The birth of a genre rarely goes smoothly, and this was especially true for the FPS. There were prototype FPSes beforeBattlezonewas a breakout hit, butWolfenstein 3Dis what properly ignited the genre.Doomsolidified its hold on the gaming fandom, andJumping FlashandDescentwere full-3D well beforeQuakecame along. The thing about the history of gaming, though, is that for every hit there’s a few dozen also-rans, games that do their best with a new genre but are almost forgotten. For everyMario 64there’s more than a fewCrocandJersey Devils, but those games still have their place in gaming history.
A bad FPS, RTS, platformer or other game in an established genre is just a bad game, but one from when the rules are still nebulous, systems are undefined and the available tech only just barely able to keep up with the genre’s potential can be a fascinating misfire. Taking that into account,POedis an interesting early FPS that tries more than it can handle, but its failures mean more now than they did back in 1995.
The 90s Was a Decade for Figuring 3D Out
POed: The Definitive Editionis a complete remaster of a nearly-forgotten footnote in FPS history. The basic plot is that everyone in the ship’s crew has been wiped out except the cook, who now has to fight his way through an army of creatures armed only with a frying pan and whatever other weapons he can scavenge. It’s a great premise with the potential for humor, but other than one of the first enemies being a walking butt that shoots yellow gas-clouds, the weirdness just isn’t there. Which is probably a blessing, seeing as ’90s gaming humor was just incredibly non-funny outside of LucasArts and Sierra.
What that leavesPOedas, then, is an early 3D FPS that goes nuts with its level design. While the enemies and some of the level props are your basic 2D sprites, the levels themselves are fully polygonal and take advantage of the freedom it offers. One of the earliest levels, for example, takes place in two docking bays of a spaceship hangar, one of which has a smaller ship inside that you can explore. The level is a combination of two massive areas containing several smaller ones, and the 90s non-linear FPS design is on full display.
Granted, the limits on the number of polygons the hardware it was designed for could render means that the levels frequently feel like they’re made of construction paper, but that’s just part of its charm. Most levels have a good number of secrets, usually telegraphed by a change in wall texture, and when that isn’t enough, the map shows the entire level in wire-frame format.
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The early steps into true 3D, though, trip up the design in a few noticeable ways. The amount you can look up and down isn’t enough for as tall as some of the levels get, for example, putting enemies in places you can see but not target. Granted, there’s a vertical aim-assist that can make up the difference, but it’s not good at the more extreme angles the game can throw at you. While many ofPOed’s new features can be disabled to make it look and play like its original version, the aim-assist is built in and can’t be turned off. It can be frustrating when a relatively-harmless bat flies in front of a much more dangerous turret and steals your gun’s focus, but they’ve all got to be eliminated eventually, so with a little careful dodging of enemy firepower, it works out in the end.
One Gun to Rule Them All
Not that dodging is all that effective on anything fired from close range, because while the monsters don’t cause a whole lot of damage, they’re worryingly precise. A creature from hundreds of feet away can target you perfectly while moving at top speed if you don’t change direction, and the bullets fly fast enough that odds are good you’ll take the hit from mid-range or closer. It’s not entirely unfair, though, because the two most useful weapons in the game have insta-travel bullets that land on the target as soon as fired, no matter how far away it might be. The pistol, in fact, ends up being the default weapon not only due to its excellent sniper capabilities (no zoom, it’s just pinpoint-precise), but decent damage and plentiful ammo.
The other weapons range in effectiveness from “utterly useless” to “works great in the right situation.” The tracer, for example, is actually fun enough to use that I’d happily go through the whole game with it. It’s imprecise but fast and deadly, and has a thud-thud-thud bass sound that’s incredibly satisfying. Rockets are always nice but have travel time, and in large open areas that gives the enemy more than enough of an opportunity to wander off elsewhere rather than wait for the hit. The flamethrower is a great short-range weapon, but as is standard for its type, the flame is hard to see behind and will mask attacks from enemies that aren’t on fire. Also, the flamethrower and the jetpack share fuel, and one thingPOedgot right is how much fun it is to fly.
There are three types of movement inPOed: walking, running and flying. Walking is your standard pace, while running is crazy-fast. The cook has a weird momentum that’s tricky to get used to, but once the rocket pack shows up in the second level, that becomes a non-issue due to flying as often as possible. The verticality of the levels means the jetpack is regularly needed, but there are plenty of encounters where it makes sense to stay on the ground so as not to be in the line of sight of every enemy in the arena.
POedhas many of the elements of a great FPS, but its biggest problem is being undercooked. The humor of the chef and butt-monsters doesn’t go anywhere, with the enemy design losing the weirdness almost instantly. Each level has its own style but none of them lead into the next in any logical way. Weapons are creative for the time, but the pistol is such an all-rounder that it’s hard not to overuse it, and the close-range drill will probably get used once just to see what it does and then never brought into the fight again. It’s hard to shake the feeling thatPOedcould have been something it never became, but there’s no denying it feels great to finally play the game on hardware that doesn’t feel like it’s about to catch on fire trying to render it.
Closing Comments:
POed: Definitive Editionis an excellent version of a middling game, with only some of its problems due to it being early days for the FPS. It’s hard not to feel affection for what it’s trying to do, though, and you can see as you play how it fits into the evolution of its genre. It would have been nice if the game had figured out an identity, either leaning into the weirdness or going for straight sci-fi action, but it’s almost thirty years too late to fix that now.POed’s legacy was almost nonexistent, that of a kind of ok-ish game that landed right in the middle of the FPS genre figuring itself out, and from a gaming history perspective that’s more than a good enough reason to check it out.
PO’ed: Definitive Edition
Version Reviewed: PC
The only survivor is the spaceship’s cook and he’s not happy about it, fighting through a game that’s as much experiment in learning how to make a 3D FPS as it is an action-shooter. Journey back in time to an era when the FPS was still finding its way, figuring out how to be what it would eventually become.
