The player took control of a tiny animated sprite who shot his way around 16 locations, ranging from a small town to a military complex. The objective was just to survive long enough to find the exit and then do it all again against a different backdrop.

While it would be hypercritical to object to Postal's theme - the kill or be killed scenario is as old as computer gaming itself - the overt attempt at commercial exploitation of the 'real thing', complete with bullet-holed, pseudo-brown paper packaging, was seen as distasteful even by some avid Quake fans. It was also unfortunate that Postal's release came in the same week that The Sunday Times 'revealed' that some retailers were prepared to sell '18' rated games such as Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil to children as young as 11, prompting even further media coverage. This included a feature on Newsnight with the Pax Man himself, and, if memory serves, the then-Editor of PC Format James Binns.

No doubt the furore would have been even louder and lasted a lot longer if Postal had been any good. It wasn't. At least the Macintosh version I played wasn't, and I was told the PC implementation was virtually identical. Tiny, poorly-defined sprites, dodgy collision detection, wishy-washy backdrops, laughable sound effects... add these to the rudimentary and tediously repetitive gameplay, despite what Net Gamer were quoted as saying, and Postal came across as being little better than a PD offering.

Which, in retrospect, perhaps wasn't such a bad thing...