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Hatred is a twin-stick shooter in the same vein as the first POSTAL game. Its main concern is being offensive and tasteless rather than being fun or well-made. You play as The Antagonist, a somehow edgier version of the POSTAL Dude that looks like he belongs on Metalocalypse.

Hatred is an over-the-top, ridiculous game that is more focused on style than substance. The first cutscene sets the tone, and it’s abysmal. The main character constantly complains about humanity being a parasite, the world needing a cleanse, etc. He’s one step away from dressing up like the Joker and blaming society. Before playing, I thought it might be funny how excessively edgy he is, in a sort of so-bad-it’s-good way. Unfortunately, it’s delivered so earnestly that it’s hard to find humor in his psychotic ramblings and instead elicits eye-rolls. Now I’m sure if you are someone looking for a mass shooter simulator, this will be right up your alley, but for me, it felt hollow.

The developers claim that it’s a statement against political correctness, but aside from playing as a murderer, it doesn’t have anything that could be construed as politically incorrect. It feels more like the devs wanted to make something offensive and controversial, but there’s no meaning or underlying statement. It’s as if they decided, “let’s make something tasteless, just cause”.

I expected the mechanics and combat to be significantly better than POSTAL, a game nearly 20 years older than Hatred. This turned out to be wishful thinking, as it’s just as bad, aside from some minor improvements. You are given an isometric camera and twin-stick shooter controls, somewhat similar to games like Enter The Gungeon and SYNTHETIK. Disappointingly, the art design (the whole game is black and white) makes enemies nearly impossible to see. I like the look of it, but enemies blending into the background make it far more annoying than it needs to be. And yes, they did include a button to highlight all NPCs with a red outline, but I ended up holding it down almost the entire game just to see anything. Without it, you’ll get shot numerous times from seemingly nowhere, which is especially frustrating given the high difficulty level, even on easy.

You can only regain health by executing people, which plays a short cutscene of you slitting someone’s throat, curb-stomping them, etc. Maybe I’ve become desensitized to video game violence, but it really made me roll my eyes more than it appalled me. It’s needlessly gratuitous to the point where you don’t even register it after the first few levels. If anything it becomes tedious, due to how often you need to heal as the game progresses.

There are a handful of weapons to choose from, but due to how scarce ammo is, you wind up mostly using whatever the enemy dropped. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be fun for a game to force you to improvise and use whatever equipment you can scrounge up, but because 90% of enemies drop one of three guns, it’s pretty bland and uninteresting.

I expected the plot and dialogue to be pretty horrible, so I wasn’t particularly surprised when the main character started rattling off terrible oneliners as he dramatically stabbed his victims. I was hoping it would be done in a more entertaining way, maybe to heighten how over-the-top it was, despite being in poor taste. Instead, it’s played completely seriously and comes off bizarrely.

Outside of the main character’s dialogue, the only other significant writing is the overall plot, which is truly one of the most nonsensical stories I’ve experienced in a game. The Antagonist is trying to take revenge on society through a series of mass shootings at various locations, but where the story ends up is so far from reality that it borders on parody.

It’s almost impossible to recommend Hatred to anyone. The art design has potential and the graphics are decent. That is the extent of the praise I can give it. The narrative is poorly written, the dialogue is cringe-inducing and the gameplay is a frustrating chore. There are minimal redeeming qualities and I don’t understand how any sane person could genuinely enjoy playing it. That being said, I highly recommend it to fans of POSTAL 1/POSTAL Redux. For those people, this will feel like a more polished version of the first POSTAL game and I’m sure they’ll love this take on it.

