For anyone missing their manuals or the
possibility that the newest rehashings of the original Postal are being
released by cheap bastards who won't spring the extra seven cents to
include one, here's the essential details you need to know...
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW:
There is a number with a percent sign after it somewhere on your
screen. To complete a level, you have to snuff a certain percentage of
the enemies on that level. When you've hit that number, you can either HIT THE F1 KEY to move on to the next map, or continue hunting down every last person to get 100% (if you are truly sick), and then HIT THE F1 KEY to move on to the next map.
Note that in rare instances a random person might get stuck somewhere
where you'll never find them, or the death-tally code could glitch and
miscount, so there's no guarantee you'll be able to get 100% on every
map. Just warning ya in advance, that's why we instituted the UI
debacle known as HITTING THE F1 KEY in the first place. Now you know.
THE OTHER MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Pick your fights! Trust me, you need to try and draw enemies out and
get them to follow you into areas you've already cleared or you WILL
hurt! Running down the street like an idiot with guns a'blazing only
gets you seriously dead. Go ahead, see if I'm right. Learn to use cover
to your advantage, dumbass.
CONTROLS:
The Masochistic setup:
For
those of you who like to suffer and experience high blood pressure,
these are the default controls. I think they suck ass, and will tell
you the correct way to configure things later, but for posterity, we'll
begin with the hideous defaults...
ESC..................Brings up the menu.
F1.....................Advances
to next map after quota of kills is reached. Before that it does
nothing but make you look like a jackass, so stop hitting it already.
F2.....................Toggles crosshairs on and off.
F3.....................Toggles
the "X-Ray" effect that allows you to see the Postal Dude when he goes
behind things. Note that you're either an idiot or psychic if you
toggle this OFF. I'll only warn you once...
F4.....................Toggles
the diagnostic display on and off. I don't remember what this is, but
I'm pretty sure you won't care, so just leave it alone.
F5.....................Displays current mission goal. I guess this is just in case you have no idea why you bought this game.
PAUSE.............No, I'm not even going to tell you...
Q.......................Heh
heh, I like the amusingly vague wording we used in the original manual:
"The Postal Dude decides to leave the scenario". LOL
X.......................Executes
a victim that is writhing in agony. Basically you can deliver a "mercy"
kill to an injured enemy. Just stand right next to one and hit the X
key.
- (Minus sign).....Decrease visible
gameplay area. For those playing the game on a 286, I guess. Or maybe
for those psychic hotline people I mentioned earlier.
+ (Plus sign).......Increase visible gameplay area. For those silly bastards that hit the Minus key just to see what it did.
SPACE.............Brings
you back to life in multiplayer games. Maybe it also restarts the level
when you die in single player games, but I forget.
Numpad 0.........Allows The Dude to duck under incoming missiles. Nobody has ever used this.
Z.......................Allows The Dude to duck and possibly dodge missiles. As far as you know.
Left Arrow........Turn left. Not MOVE left, you just turn.
Right Arrow......Turn right. Like, rotate clockwise.
Up Arrow..........Move forward
Down Arrow.....Move Backward
Shift...................Hold
this key down to run and turn faster. Because clearly this shouldn't be
the default speed, we knew you'd enjoy holding the key down.
Alt.....................Strafe.
You need to hold this down while moving for it to work. Now try and
shoot at the same time. Now go get a splint for your broken fingers.
Don't worry, I'll show you how to make this all better in just a
minute, for now let's just continue amusing ourselves with the
defaults...
Ctrl....................Shoot weapon, throw molotov or whatever.
WEAPON KEYS
1.......Machine gun
2.......Shotgun
3.......Spray Cannon (stupid name, but this will be your favorite gun, trust me. Note that it uses up your shotgun ammo.)
4.......Grenade (these are fun as hell to bank around corners! Use this to your advantage on that overhead-view bridge level!)
5.......Missile
6.......Seeking Missile
(for lazy-ass pansies who don't feel like aiming)
7.......Molotov Cocktail
8.......Napalm
9.......Flame Thrower
0.......Mine
(hit repeatedly to toggle through the various types. Amusingly, the
original manual doesn't say what the "different types" are, and I
completely forget so you'll just have to experiment and find out for
your own lazy self.)
The CORRECT setup:
Okay, if
you're done laughing at the default controls, or have just been
released from the hospital after actually attempting to USE them, here
is the configuration you'll want to use if you'd like the game to
actually be playable. Trust me, not only could I literally run circles
around seeking missiles, but my non-game playing girlfriend was able to
beat the first two levels on her first try. Just do it.
Map RUN and MOVE FORWARD to the Left Mouse key
Map RUN and MOVE BACKWARD to the right mouse key
Map TURN LEFT to Mouse left (that's physically moving the mouse to the left, not clicking the left button)
Map TURN RIGHT to mouse right (again, the MOVEMENT of the mouse to the right, not clicking the right mouse button).
You'll probably also need to adjust the mouse sensitivity until the
turning rate of The Dude isn't so spazzy and hard to control.
Now, all your movement/targeting is handled by the mouse, and your
other hand handles all the weapon related stuff on the keyboard. It may
take a little getting used to, but trust me, once you get a feel for
it, you'll be able to kick ass on the hardest difficulty levels.
Really. It's the setup I used to tune and playtest the game, and I
tested ALL the difficulty levels. How far have YOU gotten?
Multiplayer:
Don't even ask. I don't know if it even works anymore and if it does, I don't remember a thing about how you set it up.
The Level Editor:
Again, don't ask. The damn thing is so complicated I don't remember the
first thing about how to use it. And while making your own maps from
scratch is theoretically possible, it requires a bunch of software that
mostly isn't even made anymore and a bunch of in-house utilities that
we lost years ago and the process is absurdly complicated and I forget
most of it anyway, so move along, there's nothing to see here...
Saving:
You can
only save your current state of COMPLETED levels! You can NOT save your
random progress within a level. That's because you need to have skills
to get through each map on one life. You know, the way REAL gamers
would do it, Weaksauce.
Other:
Be sure to check out the "Challenge" maps! They're way fun!
