Postal

Postal is a deliberately provocative top-down action game that throws the player into a bleak world of violence, paranoia, and very questionable decision-making. You control the Postal Dude, an increasingly unhinged character wandering through ordinary-looking environments while fighting police, civilians, soldiers, and pretty much anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. The game's perspective makes the carnage look almost like a tactical exercise, although subtlety is very much optional. Postal was controversial when released because it treated violence as its central attraction rather than merely another gameplay feature. Its dark humor and deliberately unpleasant atmosphere remain distinctive, even if the whole experience feels like someone gave a bad day a flamethrower. It is crude, noisy, and undeniably strange, which is precisely why it became such a memorable piece of late-1990s PC gaming.