Hidden away in gaming’s attic lies a treasure trove of oddities lost to time. PO’ed, an early first-person shooter developed for 3DO in 1995, came and went with little fanfare in a pre-internet age. Now Nightdive Studios resurrects this bizarre relic with PO’ed: Definitive Edition, breathing new life into a game ahead of its time.
You play as the lone surviving crew member of a spaceship, somehow transformed into a chef thrust into enemy territory. Armed only with culinary utensils, you must fight through hordes of unsettling foes across sprawling worlds. With a plot too strange to imagine, PO’ed found its audience limited even before most gamers knew 3D shooters were possible. Though bizarre, its level designs show a developer unafraid to experiment with the emerging 3D medium.
While other shooters focused on gameplay, PO’ed let imagination run wild. Strange enemies like walking buttcheeks joined retro robots in realms held together by dreams instead of reason. Its oddity made sense in an era where genres formed each new day.
Though rough, PO’ed took risks that helped push shooters to extraordinary places. With care from Nightdive, its weird wonders can now find appreciation from fans of the offbeat and the overlooked. Through this remaster, PO’ed breaks from obscurity to embrace its role as a one-of-a-kind oddity in gaming’s first steps to somewhere wonderfully new.
Flight of the Odd Ones
This is where Po’ed starts getting peculiar. You play as a space cook who can now fly with a jetpack. No questions were asked about how this happens—the game wastes no time throwing you into its strange world. With a tap of the thrust button, you soar across cavernous levels. It’s certainly fun zooming around, but navigating gets nuts.
Early on, areas are spacious yet simple. But later, platforms disappear mid-air or shift without reason. Levels turn into elaborate puzzles about where to boost and perch. Often, the sole solution lies in some nonsensical trigger, like zapping ghosts in a bathroom stall. Frustration mounts as danger spots go unseen.
If flying confuses, walking baffles more. Your cook moves at a snail’s pace or slips around manically. Enemies bombard constantly, so standing still means death. Just aiming takes concentration; yet another slip sees you rocketing off the edge. Simple combat becomes an acrobatic feat just to survive from moment to moment.
Aiding survival comes the arsenal. A pistol grants sure shots to pick off foes from afar. For the swarming hordes up close, an automatic tracer rips through with its wild spray-n-pray. Heavier rockets and flame bombs level whole packs but require pinpoint aim. Melee options like a frying pan or drill also spice things up at heart-pounding moments.
And you’ll need every tool for the menagerie of mutants. Butt-shooting demons join punch-happy legs and flame-spewing orbs. But flyers prove most maddening, zipping each other in every way. Auto-aim sometimes helps, yet it often locks wrong. So staying nimble stays key—one slip means restarting extended segments.
The challenge makes victory feel earned, like outsmarting a deranged puzzlebox. Learning shortcuts and tactics through trial and error provides its own odd satisfaction. By the game’s end, mastery emerges from its nonsensical systems. Doing bizarre dances among Po’ed’s peculiar pieces creates fond memories of a one-of-a-kind adventure.
Bizarre yet Believable
While Po’ed gives you freedom, it offers little reassurance with its visuals. From chunky polygonal structures to strange textures, levels seem assembled randomly, like a surreal fever dream. Yet within this bizarreness lies believability—areas feel lived in, with signs of past inhabitants and function everywhere you scan.
Character models continue the oddity. Your character moves with weight, though its features seem half-finished. Enemies prove truly strange, though, from muscular legs prowling alone to flying orbs spewing liquid. Details stay minimal, but distinct silhouettes ensure recognizing foes from afar.
Visual upgrades enhance clarity while staying faithful. Enlarging models and sharper textures maintain the original surrealism while proving legible. Subtle touches like blended lighting bring surroundings to life within technical means. While far from pretty, atmospheres immerse through coherent, lived-in designs that are odd yet intentional in every angle.
Sound, too, evokes more than it shows. Minimalism reigns, with no musical score—yet impacts and synthesized effects give a functional sci-fi world. Gunfire and impacts boom satisfyingly, while ambient loops of machinery breathing simmer in corners. Perhaps most striking are enemy and player sounds: screams and weapon noises induce panic and empower actions in turn.
Together, visuals and audio forge a world within limitations. Believable designs emerge from simplicity, inviting curiosity to explore every surreal nook and cranny. Innovation exceeds technology by imagining fully, guiding players into a strange environment that, for all its bizarreness, welcomes discovery around every turn.
Technical Excellence within Limitations
Nightdive rightly earns praise for how Po’ed runs. On aging hardware, the original suffered issues expected of its time. Yet through dedicated work, Nightdive crafted a port, avoiding such troubles. The gameplay proves silky smooth from start to finish, with nary a slowdown across varied scenarios. Animations flow seamlessly into one another thanks to a locked framerate that respects the work put in.
