POD (video game)

POD: Planet of Death (titled simply POD in North America) is a futuristic racing video game for Microsoft Windows released by Ubi Soft in 1997. The music was produced by Daniel Masson.[2]

POD
European cover art
Developer(s)Ubi Soft
Publisher(s)Ubi Soft
Director(s)Fabrice Valay
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
Release
  • NA: February 28, 1997
  • EU: 1997

  • UK: January 5, 1999
(POD Gold) [1]
Genre(s)Racing
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Plot

The game is set in the distant future when the humanity has successfully colonized the planet Io. After a year of prosperity, a mining accident unleashes a living fungus[3] from within the planet on its inhabitants, destroying the mining facility and causing widespread panic throughout the colony. Desperate, most of the population escapes the planet now termed as "p.o.d." (planet of death) while others stay behind to die, with or without a choice. A few survivors remain on Io, with only one ship remaining. The survivors soup up cars which they race against each other in tournaments throughout the desolated city streets, and the winner of the final tournament will commandeer the last ship and escape to safety, leaving the others to die.

As the player wins the final race on headquarters circuit, the creeping fungus nearly engulfs the remaining portion of land where the platform with last ship still stands. Abandoning the vehicle, they successfully take off with the ship before the mold consumes the launch pad. As the last human to leave the p.o.d., the player witnesses Io's final stage of destructive cycle: reborn as a planet-sized flower on outer space.

History

Influences on POD included Super Mario Kart and Ridge Racer.[4]

POD was published in 1997. It was one of the first games to support the MMX instruction set[4] and came bundled as an OEM version with computers using Intel Pentium or Pentium II MMX processors, and some AMD K6 systems. The OEM 1.0 version did not support 3dfx cards or a network mode. A retail version of POD (called POD 2.0 by Ubisoft) was later released and featured more circuits and cars, plus support for 3dfx video cards and network play. A special multiplayer program called "Game Service" was provided by Ubisoft for POD players so that they could race on Ubisoft servers. POD was among the first games optimized for video cards with a 3dfx chipset using the Glide API. Only video cards with the 3dfx Voodoo 1 chipset were supported upon the game's release. Ubisoft later published patches which added support for the Voodoo 2 using the Glide API and non-3dfx chipsets via Direct3D. Less than a year after publishing POD, Ubisoft issued an expansion pack under the title Back to Hell (also known as Extended Time in France) in late 1997. This pack contained 19 circuits and 15 new vehicles including motorcycles, a floating purple batlike creature, and a witch riding a broom. Another version called POD: Gold was later released, which included POD, its expansion, plus a new sound set.[1]

A port of POD for the Nintendo 64 was announced,[5] but never released.

In the winter of 2000, Ubisoft released the game's successor, POD 2 (also known as POD 2: Multiplayer Online and POD: Speedzone), for the Sega Dreamcast console. It is another futuristic racing game, but players are able to attack their opponents. Each player is a miner on the colony of Damethra, and an alien virus has taken over the cars on the colony, creating mutant cars. It was one of the first games playable on SegaNet, and one of the few games to support the Dreamcast Broadband Adaptor. The game features eight vehicles to use on five tracks. Bonus cars and tracks could be unlocked if the game was played online and the user had a Game Service account, but due to the shutdown of SegaNet these are now inaccessible.

On October 6, 2011, POD was re-released by GOG.com, with added compatibility with modern operating systems.[6]

Reception

Next Generation rated it three stars out of five, and stated that "Pod is a fantastic ride, with high-color graphics at high resolution and a steady, high frame rate. It could very well be the prettiest racing game you can buy right now."[7]

Reviews

References
  1. "Game entry". GiantBomb.com. GiantBomb. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
  2. "Pod Planet Of Death". soundcloud.com.
  3. "Archived copy". pod.ubi.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2004. Retrieved 12 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "NG Alphas: POD". Next Generation. No. 23. Imagine Media. November 1996. pp. 185–6.
  5. "In Development". Next Generation. No. 29. Imagine Media. May 1997. p. 57.
  6. "New release: POD Gold". GOG.com. CD Projekt. October 6, 2011. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
  7. "Finals". Next Generation. No. 31. Imagine Media. July 1997. pp. 168, 170.
  8. https://web.archive.org/web/20050515102908/www.electric-games.com/reviews/pod.html
  9. "Archived copy". www.pcme.com. Archived from the original on 24 June 1997. Retrieved 19 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. http://www.csoon.com/issue25/pod.htm
  11. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=3300
  12. http://gamesmania.de/pc/rennspiel/pod/692/gamespace/test/11295/
  13. https://archive.org/details/Computer_and_Video_Games_Issue_186_1997-05_EMAP_Images_GB/page/n69/mode/2up
  14. http://www.compulink.co.uk/~go1/reviews/june97/pod.htm
  15. https://web.archive.org/web/20011221103106/www.gamezilla.com/reviews/p/pod.asp
  16. https://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/pod/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review
  17. http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/pod
  18. https://archive.org/details/CDA070897/page/n55
  19. http://www2.worldvillage.com/wv/gamezone/html/reviews/pod.htm
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