Developer: Running With Scissors
Publisher: Running With Scissors
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC, PS4, PS5
POSTAL 4: No Regerts (PS5) – Review
Last year we took a look at the ‘finished’ version of POSTAL 4: No Regerts, the latest installment in the POSTAL franchise. The series seemed a bit dead in the water during the course of the last few years, but surprisingly POSTAL 4 was eventually finished and ready to be enjoyed by those who love offensive humor and blood-soaked gameplay. We sadly didn’t think that highly of the game, and this had nothing to do with the game’s edgy undertone, but more with the fact that the game was riddled with bugs, had long loading times and simply felt like an unfinished husk of something bigger. Now, the game has been ported to PlayStation 4 and 5, and we were curious to see if the game received some much-needed updates. As we already reviewed the full game on PC, we will only be discussing the quality of the PlayStation port below.
The POSTAL franchise is back, but ‘The Postal Dude’ is on an unlucky streak, as his camper and car have been stolen, and he has no cash to replace them. You’ll have to go around Edensin finding odd jobs to complete in order to score some cash. The overall premise suffices for the silly onscreen action that will unfold, but the story could have been a lot more interesting than it is now. The game relies on dirty jokes and obscene actions to keep you entertained. Some jokes were witty but most of them fell kind of flat.
Graphically, the game doesn’t look like a next-gen title at all, but it doesn’t look all too bad. There are quite a few buildings to explore, but the assets are extremely simplistic, meaning this game could easily run on older hardware. We tried the PlayStation 5 version and we were somewhat underwhelmed by the overall presentation. This is made even worse by occasional frame drops. The sound design doesn’t fare that much better, and this is also due to the very lousy voice acting. We do have to credit the developers for adding quite a few voiced lines, however. The subtitles do contain quite a few spelling mistakes as well.
While the offensive humor and silly gameplay will cater to a certain audience, it’s not there where most of the game’s problems lie. Even on PlayStation 5, the game does not feel optimized at all. You will have to work with extremely clunky controls, lackluster menus, and most of all, extremely long loading times. When looking at what Sony’s next-gen console is capable of, we cannot fathom that a game like this is struggling so much to go from one fairly empty area to the next. All of this is made worse by the fact that the game doesn’t have that much content. While you’ll have to go through the aforementioned odd jobs to score some cash, the game is basically a bland sandbox experience. You can go on a rampage if you like, and there are little to no consequences. More than often we simply shot a police officer to go about our day a moment later. Even when going on an absolute murder spree there were absolutely no consequences.
Conclusion
POSTAL 4: No Regerts will certainly entertain those looking for something silly to play for a few evenings, but when looking at the bigger picture, the game is messy and it simply feels like a beta for something that is nowhere close to a finished product. While we did laugh at some of the game’s stupid jokes, we also feel like this is a title that belonged on PC nearly two decades ago. As it currently stands, the game is overpriced for its lack of content, horrid controls, and poor optimization.
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