No performance issues running on: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 3070

Follow our Curator Page, MMM Reviews, for more in-depth reviews and recommendations

[quote] Follow our Curator page, [url=https://steamoss.com/steamstore/curator/41449676/]Summit Reviews[/url], to see more high quality reviews regularly. [/quote] Hatred is a twin-stick shooter in the same vein as the first [i]POSTAL[/i] game. Its main concern is being offensive and tasteless rather than being fun or well-made. You play as The Antagonist, a somehow edgier version of the [i]POSTAL[/i] Dude that looks like he belongs on [i]Metalocalypse[/i]. [h2]Presentation[/h2] [i]Hatred[/i] is an over-the-top, ridiculous game that is more focused on style than substance. The first cutscene sets the tone, and it’s abysmal. The main character constantly complains about humanity being a parasite, the world needing a cleanse, etc. He’s one step away from dressing up like the Joker and blaming society. Before playing, I thought it might be funny how excessively edgy he is, in a sort of so-bad-it’s-good way. Unfortunately, it’s delivered so earnestly that it’s hard to find humor in his psychotic ramblings and instead elicits eye-rolls. Now I’m sure if you are someone looking for a mass shooter simulator, this will be right up your alley, but for me, it felt hollow. The developers claim that it’s a statement against political correctness, but aside from playing as a murderer, it doesn’t have anything that could be construed as politically incorrect. It feels more like the devs wanted to make something offensive and controversial, but there’s no meaning or underlying statement. It’s as if they decided, “let’s make something tasteless, just cause”. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] I expected the mechanics and combat to be significantly better than [i]POSTAL[/i], a game nearly 20 years older than [i]Hatred[/i]. This turned out to be wishful thinking, as it’s just as bad, aside from some minor improvements. You are given an isometric camera and twin-stick shooter controls, somewhat similar to games like [i]Enter The Gungeon[/i] and [i]SYNTHETIK[/i]. Disappointingly, the art design (the whole game is black and white) makes enemies nearly impossible to see. I like the look of it, but enemies blending into the background make it far more annoying than it needs to be. And yes, they did include a button to highlight all NPCs with a red outline, but I ended up holding it down almost the entire game just to see anything. Without it, you’ll get shot numerous times from seemingly nowhere, which is especially frustrating given the high difficulty level, even on easy. You can only regain health by executing people, which plays a short cutscene of you slitting someone’s throat, curb-stomping them, etc. Maybe I’ve become desensitized to video game violence, but it really made me roll my eyes more than it appalled me. It’s needlessly gratuitous to the point where you don’t even register it after the first few levels. If anything it becomes tedious, due to how often you need to heal as the game progresses. There are a handful of weapons to choose from, but due to how scarce ammo is, you wind up mostly using whatever the enemy dropped. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be fun for a game to force you to improvise and use whatever equipment you can scrounge up, but because 90% of enemies drop one of three guns, it’s pretty bland and uninteresting. [h2]Writing[/h2] I expected the plot and dialogue to be pretty horrible, so I wasn’t particularly surprised when the main character started rattling off terrible oneliners as he dramatically stabbed his victims. I was hoping it would be done in a more entertaining way, maybe to heighten how over-the-top it was, despite being in poor taste. Instead, it’s played completely seriously and comes off bizarrely. Outside of the main character’s dialogue, the only other significant writing is the overall plot, which is truly one of the most nonsensical stories I’ve experienced in a game. The Antagonist is trying to take revenge on society through a series of mass shootings at various locations, but where the story ends up is so far from reality that it borders on parody. [h2]Verdict[/h2] It’s almost impossible to recommend [i]Hatred[/i] to anyone. The art design has potential and the graphics are decent. That is the extent of the praise I can give it. The narrative is poorly written, the dialogue is cringe-inducing and the gameplay is a frustrating chore. There are minimal redeeming qualities and I don’t understand how any sane person could genuinely enjoy playing it. That being said, I highly recommend it to fans of [i]POSTAL 1/POSTAL Redux[/i]. For those people, this will feel like a more polished version of the first [i]POSTAL[/i] game and I’m sure they’ll love this take on it. [h2]2/10[/h2] [quote] No performance issues running on: [b]AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 3070[/b] [/quote] [quote] [url=https://steamoss.com/steamstore/curator/36214917/]Follow our Curator Page, MMM Reviews, for more in-depth reviews and recommendations[/url] [/quote]