If I ask you to name a game that you think deserves a remaster, I bet you’ve got dozens of answers at the ready. Maybe a fresh version of the original, 1998 Half-Life. How about the first Fallout, or a relaunch for Thief: The Dark Project? Some games scream remaster. Others, you might have forgotten completely, or never played them at all, but they somehow find their way back. From the golden boomer shooter era of Doom and Quake, the team behind System Shock Remake has resurrected a real curio, and it’s finally available on Steam right now.
When I was about six years old, a friend described to me a new FPS game he’d been playing. “You’re a chef,” he said, “in space, and you kill giant walking pairs of butt cheeks using a frying pan.” Even at that tender, credulous age, the premise was so absurd that I didn’t believe him. It was only when I stayed at his house, and he played it in front of me, that I discovered PO’ed was in fact real. Released in 1995 by the erstwhile Any Channel Inc., it looks a bit like Doom, plays a bit like Doom – but Doom, PO’ed is not.
Using a range of household items, including the aforementioned frying pan, you slaughter hordes of hostile alien mutants in a desperate – albeit deliberately slapstick and tongue-in-cheek – bid to survive after your spaceship crash lands. PO’ed is an artifact of a different age, when videogames were more experimental, more underground, and products of a counter culture rather than the mainstream.
Revived and remastered by System Shock Remake creator and veritable gaming preservation specialists Nightdive, PO’ed Definitive Edition fixes bugs, introduces widescreen support, adds a new difficulty setting, updates the visuals, and refines the controls. If you want to sample this esoteric chapter in videogame history for the first time, or maybe relive a heretofore forgotten episode in your personal gaming past, PO’ed Definitive Edition is available now for $19.99/£16.75. Just head here.
Alternatively, treat yourself to a little more nostalgia with the best old games, or maybe look forward instead with the best upcoming PC games on their way in the near future.
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