Critiquing the story of Postal is completely missing the point. Postal doesn't need a novel's worth of dialogue and ten hours of cutscenes to tell a meaningful story, because all you need to do to get the story for Postal is to go to the news website of your choice. Bomb a parade, shoot up a supermarket, go wild at a military base, or just shatter the false peace of suburbia. Take any individual level of Postal and it feels like a Lets Play of a major news story, some already having happened and some that are bound to happen in the future. Yet, the events of Postal, while being over the top in kill count and survival, are essentially numerous levels of doing what actually happens quite often in the real America in the 21st century. Think about that: Postal originates from a pre-Columbine, pre-Sandy Hook, pre-neo-fascism/"alt-right" America. Oh, just about every week on the news? Postal Redux is a remake of a game made in 1997. An angry, mentally imbalanced white guy who believes the world is out to get him with a giant cache of guns decides to kill everyone in his way in rampage of hatred that shatters families, leaves corpses in its wake, leaves us wondering why and despite the horror of the situation will undoubtedly happen again soon with nothing done to prevent that. While the sequel features such things as cats being used as silencers and Al-Qaeda hiding out in Arizona, Postal feels grounded in reality in a way that feels more relevant than ever.
Postal does what pretty much no other work like it does, and that's what makes it unique and special. It features no fantastical settings, no impossible weaponry, no unrealistic enemies, and an uncomfortably serious tone. While gaming tropes such as being able to take absurd amounts of punishment, an arsenal that appears to rely on hyperspace, and "health packs" are present, at the same time, there is a sense of grounded realism to Postal.
Postal instead takes the opposite approach Postal 2 does, and in fact the opposite approach almost any work of fiction like it takes. The social critique angle of Postal is not something hammered into the player like a school attempting to teach a moron chemistry. The social critique angle of Postal Redux is not a game designed to blow your mind, make some artistic masterpiece, or to innovate on a genre. Postal Redux is not a game designed to blow your mind, make some artistic masterpiece, or to innovate on a genre.