (as the Source Engine didn't support level streaming despite Valve at the time claiming it would, according to Akella).

Akella was facing bankruptcy at the time, sought to ship the game in a desperate attempt to make money, which ultimately didn't work out (see below).

By November 2011, Postal III was released in Russia, and December 2011, released anywhere else. It is critically slammed with a score of 24 on Metacritic, and with Mostly Negative reviews on Steam by many of the POSTAL fans, making it the worst ever game in the POSTAL franchises and the worst commercially released Source engine game ever made. The game, and it's engine also riddled with bugs, glitches, broken achievements and crashes, with the bad/unfitting game mechanics like Karma Meter and terrible story that wasn't as good like previous POSTAL games whatsoever. The D-Team, after saw the criticism of the game, they trying to patching the game by adding and restoring missing features, fixing some bugs and restoring some of the open-world elements under Free Roam mode, and removing the songs that Akella didn't licensed it, then later got fired shortly before Akella was shut down. RWS has retconned the game by removing the game on their store (except Steam) and with the release of Postal 2: Paradise Lost and Postal III page on RWS having a notice added to apologize to the POSTAL fans and telling what happened to the development of Postal III.

As of today, the game is currently still broken and suffered from many crashes, poor engine optimization and other bugs, beside, it's was officially unplayable and won't work (on Windows 8.1 and later) unless they installed the unofficial NoDRM patch (which removes the broken DRM and allows you to play the game).

Description from Steam page

Good or Insane? The choice is yours. Following the Apocalyptic end to the Postal Dude’s week in Paradise, we follow him and his insane pitbull Champ as they emigrate to its appropriately named sister city, Catharsis. Unfortunately, due to the Global Economic Meltdown, psychotic left-wing “Green” extremism and hypocritical Government corruption, it turns out Catharsis isn’t a much better place to live. What path will you choose when faced with the antics of a hypocritical scheming Mayor? A berserk cartoon mascot with Al Qaeda ties? A former Vice-President’s cadre of Eco-Zealots? How about Gay Segway “biker” gangs, and a sociopathic cult leader Uncle with nuclear ambitions? Will you give in to your base instincts and fight fire with gasoline? Or will you rise above it to become something more, to serve and protect your fellow citizens from the rampant insanity of our modern society? Key features:

Edgy, satirical Running With Scissors sense of humor
A world of twisted parody inspired by real people, events and philosophies
Large, detailed, interactive environments
Crazy POSTAL style Vehicle gameplay
NPC’s react to your behavior in a variety of surprising ways
Multiple story paths determined by your behavior
Celebrity characters: Super porn star Ron Jeremy, Village People Cowboy Randy Jones, Internationally hated film director Uwe Boll and Playboy Playmate Jennifer Walcott
Appearances by other popular Running With Scissors character franchises: Krotchy, Champ and the Postal Babes, who will fight along side you (or sometimes against you!)
Insane new gameplay including the Helper Monkey, Grenade Cats and the BadgerSaw
Kill Uwe Boll! (or save him!)