PO'ed: Definitive Edition

POed: Definitive Edition is 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 is a great remaster for a not-so-great game. Nightdive Studios has done a wonderful job and fans of the original will definitely enjoy it… but for newcomers, PO’ed is kind of obscure for a reason.

The problem is that at its core, PO'ed: Definitive Edition remains an extremely mediocre game with a couple good ideas.

The best thing I can say about PO’ed is that it can be completed in around three hours. Aside from that, I really didn’t enjoy it. It’s not the worst FPS I’ve played. For all its problems, it at least isn’t bland. It has its high points, demonstrates a capable development team with a willingness to experiment, it just didn’t result in a fun final product.