PO’ed Definitive Edition Review

Originally released in 1995 for the catastrophic failure called the 3DO, PO’ed is a first person shooter tells the story of a cooking chef whose spaceship has been overrun by aliens that decimated the crew. But more importantly, this invasion also ruined the chef’s prized Soufflé! Equipped with a frying pan (and wider arsenal of weaponry), it’s up to the cook to save the ship, food and get rid of the extraterrestrial threat.

PO’ed Definitve Edition is a typical first person shooter where players need to kill everything in their path as they reach each level’s end. It was heavily inspired by classic shooters such as DOOM but instead of having strictly linear levels, the developer went for a more open setting for each level. Well as open as can be for the time, back in 1995.

And as you’d expect, as you explore and go further in levels (and subsequently the game), you’ll also find additional weaponry to aid you in your quest. While you begin with a simple frying pan(!), you’ll come across other weapons such as throwable (and unlimited) meat cleavers or a good old trusty laser gun.

You’ll quickly notice that the character moves at way too high speed to properly control. That’s because for some reason, the game allows you to choose walking bare foot or with boots. Now why this was implemented is baffling, but with with shoes on you’ll walk very fast allowing you to jump over bigger gaps… but when wearing the shoes, you better be ok with where you’ll stop; a wall or a pit. Walking barefoot allows for slower movement which aids a bit during platforming sequences.

The game has a unique digitized style. While the levels are designed “normally”, the characters have a digitized cartoon look to them. It’s a bit hard to explain given the atrocities in the game do not exists in real life. Also the enemy design… is something. Some look like a walking assholes or vaginas. The soundtrack and the audio is as abysmal as you’d expect. During levels, there’s no music but constant grunting from enemies and yourself getting it.

While the first time hearing about this game was during AVGN’s episode on the Panasonic 3DO and it made me curious to try it. And oh boy, the nerd was quite generous. The game’s biggest problem is quite a big one: the controls. It feels like the whole game takes place on ice; you move around and the momentum/slippery feeling feels like you don’t have proper control of the character making this near uncontrollable. NHL games don’t feel *that* slippery. You can only imagine how to makes platforming.

The other nuisance, perhaps due to the technical limitations of the original release, is also the lack of a crosshair for aiming purposes. It makes killing enemies (on a slippery surface no less) even more frustrating. The melee weapons might end up becoming your default to avoid constantly missing enemies. And the level design is absolutely abysmal. The development team was clearly using illegal substances when making this game.

I’m all for game preservation and am happy to see games like this being revived especially after they were on a failed console that 95% of gamers never touched, let alone saw in person. But PO’ed Definitive Edition is one of those that should have remained in the past. While the premise is unique compared to typical war-themed first person shooters, this is barely playable. I can vouch for a Limited Run Games physical version for all the collectors out there, but buying this digitally to play it is just like setting money on fire. Unless your morbid curiosity gets the better of you, don’t even bother.