POD: PLANET OF DEATH

Ubisoft’s racer faces a second apocalypse.

- James Davenport

Created as a graphical showcase, POD was an elaborate tech demo, a grim science fiction racing game that came baked in with a lot of computers using Intel Pentium or Pentium II MMX processors, and some AMD K6 systems. Back in 1997, it was one of the best looking games you could play.

If you grew up in the ’90s and knew anyone into PC gaming, it was probably on their computer at some point. POD was one of those cultural artifacts that huge swaths of the public were involuntarily introduced to, like when They Might Be Giants’ song “Older” came packed in with RealPlayer on so many early ’00s HP prebuilt, or Chip’s Challenge in a Windows 3.1 entertainment bundle. Ubisoft later released a retail version, but POD was birthed from the same tradition as Norton Antivirus and Mcafee: OEM software, baby.

Following one of the most essential PC gaming myth arcs, my uncle had a gaming PC in his basement, nestled in one of those huge faux-mahogany desks that shouldn’t have been able to fit through the door. The CRT was too big for its available surface area and audibly hummed for about two minutes after it was powered off, the keyboard stuffed into a wide drawer not meant for keyboards resting on a soldier’s stew of thumbtacks, erasers, pencils, and pennies. A very domestic strain of cosmic horror.

But the dust illuminated by a tiny window (a fire code violation for sure) only elevated POD’s grimy, nihilistic excuse for racing. I almost felt like a two-faced booker, watching the races from some remote warehouse location. The only thing missing was a cigar and a frosty mug of sprog or