PO'ed

PO'ed is an unconventional first-person shooter in which you play a ship's cook stranded aboard a vessel overrun by monsters. Even the weapon selection hints at the game's tone: alongside regular firearms, you get to use a frying pan, a drill, and a rocket pack that lets you fly freely through space. That flight capability is the game's main distinguishing feature — the levels aren't flat corridors but vertical shafts and open spaces where you can rise to the ceiling, fly around an enemy, or reach spots a ground-bound character would never see. This significantly complicates navigation while also setting the game apart from its competition, since the player has to think about the height they're moving at and look for paths both above and below.

The environment is deliberately bizarre and repulsive, full of organic walls, fleshy structures, and enemies that look like the product of a twisted dream. At the same time, the game maintains a dark sense of humor: the exaggerated violence is presented in a way that feels more grotesque than frightening. Sound and music lean on industrial motifs and unpleasant shrieks, rounding off the atmosphere. The enemies also behave unpredictably, attacking from directions that weren't common in shooters of the time. On the 3DO, it was a technically ambitious project, since free movement across three axes was rare on consoles of that era and required a different control scheme than typical shooters.

Contemporary reception was mixed, and the game earned a reputation as a title you either fall in love with or shelve after twenty minutes. Criticism targeted the confusing level navigation and unusual controls, while praise went to its originality and boldness in going against the wave of imitators at the time. Over the years, PO'ed built up a cult status and is often remembered as one of the most idiosyncratic shooters of the nineties. Today it's an experience for players who enjoy strange games with their own internal logic and don't mind occasionally getting hopelessly lost.