Nightdive Studios are bringing back 90’s shooter PO’ed in all its frying-pan wielding glory

It’s usually better when writing about games to defer to personal experience before regurgitating marketing, but in the case of bizarre and deeply intriguing 90’s FPS PO’ed, the trailer that STAR WARS: Dark Forces Remaster studio Nightdive released over the long weekend contains a quote that sums up my memories perfectly: “First game I ever owned and played on my PS1,” says quote-ee matt.baller, “In hindsight, I’m surprised I’m not more messed up.”

PO’ed, in which you play a Pissed Off space chef crash-landed on an alien world, was not the very first game I owned for my PS1, but it was certainly one of, and it left a very strong impression. Probably because the first weapon you get is a frying pan, which you then use to batter horrible chicken-leg aliens. If you’re as lost as I imagine anyone hearing of this for the first time might rightly be, here’s that trailer.

Do you like features? I do. If a game featured absolutely nothing, I reckon I’d take issue with that. Here are a few of PO’ed: Definitive Edition’s, according to its Steam page:

• A plate full of quality-of-life features to enhance the gameplay and fix bugs present in the original game (which can be toggled off).
• Wet your whistle with Widescreen support to HUD and other on-screen graphics to work with widescreen.
• A new delicious difficulty mode added for hardcore players
• 15 appetizing achievements.
• A dash of Localization support for English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Total freedom! Cruise on foot or fly with your jetpack through 25 wild 3D environments.
• Features 16 of the baddest, maddest and most unaffectionate monsters in the galaxy.

I’m especially fond of the first item on this list. Not that I can remember any specific bugs from the original, but this sort of minutiae in preservation seems like a healthy precedent for remasters and the like to set. You never know which bug or glitch might be somebody’s favourite, after all. It might be a bit lofty of me to compare glitches to found object art or whatever, but letting this stuff stay safely snuggled in its amber casing for those who want the full experience is still a good move.

Nightdive themselves have been on a bit of a fan-favourite streak of late. This February saw the release of STAR WARS: Dark Forces remastered, which Katharine reviewed, saying: “there's certainly an interesting artefact to be found here - even if it's frequently wonky and obtuse in places.” Meanwhile, Jeremy Peel awarded Nightdive our prestigious Bestest Best sticker for their System Shock remake, calling this reimagining of the venerable grandpappy of immersive sims a “breathtakingly beautiful and astonishingly faithful remake that proves the enduring power of Looking Glass design.”