POD: PLANET OF DEATH

Created as a graphical showcase, PODwas 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. PODwas one of those cultural artefacts 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 prebuilts, or Chip’s Challenge in a Windows 3.1 entertainment bundle. Ubisoft later released a retail version, but PODwas 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, nested in one of those huge faux-mahogany desks that shouldn’t have been able to fit through the door. The CRT was