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Postal 2 demo released

We're concerned about the amount of fun we had

Rogue developer Running With Scissors sneakily slipped out a demo of its forthcoming gore 'em up, Postal 2 on Saturday. Naturally, we jumped on the chance to see what the fuss was about and give our antisocial side, which has been eerily absent since we conquered our GTA3 addiction, a proper workout.

Anyway, once we got the game up and running, we were actually quite surprised at how fun it can be. For some reason, I opted for going straight out and buying some milk, without hurting a soul. As you might expect, this was extremely boring, but the abuse you get from some citizens of your town really encourages you to take a swing with that spade you find sitting in a shed. I soon learned the error of my ways, and got my slaughter on.

Tom, on the other hand, got stuck straight in. He started by pummelling a bulldog into submission with the shovel, and trotting off through his neighbour's house. When challenged for his intrusion, he merely gave the poor guy a satisfying thud around the skull with his spade and inadvertently took his head off. Which he then proceeded to kick down the street while laughing maniacally.

You are encouraged to be imaginative in your destruction, as well. Some enemies will drop automatic weapons (particularly police officers and ATF types, natch), and you're able to find other tools of terror in houses and buildings, such as a can of oil. On its own, it merely irritates people when you pour it on them, but whip out your box of matches and... well, you get the idea. Speaking of whipping it out, there's an "unzip" button, after which "fire" takes on a whole new meaning. Lovely piss physics, chaps.

With the demo limited to only six minutes (well, officially, although there is a simple time-lengthening cheat available), it's easy to get addicted to the mass carnage. It is sick, depraved, and also pretty fun, but it does remain to be seen whether it can stay fun for an entire game.

You can pick up the chunky 130mb demo of Postal 2 from 3D Gamers. We're still expecting Whiptail Interactive to unleash Postal 2 on April 14th.