| abstract | - Id Software’s American Postman is really two games in one. Part One, which earned PC Monthly’s 1999 Strategy Game of the Year award, is a statistically-controlled, mail-order immersive reality game of careful planning and lightning decisions. Lay out your delivery route. Pick your clothes. Drive or walk. Sneak into bathrooms in office buildings and scrawl cryptic messages about anonymous sex with people dressed in elaborate animal costumes. Deliver, reject, or refile for later. Just don’t make any mistakes. You flipped the bird at that addressee. You rejected the last delivery, even though it was addressed correctly. You threw a squirrel at an annoying child. The sun went away and it started to rain, and you didn’t change into your jacket. Now you’re cold, wet, tired and angry, and you don't even have a squirrel. Your Irritation Level has jumped from Low to Medium. DON'T GO POSTAL. You, the American Postman, fight with traffic. Homeland Security issues a Suspicious Mail Alert. Now you have to check for anthrax. Not in your job description. A bird shits on your truck while you’re stuck in the jam. The radio finishes playing Please Mister Postman, and the announcer makes fun of your profession. Your Irritation Level goes from Medium to Pissed Off. DON'T GO POSTAL. Head Office warned you about the April tax rush, but just like last Christmas, you ignored it. Now here it is: Twenty times your normal volume, and you have to deliver it all in the same amount of time. You don’t make it. Your boss yells at you. Your Irritation Level peaks. YOU GO POSTAL!!! Part Two of American Postman, based on id’s highly successful DOOM graphics engine, is a stress-relieving first-person shooter. Walk through the sorting room. Find that guy for whom you’ve always felt a churning hate. Blow him away. That’s it. Feel the burn. Keep on shooting. They can’t shoot back. Until the cops get there, that is.
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