Matthew Pollesel

Ottawa

262 games reviewed
71.8 average score
75 median score
47.7% of games recommended
Nov 22, 2022

When A Little to the Left works, it works very well. As I said, there's pleasure to be found in a bit of neatness and order, and A Little to the Left appeals to that specific part of the brain. But it doesn't do it consistently enough to make the game worth playing, unless you like having a bit of frustration mixed in with your cute and cozy puzzles.

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Nov 21, 2022

It's hard to recommend Alan Wake Remastered when it means suffering through such a terrible port. Unless you're a Switch-only gamer, you'd be well-advised to ignore this altogether, and playing the game on any of the many other systems this is available on. And if your only option is the Switch? Maybe skip this one and just trust everyone who says it's a game well worth playing.

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If you're okay with that uncertainty, and really okay with crazy hyperactivity, I could totally see why someone would love RPG Time: The Legend of Wright. It's a love letter to gaming -- as in, a love letter to almost every genre you can think of -- and it's designed to look like someone drew it up in a notebook, which only adds to the charm. It's all over the place, but if you want something unlike anything else, this is the game you're after.

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Nov 16, 2022

Dorfromantik is all about keeping things calm and challenging you just enough to keep you coming back for more, and it's guaranteed to get you hooked.

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Nov 15, 2022

It's a pretty solid kart racer, all things considered. It works well, it looks nice enough, the tracks are varied, you have a good selection of characters to pick from: Smurfs Kart isn't going to make you forget Mario Kart, but it also never embarrasses itself, either.

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Nov 14, 2022

As the series nears its tenth entry, you'd think that the creative minds at Jackbox might be running out of ideas, but Jackbox Party Pack 9 suggests that they're only just starting to hit their collective stride.

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Nov 8, 2022

The Enigma Machine is worth playing. You'll need to be in the mood for something very short, and very weird, but in the end, you'll be left with a game that leaves you thinking about it for a while afterwards.

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Nov 8, 2022

To do all that Farm Manager 2022 has to offer, you need to be willing to put up with some atrocious controls, and you need to be interested in putting in a lot of very detailed work. It's certainly not to my tastes -- give me the zen pleasures of the Farming Simulator series any day -- but if it's a management sim you're after, you'll find plenty to sink your teeth into here.

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I wouldn't say that Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway is a bad entry in the kart racing genre. It's far from the best, to be sure, but it's competent and content-filled enough that you'll at least feel like you're getting your money's worth.

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Oct 31, 2022

Penko Park is basically Pokémon Snap. A lower-budget, slightly weirder version of Pokémon Snap, to be sure, but Pokémon Snap all the same.

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Oct 26, 2022

It's hard for me to recommend a game that I doubt many people will put more than an hour or so into, which has no replay value at all. I enjoyed Letterbox by POWGI in my brief time with it, and I imagine that any word nerd who can hold out until the game is on sale will have a fun hour or so with it, but unless that describes you perfectly, you can safely skip this game.

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B - Trifox
Oct 24, 2022

Even if it's not very original, Trifox captures its influences so well that it carries with it a lot of residual charm. It's not going to make you forget the games it's borrowing from, but it's a solid enough entry in the genre that if you miss those games, you could do a lot worse than trying it out.

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Oct 20, 2022

That may be Gotham Knights' most egregious crime: it feels like a cutrate, cosplay version of Batman and of the Arkham series. Nothing here is original, and everything feels like it's striving -- and failing -- to emulate much, much better games. There's an argument to be made, I guess, that if you stop thinking about it as a Batman game and just judge it on its own merits, it's not half-bad -- but even if you do that, you.re still left with the reality that the game that doesn't come anywhere near matching up to what the genre is capable of. This is a mediocre game through and through, and Batman branding or no, it's not really worth your time.

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Oct 19, 2022

Mages and Treasures may come from a developer with a decent track record, but this is proof that even developers who know what they're doing have a misfire once in awhile.

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Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope doesn't just prove that the first game was no fluke, it shows that it's possible to take a crazy idea and turn it into one of the best games of the year.

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B- - NHL 23
Oct 14, 2022

NHL 23 review for PlayStation, Xbox As solid as NHL 23 is, it's hardly a must-play game if you have any previous entries in the series. Given that year(s)-old sports games tend to be pretty inexpensive, that makes it hard to justify buying this one new when you?ll get basically the same experience buying a game from last year or the year before. Don?t get me wrong, you'll get a very well-made game if you do decide you need all the latest rosters and draft classes, but it's up to you to decide how badly you need those things.

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Oct 12, 2022

There's no denying that LEGO Bricktales gets awfully close to capturing the feeling of playing with LEGO. It's not quite there yet thanks to the challenging controls, but if you can overlook that, there's fun to be had here.

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Nothing does Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo any favours, because all of it is so bad. In terms of quality, it's about as far removed as you can get from The Master of Suspense. Rather than playing this game, you'd be much better off watching Vertigo, and Notorious, and Psycho, and Rear Window, and whatever other movies you could squeeze into the 10 or so hours it would take you to play Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo, and I guarantee you that it would be time better spent.

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Oct 4, 2022

Little Orpheus' two strong points are the same as the strong points from The Chinese Room's other two games. The thing is, here they've added a third element -- platforming -- that's not nearly as compelling, and it's enough to make the game a far cry from their previous standard.

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Oct 3, 2022

There's a massive gulf between finding a game's concept charming and actually wanted to play that game, and Bear and Breakfast never comes anywhere close to crossing that gaping chasm.

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