Functionality requires equal care. All are upgraded visually, yet they stay faithful to the roots. Textures appear sharper while retaining the intended designs. Movement responds fluidly, whether soaring or strafing. Even tighter areas pose no trouble thanks to excellently tuned controls. The whole experience plays as it should, with nary an awkward moment to blame on anything but the design.
Not that limitations get ignored either. Nightdive acknowledges the boundaries, opting not to overlay but to bring out inherent qualities. Changes enhance rather than reinvent, guided by honoring the heart of the gameplay. Smoothness and functionality take priority naturally, avoiding bloat for bloat’s sake. The result stays true to the creator’s vision while modernizing execution.
Overall, Nightdive’s port proves a technical triumph. By focusing on performance and controls, they breathe new life into Po’ed. Its worlds become easily explored thanks to careful optimization, not disregarding the past nor overreaching the present. Their respect for the limitations yields an experience greater than the sum of its parts—a victory for preservation through such well-executed work.
Visions Beyond Their Time
Po’ed strived for innovations that its technology could not yet match. Wide-open spaces granted freedom, yet hid threats, their visibility obscured. Its weapons showed creativity, even if one proved reliable above all else. Po’ed aimed high for its time, reaching farther than peers grasped.
Heretic and Dark Forces followed established blueprints, polishing refinements rather than experimenting with unknowns. Their corridors were confined, but guided. Familiar foes pose challenges that are calculable. Po’ed scattered clues to obscure, scattering players amidst twisting designs. Solving each puzzle felt like cracking a code that was never meant to be cracked.
Yet for all its uncompromising ways, Po’ed foreshadowed developments later titles would debut to praise. Its jetpack-granted mobility games are now taken for granted. None then scaled heights Po’ed dared, nor plunged depths its catastrophies conjured. Where predecessors kept feet firmly on the ground, Po’ed launched into the skies and let imagination run wild.
Of course, vision exceeds grasp when a genre finds its footing. Po’ed stumbled where its contemporaries strode, for they built on foundations Po’ed tried to lay alone. Its abstract art direction lost players in a maze of its own making. Simple pleasures like visceral combat proved beyond its early grasp.
Still, Po’ed merits appreciation for the swings it took, not the hits it missed. Nightmares it birthed may now provoke chuckles where they were frustrated, yet within frustration lurked the spark of innovations since made common. Po’ed crash-landed where others took off, yet in failing, it pointed to horizons yet to reach. Perhaps if seen with an eye that sees promise over polish, Po’ed rewarded more than the frustration it wrought.
Fitting Farewell to a Fallen Frontier
Po’ed pushed boundaries as the frontier of three-dimensional shooters was charted, yet fell short of stability. Its levels explored heights games now take for granted, but lacked guides home. Weapons showed sparks of creativity hampered by work still left. Still, efforts deserve appreciation for roads less traveled and risks taken when tradition holds less sway.
Nightdive deserves praise for bringing to new platforms a piece of gaming history that otherwise may have been lost. Though Po’ed stumbled where others soared, within frustrations hints emerge of seeds that later blossomed. Its flashes of brilliance alongside flaws paint fully the turbulence of a genre still finding form. For those who revel in gaming’s past or seek games left behind, Po’ed stands a worthwhile glance, warts and all.
Yet I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it to all. Where genre rules have solidified, Po’ed remains liquid and risks clarity for imagination. Its wonders may astound, but so too are its ambiguities. Only those eager to comprehend the incomprehensible and glean lessons from losses as well as wins will find Po’ed a fulfilling venture. For most, later tripwires provide a surer path to enjoyment.
We bid Po’ed farewell, thank Nightdive for its revival, but suggest other ports for a less turbulent trip. May its highs and lows long stand as an exhibit for how far we’ve come and how far we ventured when the hardest journey was the road least known. Farewell, bizarre beacon of an age when frontiers seemed endlessly vast—your spirit lit the way, though steps faltered, and for that, you’ve earned an honorable send-off and your place in history.
The Review
PO'ed: Definitive Edition
With its experimental designs and technical limitations, PO'ed was ahead of its time, though ultimately, its vision exceeded its grasp. Despite glimpses of creative potential, convoluted levels and balance issues frustrate more than they entertain. PO'ed earns appreciation for taking risks in FPS development, but as a game, its execution falls short. Its flashes of innovation do not outweigh frustrating moments. Though its historical significance merits consideration, as an experience, PO'ed feels uneven and unevenly recommendable over its contemporaries. For fans of gaming archaeology, PO'ed offers retrospective insight into the genre's emerging roots. However, as an accessible title, even its restored version offers more frustration than fun for the average player.
PROS
- Innovative level design and use of jetpacks
- Creative enemy and weapon designs
- Preserved an obscure title's legacy
- Insight into early 3D FPS development
CONS
- Confusing and ambiguous level structures
- Frustrating enemy accuracy and aim issues
- Unbalanced reliance on pistols
- Lack of cohesion between gameplay elements
- Uneven experience outweighs nostalgia.
