Assignment 3: Understand Contractual, Legal and Ethical Obligations in the Games Industry

Postal 2 had a lot of controversy since it's release in April 2003, mainly because of it's strong violence, racial stereotypes, strong language and the ability to urinate on people.
Before and after its release Postal 2 was very controversial. Although it does look comical is it still very violent and offensive.

It has many awards for things such as:

PC GAMER, POSTAL rated #2 Most Controversial Game of All Time

ICE magazine (UK), POSTAL 2 rated #1 Goriest Game of All time

STUFF magazine, POSTAL 2 rated #3 Most Controversial Games Ever

Gamer TV (UK) POSTAL 2 rated #1 Most Outrageous Game of All time

PC Zone (UK), POSTAL 2, #11, The 50 Most Controversial Games Ever

 NEXUSMAG.net, POSTAL 2:Share The Pain, #2, Top 10 Controversial Games

Interfaith’s Top 10 Worst Violent Games, POSTAL 2

XLeague, Top 10 Video Game Weapons, Postal 2 #3, Anthrax Cow Head!

GAMERANX.com - #2 14 Most Offensive Video Games Ever - POSTAL 2

PCMAG.com - #9 The Top Ten Most Violent Video Games Ever - POSTAL 2

GAMERANX.com - #2 Most Offensive Video Game Ever - POSTAL 2

GoryVideoGames.com - #9 TOP 10 MOST VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES - POSTAL Series

AskMen.com - #1 Top TEN Most Violent Video Games Ever - POSTAL 2

guyism - #1 The Most Violent Video Games Ever - POSTAL 2 COMPLETE

It has many more different awards and recognitions for similar things. 

Postal 2 is a videogame about a man who lives in a small town in his caravan with his horrible wife who makes him go out and do chores every day like getting milk. He also does his own chores like cashing in his paycheck and getting some napalm. Along the way he gets into trouble with the locals, such as vegetarians, rednecks and even the Taliban. 

Postal Dude (main character) He is a bit of a horrible man who jokes around a lot as you can tell in what he says and he enjoys murdering people. You can also make him commit suicide by pressing a button on your keyboard.

Taliban (enemies) these people pop up early on in the game and try to murder you, they are basically terrorists, probably based on Al Qaeda  as they say "prepare to die infidels" when attacking a Church and "alalalalalalalalala" sometimes when they attack you. This is very racist towards middle eastern people.

Rednecks (enemies) these guys also appear early on and don't seem to like you for some reason, at one point they even kidnap you and try to murder you in a basement.

There is a lot of gore in the game as displayed here. You can take peoples heads, arms, legs, hands and feet off aswell as cutting them in half. Sometimes if you cut their legs off they crawl around on the ground for a few minutes before dying of blood loss.

As I explained earlier, you can also urinate on people as shown above. Depending on the NPC they either run away, get the cops, attack you or they just vomit. while they are vomiting you can cut off their head and the vomit sprays out of their neck.

For this type of content the game was banned in New Zealand. According to Wikipedia "In 2004, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (New Zealand) banned Postal 2 outright because of its high level violent content, animal violence and a scene that was considered "gross and abhorrent" where the player urinates on dead bodies at a terrorist camp (the game actually features no such scripted scene; such action is only undertaken should the player deliberately choose to do so). The game remains banned and possession, distribution or even buying it for personal use is widely illegal and is a criminal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $50,000."

The game has also been under fire after a school shooting happened in 2006. The shooter had played Postal 2 before and that caused the game to receive some very negative publicity.

There is also controversy about animals in this game as you are able to murder cats, dogs and even elephants (in the expansion pack). You can even put cats on the end of your shotgun to use them as silencers. This was also part of the reason the game was banned in New Zealand as well as Australia. The first Postal game was also banned in Australia however you can buy both of the games through the digital videogame distribution service known as Steam even though they are banned. This game however is widely available in places like America and United Kingdom although they are rated 18+ and M 17+ there are also many places you can buy the game as it was re-released digitally in 2012 on Steam, GOG, Desura, GreenManGaming and many other distribution sites.

There are a lot of other stereotypes in this game such as African Americans with their voices. and also there are a lot of random homosexual NPCs roaming about which usually talk and walk in a very camp way. There are a lot of other random things such as people selling meth pipes in their house and things like sexual devices you can sometimes come across. At one point in the game after you urinate on your dad's grave some rednecks sneak up behind you and knock you out. You awake in their underground base in nothing but a gimp suit and you have to fight your way out.

On top of all this the Postal Dude has quite a lot of quotes he says throughout the game, usually one-liners that are quite insane and horrible. Some examples are:

"The gene pool is stagnant and I am administering chlorine"
" I suppose it would have been more politically correct to kill the women and the minorities first"
" You probably thought you weren't gonna die today, Surprise!"
"Guns don't kill people, I do!"
"Today's the first day of the end of your lives"
"Sign this petition or I'll follow you home and kill your dog!"